Even though we're in the middle of the second-snowiest December on record, less than a month ago we were celebrating a warmer-than-usual Thanksgiving. To welcome our guests to our tofurkey dinner, Gillie and Carly drew the turkey pictured at the right in the driveway.

Meanwhile, here is what is new on the site:

• Scott and Gillie earned their warrant black belts in Taekwondo as part of their test on December 13. They're now working towards 1st-degree black belts which will take another 6 months to a year.
• Gillie's 4th-grade school portrait and Carly's 3rd-grade school portrait have been posted to the site.
• Scott has posted some thoughts on Hannukah in the stories section.
• We have cleaned up and expanded the links section on the site. This now includes Scott's list of opt-outs for telemarketers as well as postal marketers.
• Scott has finished his Best Music of 2008 lists, which include his favorite albums and songs.

Yanoff Family "Green" Tip(s): It's been a while, but I thought I'd highlight some of the small things we've been doing in these energy-conscious times to help us with our energy usage. Okay, at the very least, they at least make us feel good, but I'd like to think that they have an impact on our utility bills and energy usage.

• Use a programmable thermostat - this is one mentioned every year when it comes to energy conservation. We bought a Honeywell programmable thermostat when we first moved in 11 years ago and then bought one for my Dad years ago when he moved into his condo. For us, it is set to 68 degrees during the day and then it goes to 66 degrees from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m.
• Moved continuous-use electronics to a power strip - this means that the DVD, VCR, and stereo are only turned on when needed. These appliances that support our nightly entertain were often in a low-power mode throughout the day, but we all know how these devices still have lights or clocks that are on continuously. We did this in January, 2008. Did this have an effect on our electric usage? Well, our electric usage is down 15% as compared to the same time period (January to November) of last year, but those few appliances can't account for that much. A more likely explanation is that they contributed a bit to that, but it was more likely our mild summer that contributed the most to our reduced electric consumption.
• Use bath towels more than once before washing them - for some people this may be an obvious and common practice, but when I was growing up, my mom washed towels so frequently that it was not unusual for me to use a new one every day or two. Today, it's one-towel-per-week for each of the Yanoffs.

Happy Hannukah, merry Christmas, and have a healthy and happy new year!

Scott's birthtown Phillies won the World Series!!! I can remember watching the Phillies win it all back in 1980, just as I was about to turn 10 years old. And now, Gillie is about to turn 10 and we watched the Phillies clinch the series in a day-and-a-half delayed game #5. Aside from the never-seen-before lengthy rain delay, I can't recall ever seeing a manager go with a 5-man infield for a play but Tampa Bay's manager did just that in one of the games. As he pulled an outfielder to set up a 5-man infield with the bases loaded, catcher Carlos Ruiz hit a dink-shot down the 3rd-base line that even a 5-man infield couldn't get. While it was the lowest-rating series in history, I still found the combination of interesting managerial moves and the oddball rain delay enough to make it a memorable one.

It's Halloween, and this year both girls made their own costumes. Carly went as a bag of groceries. Most people thought she was a bag of garbage but I explained that she merely made it OUT of our garbage. Gillie went as a candle. We were fortunate enough that our wonderful neighborhood organized a 3-block nighttime trick-or-treating on October 31 followed by a block party on our block. We've added a couple of recent photos, starting with photo #57.

Lastly, we've moved the search engine (courtesy of Google) to the header of the site so that it will appear on all the pages now.

Well, the Brewers didn't win the NL Division Series, but my second favorite team, the Philadelphia Phillies, did. As my birthplace team, I get to watch them take on the Dodgers. One positive thing to come out of the Brewers series loss is that the 4th-grade class field trip to tour Miller Park didn't get canceled. Scott got to attend with Gillie's class and there are quite a few photos and interesting bits about Miller Park in the photos section, starting with photo #40. Lastly, if you have not yet noticed, we've added a search engine (courtesy of Google) to the site. It is currently at the bottom left-hand side of the home page and the veg* pages.

Woo hoo! The Brewers are going to the playoffs! Now if only we could keep CC Sabathia...

What an exciting weekend! Gillie and Scott went to their second Taekwondo tournament in as many years and both of them improved upon last year's performance. In fact, both Gillie and Scott took first place in all four of the events they were in. Gillie and Scott performed Taeguk 8 for their form and both were good enough for first place in their respective divisions. Scott is in the senior division, if you can believe that. Gillie really nailed her form and you can watch the 30-second video of it.

Both Gillie and Scott earned first place for their breaking technique as well. They each choose to break two separate targets (boards) and both of them performed a spinning-wheel kick followed by a palm punch on the other board.

In addition to the video of Gillie at the tournament, the girls created a 35-second horror film that you can watch. There are also a three new photos up on the site (start with #36).

Yanoff Family "Green" Tip(s): One of the new photos on the website is one of our backyard garden. Our initial foray into backyard vegetable gardening has shown that the turnips, lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, and gourds we planted have been successful in low-sunlight conditions. Even more impressive: we haven't watered the backyard vegetable garden once this entire summer.

On top of that, we haven't watered our lawn all summer, either. If you can't tell by now, we really don't have a need for a lawn, and we find it ironic the money and chemicals spent on lawn care when we hardly see anyone outside actually using their lawns. So, what is it for then? Is it merely just a habit that you have a lawn and you water it? What happens if your lawn turns brown, or has dirt patches? Are you afraid of what people will think of you? In fact, by not watering our lawn, we're encouraging stronger root growth within the lawn. Lawns go dormant and always come back -- this is what grass is meant to do.

We've pretty much given up on the use of chemicals in and outside of the house (more on that in a future "green" tip), so we eschewed water in favor of letting things just be the way they are rather than wasting water that is fast becoming a valuable resource throughout the world. Oh, and here is one last tip sure to send some people reeling: we're following the manta of "if it's yellow, let it mellow and if it's brown, flush it down". That's right, we don't flush our low-flow toilets every time. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, flushing the toilet uses the most water in the home. Penn State University has some research that shows that toilet flushing is far and away the biggest water hog in the house.

Okay, so what's the point of this water conservation? Well, in addition to replacing our ancient hot water heater in October of 2007, check out the 20% reduction in Yanoff household water usage over last summer now that we've changed our water consumption habits.

Period	2007	2008
April - May - June	26	21
July - August - September	24	20
Total:	50	41

I don't know what the units of measurement are for our water bills, they simply show the difference in meter reading from period to period. Given that, you can see we went from 50 last spring and summer to 41 this year.

I went to see the James concert (yes, by myself -- a first) at Turner Hall. I haven't ever gone to a movie or a concert by myself but I really wanted to go and Kathy didn't so I figured I'm well past the point of needing a date for these type of events. I just got into this band with her latest album, Hey Ma, which may rival Coldplay's latest effort as my favorite album of 2008. They put on a frenetic 2-hour show for several hundred people and really left me impressed with the huge sound generated by the recently-reunited 7-member band. Here's the 19-song setlist:

1. Dream Thurm
2. Oh My Heart
3. Ring The Bells
4. Waterfall
5. Hey Ma
6. Say Something
7. Bubbles
8. Honest Joe
9. I Wanna Go Home
10. Out To Get You
11. Upside
12. Whiteboy
13. Laid
14. Sit Down
15. Sound

1st Encore:

16. Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)
17. She's A Star
18. Sometimes

2nd Encore:

19. Top Of The World

On Friday night (September 19, 2008), Kathy and I drove up to Madison to see Neko Case, one of my favorite singers. I'd pretty much been counting down the days this week until the show, and Neko did not disappoint. Her backup singer, Kelly, brought her little white terrier, Augie, out onto the stage and I must say that the aging dog must be hard of hearing because after drearily gazing at Neko for a song, he conked out at which time Kelly just through a towel on little Augie. I've seen a lot of concerts in my day but this was the first time I've seen an act bring their dog onto the stage.

It was my first time seeing Neko Case and she sounded absolutely great. The highlight for me was probably "I Wish I Was the Moon". It's not my favorite song by her but one of my favorites but she did a wickedly sweet version and then it lead in to the great "Star Witness" and "Margaret Vs. Pauline". It was a treat for me to hear "The Tigers Have Spoken" as well as "Knock Loud", the latter of which was pounded out even harder than on her "Canadian Amp" album. ALL of the new songs sounded good which makes me barely able to wait until March of 2009 to get my hands on them. A Nilsson song that she covered, Don't Forget Me, will be on the new album and it sounded familiar (but Nilsson does have a certain sound) so I listened to a sample of it on iTunes and it's a good song but I can tell that Neko's going to top the original.

Here's my attempt at a set list. Or, is it setlist? The order is not perfect, but you'll get the idea...

1. The Tigers Have Spoken
2. The Pharohs
3. People Got a Lotta Nerve
4. Deep Red Bells
5. I'm an Animal
6. Things That Scare Me
7. I Wish I Was the Moon
8. Star Witness
9. Margaret Vs. Pauline
10. Knock Loud
11. That Teenage Feeling
12. Maybe Sparrow
13. Dirty Knife
14. Don't Forget Me (a Harry Nilsson cover)
15. Hold On, Hold On
16. Favorite

Encore:

17. Vengeance is Sleeping
18. Buckets of Rain
19. Middle Cyclone
20. John Saw That Number

Here are a couple of reviews of the show that I found:
http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/entertainment/305770
http://badgerherald.com/artsetc/2008/09/22/forward_fest_musical.php

Last week, we promised more on our vacation to Toronto. We've posted new photos from our trip (starting with photo #15).

Day 1 - Royal Ontario Museum
The Royal Ontario Museum, or "ROM" as it is known, is a typical public musuem although it was architecturally unique in that the Crystal, a recent add-on, has no right angles to the exterior. The ROM has an extensive dinosaur fossil collection but the girls liked the Stairs of Wonder in which the stairwells were filled with exhibits such as insects or glass paperweights.

Day 2 - Casa Loma, Blue Jays game
Casa Loma is a modern-day castle built just after the turn of the last century. We spent a few hours touring the interior and gardens, including climbing up inside one of the turrets and then going through both secret passageways, one to the second floor and one down to the wine cellar.

That night, we went to a Blue Jays - Yankees game. Many New Yorkers made the trek up to the Rogers Centre (formerly known as the Skydome). The stadium is a precursor to our Miller Park, although it's more of a round bowl in order to accommodate the Toronto football team. The stadium actually seemed a bit sterile (at least, until the New Yorkers got there). Johnny Damon botched a fly ball and the Blue Jays beat A-Rod, Jeter, Giambi, and the rest of the Yankees 2 to 1.

Day 3 - CN Tower, Ontario Science Centre
While it's not the tallest occupied building in the world, the CN Tower is the tallest building in the world at 1,815 feet. Gillie and Kathy went all the way to the top and even explored the glass floor that lets you look straight down. According to Gillie, the whole experience was a letdown as she may have been hoping for more than just a scenic view.

Later in the day, we went to the Ontario Science Centre, akin to Milwaukee's Discovery World but on a grander scale. It provided entertainment for a few hours but sometimes science isn't enough to satisfy restless kids.

Day 4 - Ontario Place
For our last day in Toronto, we went to Ontario Place, which is a bit of an amusement/water park next to Lake Ontario. We went on the warmest day of our trip, which was a good thing since we didn't have towels to dry ourselves off with. A trip down a great tube slide and a lengthy family raft ride was all we could muster as the wind off of Lake Ontario was enough to overcome our wet bodies even with the afternoon heat. We all enjoyed the bumper boats and the pedal boats.

As mentioned in a previous post, we were impressed with the progressiveness of the city, especially in terms of public transportation and recycling. The people were especially friendly, too, as people approached us at least twice with offers of help when we looked lost. Oh, and before leaving for Toronto, Gillie and Scott tested for their hi-red belt (a red belt with a black stripe) and passed. Next up is the black belt test in December!

Recycling is the masturbation of energy policy. It might make you feel better, but it won't put a dent in global energy needs.

That's a nifty quote from a recent Dilbert Blog by Scott Adams. That's not to say that we don't recycle; we recycle as much as possible. However, it's fairly energy-intensive to recycle products, and often they're not actually recycled, but instead are "downcycled". For example, some metals that are recycled become weaker the second time around and therefore cannot just become the same product it once was. Similarly, paper can be recycled but it's a chemically-challenging proposition to bleach out the old inks. A better idea is to simply consume less, or rethink the way things are made. Excellent examples of this are presented in Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, a wickedly-good book we read in 2007.

That said, we just got back from our family vacation in Toronto and found the city to be several steps ahead of where we are. First off, they have split all of their garbage cans between recyclables and litter. Even the Sheraton that we stayed at had a small recycling bin underneath the sink in the bathroom. Second, public transportion in Toronto is top-notch, perhaps the best we've seen yet. They've converted all of their streetside parking meters into small bike racks and where street parking is allowed it is all via a single-block pay station.

While they're behind on the technology used to implement their transportation passes, a pass gets you access to their buses, streetcars, and subways. A simple transfer ticket is often all that is needed to pass from one mode of transportation to another. We chose not to rent a car in Canada and we were glad we didn't. The subways were safe, clean, and we never had to wait for a train for more than a couple of minutes.

The subways covered the main East-West and North-South streets, and a streetcar (trolley) or bus was always within a couple of blocks, thereby ensuring coverage for the entire city. We had to take a cab from the airport, but after that, it was mostly left up to us to either walk where we wanted to go or use the public transportation. It was a real bargain for kids as the tickets averaged a mere 50 cents per child.

Vegetarian eats were everywhere, and it helped that we printed a city guide from veg.ca to have in hand in order to plan our dining. Every single hot dog vendor also carried a veggie dog, as did most other places. Their veggie dogs weren't just pencil-thin dogs like you'd find here, but plump and juicy with a flavor that rivaled a regular dog. The baseball game we went to provided grilled onions on the dog and we were in heaven. The restaurants we picked were mostly good, although stand-outs were Fressen and Vegetarian Haven. We had some excellent gelato and sorbet from a mom-and-pop video rental store and twice we sampled some knee-bucklingly good crepes at Café Crepe.

Well, Carly's loft bed arrived and we spent a few hours putting it together and she's officially in her own room, which means all of our bedrooms are now occupied.

We started thinking more about how we're trying to set a good lifestyle example through our actions. We've hestitated to sign up for WE Energies' program as we're trying to reduce our consumption in general rather than simply assuage our guilt by simply buying offsets while we continue to guzzle energy and products. In any case, we decided to "put our money where our mouths are" and sign up for the program. We researched it a bit to ensure that it wasn't just rhetoric from the energy company, and as such, we took the plunge. Granted, we didn't go all the way to 100% renewable energy as we want to see what effect this initial action has on our monthly bill. We don't think it will be a problem and if they're truly using it for building more windmills or whatever, then maybe the more people that sign up then the more accommodations they will have to make for renewable energy.

Yanoff Family "Green" Tip(s): In July, 2008, we signed up for WE Energies' Energy for Tomorrow program. A portion of our energy usage has been replaced by renewable sources.

In addition to this, we've purchased or wish-listed a number of energy-saving devices:

• Back in May, we mentioned the reel mower we use to mow our small lawn without using any gas.
• We own a crank-powered flashlight that also has a radio for emergency purposes.
• We own a staple-free stapler. Okay, this might not be a home energy-saver, but we don't need to purchase little metal staples anymore.
• We've wish-listed a manual paper shredder.

We didn't think it would happen for a few more years, but Carly's decided to move out. Yep, she's left the bunk bed room her and Gillie shared and ventured out into the only remaining bedroom in the house. Now that we've painted the "playroom" with a color either child would have found acceptable to them for a bedroom of the future, the future arrived more quickly than anticipated. As Carly always longed to sleep in the top bunk that Gillie occupied, she's getting her wish as the bed we've purchased is a loft bed with a futon chair on the bottom that can expand into a cot-sized bed for a guest. You can see a photo of the new bed.

Meanwhile, the whole family helped deliver free reusable bags to some of the 6,900 residences in Shorewood. It's part of a campaign paid for by area businesses whereby recycleable tote bags have been created as part of an idea by the Shorewood Conservation Committee. The idea and event gathered significant local coverage as detailed on the site. Which brings us to a new edition of...

Yanoff Family "Green" Tip(s): We limit our use of plastic bags and containers. There is a great slideshow, The Dangers of Plastic Bags, that only takes a couple of minutes to view but it details some staggering facts about the use of plastic bags. To help limit our use, we attempt to re-use any plastic bags we do receive. Sure, everyone uses them to line their garbage cans with them but how many do you really need? A paper bag can usually work just as well. We typically only get plastic bags from stores about every 4th or 5th trip.

We've also been bringing our own canvas bags to stores and some grocery stores have been giving us money back just for doing that. My friend, Sarah, was so inspired by our efforts that she made a lovely bag just for us to take with and use for produce instead of using the grocery stores' plastic bags. One last thing we do is we bring our own Tupperware to restaurants in one of our tote bags and forego the restaurants' own plastic containers for our leftovers (and, we make sure that the kids get their drinks in regular glasses or cups rather than the disposable kiddie cups that restaurants tend to give out).

A lurker on our website this week commented on the contradiction between our lessening consumption of material goods contrasted with links to our Amazon.com wish lists on our web site. I appreciated the good-natured challenge, and realized that while Kathy and I tend to challenge each other on how we can reduce our terrestrial footprint, we rarely receive emails from others on it. I think a part of the reason is because we're trying mostly to change ourselves rather than change others, although we're hoping that our actions at least stimulate some discussion and if others we know change then it's a positive side effect of our lifestyle.

In any case, I haven't had a chance to add our full list of "Yanoff Family Green Tips", but I hope that when I do, they tell a more complete story. Some day, I will gather them all onto a single page but for the unconverted, I've been doling them out on a monthly basis.

The missing tips talk about things such as birthdays and holidays. For example, Carly had her 8th birthday party this past weekend and instead of gifts, she asked her friends to bring a donation to the Wisconsin Humane Society. Gillie and Carly are big supporters of it and have been doing this for their past 1 or 2 birthdays now. We saw that their friends often took guesses at what to get them, and the birthdays turned into a bit of a materialistic ritual. Now, what we do give the girls is whatever presents they want, but at least this way there is no waste in terms of gifts from a dozen kids that were all gifts we already had or things the girls did not really want. This year, Carly got a Nintendo DS and because it was an electronic game, we opted to get her a new one. However, we bought a bunch of "like new" games off of eBay for her. Because of the reduced price, we were able to obtain a couple more than we would have with our usual spending limit, and since they are gently used we didn't contribute to the creation of new products (hopefully).

About two Hanukahs ago, a friend of Carly's said she wanted to celebrate Hanukah. Innocently thinking it was because of the beauty of the symbols and the rituals, I asked Carly why her friend wanted to celebrate Hanukah. "Because we get 8 presents," she said. While I'm sure that this little girl got more than 8 gifts for Christmas, I realized that the message and the ritual were getting mixed up. So, we dropped down to 7 night's worth of gifts and on the 8th night we donate our time to the Milwaukee Rescue Mission. We've done this two years in a row and while the girls maybe don't yet get the same sense of fulfillment as Kathy and I get from it, they do at least get to learn about another fact of life.

Kathy and I are eventually going to need a new car (we're own only one these days) and I asked Kathy why we couldn't buy a one-year-old car instead of a brand new one. We'd still have years of warranty left while getting a good price because of that first-year depreciation. We just don't think that everything we buy has to be new, but we haven't denied the fact that we still buy things we need. Which brings us to the Amazon.com wish list. It may seem materialistic but it's actually reduced what we get. The girls are always going to get something for a holiday or birthday and now they get exactly what they want.

The wish lists are also a nice outlet, we've found. When they were younger and in stores and they'd see something they'd want, we'd always say "let's add it to your wish list" and we never had to deal with "I want it now" or any type of in-store temper tantrums.

In short, we haven't given up on buying stuff, but I think that nowadays we're buying the right stuff (stuff we want, or have a need for), and consuming less in general. When we go out to dinner, for example, we forego straws and plastic cups whenever possible, and we bring our own Tupperware to take home leftovers. So to us, the less materialism doesn't necessarily mean purchasing less, but consuming less of what is offered to us. While the girls tend to load up their wish lists with toys, games, and books, Kathy and I stick to small items such as CDs or DVDs as well as functional items (I have a mower blade sharpener on my list, for example).

We plan on writing later this week with those "Yanoff Family Green Tips". Meanwhile, the girls are enjoying summer. We went to a Brewers game on Thursday and saw them win and met one of the pitchers after the game, and we've been spotting mantids in our garden that are triple their birth size.

It's been over a month since the last update, but here are some highlights on the site:

• A new video by Carly. It's pretty funny as she made up a TV show for little kids and this is her singing the improvised theme song. Carly's got a boatload of creativity built up inside of her that often has to come out in the form of painting, songwriting, woodworking, film-making or some other creative outlet. Carly also remains a consistent source of humorous quotes.
• There are several new photos on the site, including ones of our gardens and recently-hatched praying mantids.
• We continue to maintain a list of sites that are free and legitimate that stream new albums and songs. And, halfway through 2008, Scott's picks for the best music of 2008 is starting to take shape.

Meanwhile, some family highlights:

• Scott and Gillie passed a recent Taekwondo test again and are now red belts with a green stripe. They are currently training for the black stripe and then the next step is a black belt. People often think of a black belt as a major accomplishment and, while it is no small feat, the warrant black belt merely sybolizes that one has mastered the basics of a martial art and are now ready to begin more serious training. Our Taekwondo master is a 9th-degree black belt!
• Carly has just started with flute lessons and Gillie has picked the violin as an instrument to take during "Summer Strings", a type of summer school class offered in August. She may continue it through the school year as part of the 4th grade band.

Other things we'd recommend:

• Try Firefox 3. It's so fast that it was like getting a new computer. It's also really fast in terms of setup and the user interface is top-notch.
• Read What I'd Say if I Was Wrong About Climate Change from one of our favorite blogs, NoImpactMan. Even if you can't read the entire article, his list of reasons, especially the first half of it, are really ace.
• Educate yourself about your diet the way we have. The article Flavonols may slash colorectal cancer risk: study highlights the fact that "genetics susceptibility is responsible for less than five per cent of cases" of colorectal cancer which shows "the importance of diet to potentially reduce the risk".

What do you really need a grassy yard for, anyway? Seriously, unless you have a yard worthy of a full-fledged game of baseball or football, your lawn is probably mostly ornamental. For all the people I see tending to their lawns with water and chemicals on a Saturday or Sunday, I never see them enjoying their lawn the rest of the time. A great article on this just appeared recently called Go for an Edible Estate: The case against lawns. In the article, which is an excerpt from a similarly-titled book, the author states:

The Edible Estates project proposes the replacement of the domestic front lawn with a highly productive edible landscape.

It's a bit of a fascinating idea, and one that Reverand Tom Launius, pastor of Southminster Presbyterian Church of Waukesha, is following through on. He's proposed that the church dedicate its front lawn to be a vegetable garden in order to feed parishoners or even the hungry. But get this &mdash Southminster had to get a variance from the Board of Zoning Appeals and still has to get a conditional use permit from the city's Plan Commission. The Board of Zoning Appeals unanimously signed off on Southminster's plan, but the mere fact that this much is required (a permit?!) because a church wants to grow vegetables on their front lawn is a complete joke.

While we had the idea earlier to scrap our backyard in favor of a vegetable garden (see photo at left), it is tempting to eventually do the same to the front lawn in a show of solidarity, if only we didn't have so much shade. In any case, we dedicated one-third of our backyard, roughly 200 square feet, to a vegetable and herb garden. Last weekend, Kathy and the girls planted organic seeds they ordered in the new garden. Kathy's erected a fence to keep the rabbits out (they are still welcome to help mow the lawn) and we're hoping for a bounty that supplements the great organic vegetables we get from our CSA (community-sponsored agriculture) farm we will receive weekly organic vegetables from this summer. If you're in the mood for tips on a backyard garden, we recommend reading an article entitled Our Backyard Food Factory.

By the end of World War II, over 80 percent of American households were growing some of their own food. Within months after Victory Day this activity quickly subsided. Given the rising cost of oil and food, it may be time to help ourselves again with a new type of Victory Garden.

Wow, it has been a prize-filled past few weeks:

• Gillie won a trophy for 3 years in a row of receiving a rating of "Superior" at piano federation. Check out the photo of Gillie and her trophy.
• Both Scott and Gillie earned their next Taekwondo belts, which means they now have a yellow stripe on their red belts.
• Both Gillie and Carly won the "Be Kind to Animals" week photo contest from the Wisconsin Human Society. This was the second year in a row that Carly has won. Carly won for her photo of Eddie, the guinea pig from her class at school. Gillie won with a candid photo of Shadow when Shadow decided to lick the utensils in the dishwasher one night after dinner.
• Gillie was selected as a state finalist in the kndergarten - 3rd grade category of the Doodle 4 Google contest. Google had a contest to see which kids could draw something creative with the Google logo. Google sent Gillie a certificate and an art kit as a prize.

Yanoff Family "Green" Tip: It's spring, which means it is time to think about the lawn. In the Yanoff household, this means that we:

• Use a reel mower instead of a gas-powered mower &mdash granted, we have only a quarter of an acre lot here in Shorewood. But, if Scott's going to push a mower either way up and down that lot, why does it need to be gas-powered? Sure, the old mower didn't use much gas over the course of a summer, but it's one less machine spewing CO2 into the air.
• Use corn gluten instead of a chemical-based weed killer. Corn gluten meal is a powdery byproduct of the corn milling process. Used for years as a supplement in hog feed, this natural protein is very effective for lawns and gardens as a plant food as well as a weed supressor. You can usually find these at lawn & garden centers.
• Use a clothes lines instead of our electric-powered dryer whenever possible. Kathy strung up a series of clothes lines in our basement, actually, so that we can do this year-round rather than just doing it outside. While we don't dry everything this way, Kathy's been trying it with sheets and tableclothes and that seems to prevent a full load from making it into the dryer.

The following is a repost of a blog posting at the Active Minds blog by Kathy entitled Ditch the gym membership... grow a garden!

It’s a shame our leaders can only tell us to “buy, buy, buy” during an economic downturn (slump, recession, whatever you want to call this). As the price of fuel and food climbs upward, they should be urging us to grow Victory Gardens, pitching in to sustain ourselves and reduce our dependence on industrial methods and foreign fuels. When economic recession coincides with a global climate crisis, it makes even more sense.

When you grow even a small portion of your own food, you reap manifold benefits. You get the satisfaction of reducing your dependence on others for your most basic needs. Vegetables are absolutely the best thing you can eat, and when you grow your own they are cheaper, fresher and tastier. You get to control what fertilizer is used (or not) to grow them, and no petroleum is required to truck them to your kitchen. You get to slow down a bit and maybe connect with your neighbor to swap surplus tomatoes or borrow a shovel. Best of all, you get to be out in the fresh air, using your muscles with a real purpose and not just completing sets of reps. It’s the perfect solution: get in shape while improving your diet.

Michael Pollan makes the point more completely in his essay, Why Bother?:

It is one of the absurdities of the modern division of labor that, having replaced physical labor with fossil fuel, we now have to burn even more fossil fuel to keep our unemployed bodies in shape [i.e., driving ourselves to the gym].

I say we take his advice. Let's skip the health club this summer and work out in our back yards instead.

(Photo: Flickr - Dr. Hemmert)

Our "green" ways have gained attention — we've been featured as part of a story in this month's MetroParent magazine entitled Going, Going, Green! We were one of four families feature in the article about families in the Milwaukee area who have been making strides towards living a "green" lifestyle.

Yanoff Family "Green" Tip: We've found a number of ways to save energy around the Yanoff household:

• Compact Fluorescents — these can be had for $1 to $2 if you look for specials. They last forever and we've found that while some of the older versions are not the best for reading lamps, they do just fine outside for the porch light or for those lamps we have on timers to light up dark rooms after sundown.
• Use a reel mower instead of a gas-powered mower &mdash granted, we have only a quarter of an acre lot here in Shorewood. But, if Scott's going to push a mower either way up and down that lot, why does it need to be gas-powered? Sure, the old mower didn't use much gas over the course of a summer, but it's one less machine spewing CO2 into the air.
• Use stairs instead of the elevator &mdash whenever we get the chance, we opt for the stairs. Kathy has one flight up to her office and Scott has about three, so both try to set an example for others by forgoing the electric-powered elevator in favor of the stairs. Figuring that each staircase burns about 13-14 calories, a few flights up a couple of times a day can account for any naughty snacking we do that day. Scott's even begun leading his teammates to the stairwells instead of the elevators in hopes of getting his team on the right path.

For Valentine's Day this year, Carly found some leftover valentines from last year that she was able to re-use. She choose the valentine and the person it was going to if the sentiment on the card matched the recipient. What was funny was that in a couple of cases, Carly edited "Be Mine" to read "Be You" and "Not just another pretty face" to "Not just another boy" for some of her male classmates. Meanwhile, Gillie bought some seeds and made her own valentines out of homemade paper with the seeds embedded in them. These earth-friendly valentines are then ready for planting in the ground come spring.

Yanoff Family "Green" Tip: We purchased a rain barrel for $30 from the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District. Rain barrels help slow down rain runoff so it can drain naturally into the ground. That helps us keep excess water out of sewer systems and keeps rain runoff from collecting pollutants on its trip to nearby waterways. Collected rainwater is better for plants because it's not chlorinated although it is mildly acidic, which helps plants take up important minerals from the soil. They can provide water during dry weather, or you can set them to slowly release the water over a 1- 2 day period when the rains have subsided. The slower release of rain will allow the water to seep into the soil and be used by plants, such as we are planning to start doing this summer as a way to water our vegetable and flower gardens.

It's a snow day! Nearly everything has been canceled or closed in Milwaukee today as we've received several inches of snow with the potential for the storm to bring over a foot of snow. Luckily, we can work from home via VPN connections.

Meanwhile, Gillie lost two lower teeth in the past week which definitely creates an interesting look. We've been having great fun playing Dance Dance Revolution nearly every night. We have it on loan from Kathy's sister and we've been finding that even though it's a video game, it's a really fun way to get exercise. We'll have to get a video of the girls dancing on the dance pads if we can ever take one where they are not in a half-state of undress (we get hot playing it).

Carly's Girl Scout cookie sales have ended and she's moved on to other things, such as eBay. Yes, we had an interesting experience where Scott taught Carly how to use Google. She's often looking for fun new games to play online (speaking of which, check out Snowball 2008) and so Scott watched her search for "Littlest Pet Shop" on Google and saw that she had found the game site she was looking for and walked away. We supervise the girls' activity online but apparently the short time we left Carly to play her game left her enough time to get bored with it and examine the other search results from Google. Since Google searches eBay, she clicked on some Littlest Pet Shop toy she wanted and since the web browser was set to autmatically remain logged into eBay, she placed a bid on a toy.

Now, keep in mind that although we use eBay and may talk about bidding and buying on it from time to time, we've never actually showed the girls how to use it nor have we fully explained the concepts to them. Not only were we surprised that she attempted to make an online purchase, but that she figured out the concepts of eBay on her own. The toy she wanted was currently at $5.75 and so she put in a bid of $8.50 (at least, we hope that is what she typed when she told us she bid eight-fifty). When we asked her how she knew to do this, she said that she knew that she had to put in a dollar amount higher than what it was currently at if she wanted to get the toy. She ended up winning the auction for $6 but acted unfazed when we told her that with shipping, she'd owe $12. Lessons learned: we've since logged out of our eBay account so that bids can't easily be placed on it and decided to monitor computer usage even more closely than we had been before. And, we had "the talk" with Carly, although who knew that "the talk" we'd have to have was about eBay!

Yanoff Family "Green" Tip: Compost those food scraps! We bought a simple compost bin a couple of years ago and we keep it behind the garage. We accumulate our food scraps (why do people feel the need to put these down the garbage disposal, anyway?) as well as lawn clippings and add them into the compost bin. The compost that comes out is like black gold, as it can really help any plantings thrive. How is this "green"? Food in the landfill is the United States' second largest source of anthropogenic methane, a strong greenhouse gas. So, composting is important!

We've shut off the text messaging capabilities of our phones. We did this because we were getting spam messages at 3 a.m. Sure, we filed a complaint with the FCC, but that doesn't really help stop these untraceable messages. We called our phone service provider and this was the only option they could offer, so we took it since we don't really use the text messaging anyway.

Scott's been keeping track of some nifty online opt-outs that allow you to receive fewer credit card offers and less junk mail.

Yanoff Family "Green" Tip: Whenever we receive unsolicited email, Scott heads over to that company's website and requests to receive no more postal mailings. Opting out not only keeps you from getting less junk mail, it's saving on paper and postage. Yeah, I know everyone likes looking at those Victoria's Secret catalogs but hey, the same stuff is online when you want it.

Anyway, here is Scott's list of online opt-outs:

• DirectMail.com National Do Not Mail List - This is a free service whereby you can register to have your name removed from postal mailing lists.
• Direct Marketing Association: eMPS - eMPS is the Email Preference Service and allows you to remove multiple email addresses from national lists.
• Network Advertising Initiative - The NAI Opt-out Tool was developed for the express purpose of allowing consumers to "opt out" of the targeted advertising delivered by its members' ad networks. Using this website, you can examine your computer to identify those member ad networks that have placed an ad network cookie file on your PC.
• Online Data Vendors - Here you can opt out of phone books, directory assistance, and non-public information sites.
• OptOutPrescreen.com - This is the official Consumer Credit Reporting Industry website to accept and process requests from consumers to opt in or opt out of firm offers of credit or insurance. Use this to reduce all those mailings you get for credit card offers.
• Wisconsin No Call List - Signing up identifies you as someone who does not wish to receive telemarketing calls. It's free and available for residential telephone customers in Wisconsin. Your number will remain on the List for two years. Adding your residential phone number to the List will help reduce (but not eliminate) telemarketing calls to your home.
• World Privacy Forum's Top Ten Opt Outs - As privacy experts, the World Privacy Forum is frequently asked about opting out, and which opt outs they think are the most important. This list is a distillation of ideas for opting out that they have developed over the years from responding to those questions.
• YellowPagesGoesGreen.org - C'mon, you use Google or some other way to find a business' phone number, so why waste all that paper for a phone book. At www.YellowPagesGoesGreen.org, you can opt-out of both Yellow Pages and White Pages phone books.

Happy new year, everyone! We all passed our last Taekwondo test which means that Gillie and Scott are now high brown belts and have begun testing for their red belts, the final color before black. Meanwhile, Carly became a high green belt but has decided to take a break from the Taekwondo. A friend from class took a short video of Gillie's first-place board-breaking technique from the Taekwondo tournament we participated in last October.

Scott enjoyed making his "best of 2007" music list so much that he made a playlist on his iPod of his favorite songs from 2007. He then proceeded to create a list of his picks of the best music of 2006. Also new on the site:

• The girls have been playing a couple of new things online: FreeRice, where each correct definition of a word means you've earned 20 grains of rice for the hungry; and Keybr.com, a nifty Flash program that lets you practice your typing.
• Two new vegetarian restaurant reviews: Izumi's, a great Japanese-style restaurant on the East side; and No. 1 Chinese, which really is for "no one".
• A link to a feed of our Amazon reviews that you can subscribe to.