Further updates interview and going to work in the dark

Wow it has been a bit since I have said anything... I guess that is the way with blogs.

Well it has been about five or six weeks for the Great experiment. Changes are that we now have five hours on Saturday and five hours on Sunday to get our computers running and update if we can other people. We were recently interviewed by Gary Graizzaro to publish us in the Pascack Press. Another new thing is that I have gotten a job that is about an hour away and starts at 6 AM.

The interview was done by phone with all of us sitting around MiL's cell phone. We got rid of our land line as each of us was working a couple of years ago. The interview was pleasant with stories of other people's reaction to what we are doing and some of our point of view about what we are doing.

MiL is also giving speech's, so far only in church, about the great experiment. I think that she is open to being interviewed by TV and by Radio so if your interested please contact us. Else, she is learning C the programming language to help her sister in her company.

My new job starts in the oh dark morning of OMG! OMG! I do not turn on the lights but find it pretty and peaceful. The hardest part is finding the matches so that I can burn a candle to make my cereal. No toaster or oven or stove top for Monday through Saturday. (Come to think of it I missed my eggs and onions today on Sunday.) Other than finding the matches, I have to put together lunch, by candle light and lay out my clothing the night before so that I can find it at the base of my bed and hopefully not put on the shirts inside out. I work with a bunch of guys so that they would never notice even if I had my shirt on inside out. This is one of the hazards of dressing in the dark, including putting on the incorrect shirt. I usually start out about 2 AM but have been known to sleep in a bit till 2:30 AM. I do not like to feel rushed so I prefer 2 AM to wake up. This puts my sleep time at about 8 PM to 9:30 PM just about dusk to full night. If I stay up any later, I get kind of cranky.

It could be worse.

DD8 is starting to show some displeasure at the Great Experiment. DD12 is starting to learn how to cook breakfast, which is why I was missing eggs and onions but got waffles which my daughter cooked. DD8 looks on with envy and will probably cook breakfast next year as she did when she saw DD12 reading and knew that she had to read as well as her sister.

Still for the forseeable future we will be doing the experiment. I sometimes wish that we had a better knowledge of the base of what we were using before as far as electricity and gas. If you begin you should monitor both before starting this "experiment." Even the knowledge of starting will probably make changes in the usage of both Gas and electricity.

Been doing this for a month and still not knowing what is going on. We've been keeping track of the electric flow per day. But with no idea what we are saving or not. This month's bill was only ten dollars cheaper than last month. I figure that the historical data that the electric company has on us is against us. We hope to do better next month as their average per day is a bit more that what we are doing day by day and even when we average across a week.

MiL gave a sermon/speech/homily on the great experiment. She was very scared but did a fine job once she had her mike aligned with her mouth. She of course spoke of the Great Experiment. She is available to speak for a nominal fee at your club to explain to you some mistakes and attempts to adapt to a non electric life style.

Her favorite, I think, is doing without the ironing. She pulled a pair of pants out of her closet that needed an ironing. Alas, there is no iron allowed to be used because of the great experiment. She remembered that her husband who was in the Navy put his shirt and the pants under his mattress on board the submarine to iron them. She had her daughter hold the mattress up with one hand and a candle to see in the other. MiL straitened and straitened the pants and finally allowed the daughter to put the mattress down. The next morning, she retrieved the pants only to find that the pants were still wrinkled.

Some things work and sometimes the things that you think will work do not.

Of late DW is cooking up a storm with the grill. As I mentioned before, she has cooked pizza and various other things that you would not believe could be cooked on a grill. So far she had tried biscuits, regular bread (a round bread that she puts on a stone) and corn bread. The only trouble that she has is maintaining the correct temperature. The grill tends to burn too hot so she thought about it and found a temperature rock. You might ask what a temperature rock is and as would I. She knew that the the grill was burning too hot. Wondering what to do she looked around for a prop to keep open the lid of the grill. What to use? What to use? Well she found a small rock that looks like a potato and propped it to the side of the grill to keep the lid open. This then became the temperature rock maintaining the correct temperature through the process.

That is it for now, we are on our fifth week, this week.