He is the butterfly kid, a lover of nature and any type of creatures the Lord has made. For as far back as he can remember, he has been a creature lover. When he was 4, and before we moved here, it was snails. Then we moved to the country, and an entire new world of creatures entered his life. We have seen so many things here. Foxes, a mink, gopher tortoises, deer, squirrels. The lady who owned this home before us knew exactly what to plant in the yard to attract and nurture hummingbirds and butterflies. And the greatest of these is butterflies.

My butterfly kid has done it all. Twice we have bought butterfly gardens, and interestingly enough, he recently again asked us to send $5 to the company to obtain the Painted Lady caterpillars. We did this, in fact, and yesterday, 5 butterflies emerged from their chrysalises in our house. While that event generated a stir in our home, it was only 5 ... out of 10 caterpillars. That is not such a good turnout. Sadly, some butterflies died. We don't know why.

We have had 100% success with caterpillars and chrysalises found in the outdoors, though! I can't tell you how many times our son has brought a caterpillar, or a chrysalis, inside his butterfly container to experience the metamorphosis. Countless times. For a while, our entire screened breezeway became the butterfly container (until I discovered what the butterflies were doing to our screen!).

Our little son has always taken out books from the library on every imaginable small creature. Books on insects, spiders, worms, amphibians, turtles, snakes, birds, ladybugs, lizards, the list goes on. He has learned so much about all these creatures, and he has retained the information. He has educated us so much about a subject that we knew so little about. He has taught us to be more aware of, and to appreciate more, the abundance of nature the Lord has placed around us!

I am so proud of the composition that my 8 year old son wrote today! I am copying it over here, exactly as he wrote it (except he used pencil, cursive, and composition paper):

Well, despite all my best intentions, this family is becoming more "green" than ever. Maybe we are being caught up in the hype (I doubt it!) but more likely we are shocked by the high cost of fuel and the promise of higher energy costs. We learned that our electric utility is going to raise rates 16%. My philosophy on this is that I am happy to be "green", just so long as it doesn't cost me any more money. I am much more motivated by saving money. As far as carbon footprint goes --- well, lets say that after reading some books on the subject, I am NOT a big believer in human-induced global warming.

So.... we have actually begun to cut back on our energy use. We got an electric bill yesterday that showed that we have consumed 401 fewer kilowatthours than the same month last year. And this year is definitely hotter. That translates to about a $45 savings. Our electric bill for the past month was $138. (where we live, everything runs on electricity)

Here is what we have been doing:

1. Driving a lot less. We no longer take those casual one destination drives to the library, supermarket, bank, or store. We wait until we are already scheduled to go out for something else, and then add on these stops along the way.

2. While we are not really "hypermiling", we try to drive economically, by coasting more to stop lights, reducing our maximum speed, and driving like there is an egg on our accelerator pedal. It has helped to eek out a few more mpg out of our Hyundai, Mitsubishi, and Freightliner. (I'll explain the Freightliner in another post some time). They just reported that fuel consumption dropped by a whopping 1.8 percent in April. I believe that if the country goes back to 55 mph speed limit on the highways, we as a nation would dramatically decrease our fuel consumption overnight!

3. Home air conditioner use. We have two central a/c units -- the living area, and the bedrooms. We leave the bedroom unit off all day and night, only running it full blast for two hours before bedtime. This works fine, as long as we run the ceiling fan over our bed the rest of the night. If my son needs to do school work in the bedroom area, he asks for a/c, and that's fine, as long as he turns it off after finishing his work. My daughter, who at age 5 still needs some daytime naps, doesn't even miss the a/c.

4. The living area a/c is set to 82 degrees, and is on all day long, with ceiling fans to help. This has been fine, but our chocolate lab did complain some. He thinks we're nuts. I trimmed his fur a little. Hopefully he will get used to it soon. He is very spoiled about a/c. At night, we shut the a/c off to the living area, where he lives, and leave a ceiling fan on for him.

5. Our house has two hot water heaters. One for the bathrooms, and one for the kitchen/laundry. The kitchen/laundry is on a solar heater, and this provides 100% of its demand during the summer. In the coldest months of winter, we have to close that circuit breaker, but the rest of the year it is open.

6. Using a clothesline. This is one area I could improve. I run our dryer too much, and it is a big consumer of electricity. I hung out the laundry during the cool dry season, but haven't been during the hot humid (rainy) season. I am not sure how much$$ this saves, but I might try to do it some more this summer.

7. Swimming pool pump - can't cut back too much here, but we run it 12 hours a day, which is a slight reduction over last year.

8. My husband says I should turn off our desktop computer and CRT monitor overnight. It does pump out some heat. I am afraid that will lessen the life span of the computer. Anybody have any thoughts on this one? We already have the CRT shutting down after a short time.

So, that is how we are reducing our carbon footprint. It is amazing how one can get used to the 82 degrees thermostat setting. My husband recently returned from a business trip in Mexico. He said that the engineers in that office are really accustomed to higher temperature setpoints. They felt cold when the temperature was set below 80. When we were in Vietnam, it was the same. A/C was used very sparingly. I think we Americans are so accustomed to cheap energy that we overdo it. Get real. Many restaurants and public places can be freezing! If they would just raise their thermostats a little bit, look at how much energy could be saved. Okay - I will get off my soapbox now.

Have a nice day!

This is the first post of my first blog. This is a special week for our family. We homeschool year round, but this week is almost no school. This is the first time I have ever brought our kids to VBS (Vacation Bible School) and they are loving it. I have 3-1/2 hours of solitude each morning this week (very unusual for me, since I am normally with my kids 24/7/365) so I have planned to alleviate my severe guilt and work on my daughter's adoption lifebook. You see, I did a beautiful lifebook for her brother several years ago (uh.. that's 5 years ago) and never got around to doing one for my dd. She is 5 years old this year, and I am finally doing it this week. Hooray! My guilt is gone!

So, I drove one morning to T*rget to purchase the scrapbooking supplies that I ran out of, or didn't already have, and I have been moving along on this project all week. I had already written a draft of the lifebook text on my computer, and know what I want it to say. Now, I just do the decorative part, and the actual creation of each page of the lifebook. It will have about 16 pages, of which I have dug into only 5 so far.

What is a lifebook? Well, for kids who were adopted, it is a great way to share with them their life story from birth, as we know and understand it. It is an opportunity to write to them, on their own level of understanding, about their earliest days/months/ or years, in a way that answers their questions, and smooths the way for further conversation. My son likes his lifebook, and I hope that my daughter will too.

Beginning next Monday, we hit the books again. Both of my children are being homeschooled with the Calvert School curricula. My son is exactly half way through third grade as of this week, and my daughter is about two thirds of the way through kindergarten. We homeschool year round, and plan our longest breaks between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day each year. We do most of our school during the summer months. We also do most of our vacationing at off times throughout the fall, winter, and spring. It is too hot to go anywhere in the south during the summer months (in my opinion) and we can avoid crowds by vacationing at off times.

Thus concludes my first post. Welcome to my blog. I hope you enjoy reading about us, and come back often!