Earth Hour 2011

Earth Hour has become a tradition in my house.  This is the 3rd year that both the girls have participated, and it's a night that they count down to with much excitement!  This year was no exception :)

We don't do just lights off for the hour from 8.30pm-9.30pm though.

Our Rules are:

1. As soon as we have had dinner and baths, we turn every light and most electrical appliances off at the wall.  (6:15pm was lights out last night!)
2. The Fridge may remain on.
3. We may have a fan on in the bedroom to sleep (it is still always ridiculously hot here in March).
4. We can use candles and battery operated torches for lights.
5. Everything stays off until we wake on Sunday morning, or until we need it... the TV, microwave, toaster and laptop still haven't been turned back on at the wall at 3pm Sunday afternoon!

As always, it was great fun.  This year Miss G was in charge of the "Switch Off", and once the candles were lit, and the lights off, we sat around talking, the girls did some drawing, we made Earth Hour Lanterns, played, and read.

The girls by candlelight!

We also take the time on this night to celebrate the good things we already do for the environment, and set some goals for the coming year.

This year, we celebrated that we already:

1. Recycle
2. Buy Organic (and mostly local) Fruit & Veg
3. Conserve Water
4. Air Dry Washing as much as physically possible
5. Have reduced our waste - our bin only goes out for collection every couple of weeks, rather than weekly.
6. Buy secondhand when we can... this is tricky though as there isn't a huge secondhand market here... so something to improve on as well as celebrate
7. Use a Bokashi Bin for food waste
8. Grow our own herbs

Our plans for the coming year include:

1. Keep switching our lights off as often as possible - Miss G is responsible for this
2. Be even more vigilant with our recycling - Miss E is responsible for this
3. I am going to eat less meat
4. Reduce our electricity consumption even further
5. I am going to buy a bike and ride
6. We are going to have our own little Earth Hour each season.

 So last night was a lovely little break from "life" - we shared a special evening together and all agreed it is our favourite night together of the entire year.

And now it's back to studying for me, school tomorrow for the girls, and everything else we usually do!