March 2023

This month we tore apart the old wheelchair ramp that leads up to our house. It got very slippery during the rain and I'd fallen a couple of times recently, so I knew I needed to take it down for safety's sake. I took it apart with the kids nail by nail, and stored the wood in a shed behind our house for turning into a back stoop/porch at a future day.

With the last cold snap gone, we are down to using between 10-30kwh per day. I'm struggling with having anxiety over not being able to control everything.

Wife is 100% on board with building out a clothesline to use instead of the dryer, which was a surprise. Got a free clothesline from my mother and pulled up some old treated posts from our property to use as a clothesline.

The Primal Blueprint arrived, and I started reading. I'm holding my nose for sure on the Grok speculation/foolishness, but making major lifestyle changes, such as going without socks and shoes unless needed. (Less laundry!)

I also owed the lawn with the electric mower that I got from my cousin back in January. The battery died slightly less than halfway through mowing the lawn; after an hour and a half charge, it was enough for me to finish mowing enough before the severe weather moved in. Makes me rethink getting a reel mower - its battery won't run out.

While mowing, I listening to Andrew Huberman on cold exposure. Cold showers are good for several reasons; one reason is they don't kick the water heater in!

Wife is going out of town for several days in mid April, and the kids will be staying with my mother in law. I will have the house to myself. I will shut the entire thing down and see if I can live comfortably off 6kwh per day (4kwh is what our house used last month when we were on vacation).

I discovered the crockpot and realized you can use it far more flexibly than I imagined. You can brown ground beef in it; you can add rice about an hour before food needs to be ready and the rice will be totally cooked. You can even bake sourdough in it! I want to challenge myself: 

1. Can I create a solid breakfast plan that just never uses the stove or oven?
2. Can I create a solid dinner plan that only ever uses the crockpot?
3. If I need to use the stove to create sauces, etc., how can I batch things?

This month I also repaired my iPhone. While on vacation last month the screen broke for some reason - the pixels all died. So instead of hiring out the repair job, I ordered a new screen and repaired it myself.