I heartily agree with a recommendation to replace frequently-used incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents. But I cannot recommend the Union of Concerned Scientists. Some of their science and methodology is not well-thought-through, and anyone reading their recommendations would do well to do so with a grain of salt and a fair shot of common sense.

Cities in our area have been discouraging disposable plastic bags by mandating a charge for them, and recently our state government decided to ban them for major retailers. I don't much care, one way or another, since I have acquired the habit of carrying a bag with me into the grocery store. I don't carry cloth bags, though. I carry the plasticized paper (or whatever they are) with me. I tired of trying to get cloth bags to stand up, stay open, (so did the baggers, though to their credit, no one ever complained). Cloth bags needed to be laundered and the coated ones could just be wiped clean. There's one canvas bag I did retain because it does stand up on its own: frankly I only use it for big grocery trips. It's too bulky and awkward to carry into places when I only *might* buy something. I spent one Christmas season cashiering at a big box store. I wonder how bagging a variety of canvas, cloth, reusable plastic bags of all shapes, sizes and firmnesses will affect (effect? I never know) the cashiers' IPH [items per hour] since this is part of their evaluation and review. It has to slow things down. I use two disposable grocery bags a week. My trash collection service accepts used cat litter only if it's double-bagged, so starting next year, I will have to buy something that I'm now getting free.

We offer first to family/friends. If nobody wants it, it goes to charity. My MIL was sure her house stuff was worth money. It wasn't. However, family members were happy to take the big furniture, so she didn't feel bad. Oddly, the various tschotskes DH and I couldn't stand, made her several hundred $$$ from an estate liquidator. Who knew, LOL? There is a wonderful charity here run by our city. They collect ONLY business clothes - cleaned, pressed, on hangers - suitable for job interviews. Low-income residents can go to their various training classes, which include what to do/not to do on job interviews and how to properly fill out job applications. For those attendees who don't have nice clothes for interviews, the charity allows them to pick two outfits for free. When my DH and I retired, we brought them enough to fill an 8' clothes rack. My MIL just passed away and I realized many of her clothes also qualified as "interview ready". DH and I cleaned out our closets again. His was clothes that had gotten too small or shrunk (he's fond of 100% cotton and some of that stuff shrinks more than others). I had hung on to some of my favorite work clothes, including some designer stuff, but finally decided after five years of retirement it was time to pass them along. So there went another 8' clothes rack out of the house last week! We also sorted through our books. We have around 2-4,000 books at any given time. Out went a load of those yesterday to the local library for their monthly sales. But the core of our collections remain: my art books, his hobby reference books, and the fiction novels we deem worth keeping and re-reading. Of these, only the art books are worth anything, and only to collectors. After I sorted through my art books we asked a couple of friends if they were interested in any that we planned to get rid of. They took two paper bags full. They were happy and so were we! Our collection is valuable only to us, especially since much of it is out of print. I used to give very elaborate dinner parties in the '70's. I had six different sets of interchangeable dinnerware and handmade bronze flatware, with lots of serving pieces collected from various places. Entertaining has changed and nobody does this stuff any longer. The main part of the dinnerware was a classic Mikasa bone china with an embossed gold rim, in a service for 12. None of my Millennial friends was interested in it, but fortunately one of our younger Boomer friends was complaining about her grandmother's soft-paste china. Such patterns can't go through the DW so she had to hand-wash it, so as a working mother (she was the breadwinner, in fact) it was too time-consuming to use often. She was familiar with our china and said she would be thrilled to have it. Made her ecstatic, and opened up space for new plain china for us. Yes, I still have the bronze flatware. Nobody else wants it, like silver it has to be kept polished or in bluecloth. Doesn't take up much room in a drawer. Oddly, one of the modestly valuable things I own might someday be thrown out by some relative who doesn't realize what they are. Back in the psychedelic '60's when impresario Bill Graham presented unknown local bands at the Winterland ballroom in San Francisco, for publicity they did not only posters, but fliers and postcards. I have half a dozen pristine, unused postcards of concerts listing Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Cream, Moody Blues, Blue Oyster Cult, etc., stuffed in a box in the garage.

We have been working with a modular company out of Virginia. 90% of their homes are custom. Their engineer was able to take my plans for a custom home and tweak them for modular building. They improved on our original plan. We visited the factory and were impressed by their level of construction. Ours will be 3 sections. The nook, garage and screen porch will be built on site. Transporting each section runs $2000 each based on our location. 5 sections may bump that price up. When talking to a builder 3 weeks ago, he said modular can run 10 - 12% cheaper. The savings is getting as much finished in the factory as possible. We are still in the discussion stages. BTW, the company is ModuCraft or Excell. They even had ceramic tile installed in the bathrooms!