Today's Forecast: Rainy with a 100% chance of Gloom

Since the weather has postponed most of the outdoor events and activities for the latter part of this week, I thought I'd brainstorm a few indoor green activities to keep oneself occupied during the drizzly days of fall.

Want Extreme Makeover Home Edition to come renovate your house? Now you can do it all on your own to create a greener, safer, living environment for you and your family. One of the new hot items out on the market are the low flow energy saving toilets; because by saving water, you're saving electricity, energy, and money! Some of the models include two way handles to flush liquids down with a smaller jet of water, and solids down with a stronger burst of water. Also, don't forget the faucets and shower heads! It's documented that simply by switching to an energy saving water head, a family can save up to $300 a year!

Another way to minimize your energy consumption is by shutting off doors to rooms you don't enter frequently. This allows for a smaller area of the house to be heated/cooled quicker, rather than the entire house, therefore reducing the time your AC unit is running; and guess what, more saved money! Something we practice at my house is lowering the air temperature during the weekdays when we are not in the house. Say someone (Family I) is keeping their AC at 65 degrees in the summer, 24/7. While the family next to them (Family II) only has their air at 70 degrees while they occupy the house, mainly from 5pm-7am, weekdays. Imagine the savings, especially if Family II then raises the temperature to 75/76 when they are not home! Also, check your house for any air leaks that may let unwanted air temperatures to enter your house, every little bit counts!

In the summer, another way to reduce your bill is to leave the windows of your house open at night, allowing the cool air to blow through, and shutting the windows during the day, trapping the cooler air in. This what I'm doing in the dorm room; even if I'm not directly paying for the energy bill of my residence hall, I still like to live up to the growing green standards of the Twenty-First Century.

Finally, I want to discuss the poster child of energy savings, the Compact Fluorescent Light Bulb.

These have become more and more popular as the Green Revolution has swelled with each coming year. Wal Mart who originally refused to sell the bulbs, now has an entire row of light bulbs, just devoted to the CFLs! In my room, my lamp has a CFL in it, as well as my roommate's. All the lamps in my home have them, and millions of Americans are now starting to make the switch. Like all green products, the bulbs can be a bit pricey, but just think int he long term: Would you rather buy one CFL that will last for 7+ years, or would you like to buy a regular bulb almost every year? It's decisions like these that can be made not just on rainy days, but any day of the year! So I encourage you to start making the switch to green products, renewable energy, and sustainable development; because we want this planet, our only planet, to last another 4.5 billion years!