Yesterday morning I woke up with a throat that wasn’t quite sure what it wanted to be. So I went to work anyway, since aside from the throat and a voice that sounded as if I’d been a pack-a-day smoker for most of my formative years, I was feeling fine.

I worked on some graphs and some papers and I felt pretty good – mostly. I brought the satsumas with me and ate one as a mid-morning snack and it was marvelous. Then we all piled into cars and went off to the Firehouse in Old Sacramento for our office holiday lunch, and it was there that it all started to hit me that maybe I wasn’t in as good shape as I’d thought.

Lunch was fun – the food was, as usual, delicious, and we had a little gift exchange, with marvelous gifts provided by one of the managers. I left with a DVD, free movie tickets, and a gift certificate for more DVD’s, and the beginning of a splitting headache. By the time I got back to the office I knew it was only going to get worse. I finally zipped up a few files I could work on from home, emailed them to myself, and then left. By then I could barely breathe through my nose and the pressure in my sinuses had reached epic proportions.

I spent a good amount of time last night on the verge of throwing up from the pressure in my head. I tried eating dinner (such as it was – the last satsuma) but after one tiny section of orange I realized I’d better not risk any more food. We watched a few episodes of Buffy but eventually I gave up. I called and left a message for the choir director letting him know that neither of us would make it to practice that night, took some sinus meds and crawled into bed. So much for being on the mend.

Today I’ve spent pretty much in bed. The only meds that seem to keep the congestion and pressure at bay are the ones meant only for nighttime, which means that I spent the day feeling more than a little bit dopey. It was okay for some of the work I’d brought home to do, like data collecting and editing, but meant there was no way I could form a coherent original thought for the two new articles I’m supposed to be writing.

This evening I am feeling cautiously optimistic that this bout of winter cold/flu is finally starting to wane. My head no longer seems on the version of exploding, and I can (mostly) breathe. My voice is (mostly) back to normal. Tomorrow I have nothing more strenuous than doing a little baking, and maybe taking advantage of those free movie tickets to go see Return of the King. Here’s hoping that I can manage to hold on to this upward trend.

I’m doing better today – much better. For one thing I’ve got almost all of my normal energy back, and it didn’t take any more than the usual amount of coffee to get it there. My throat is still a bit iffy, and as the day wore on my voice started to crack. Plus what remains of the winter crud is now hanging tightly to my nose, since what winter could possibly complete without inflicting Jennifer with at least one nasty sinus infection? I am eying the fact that in less than a week, I have to climb on a plane and deal with changes in air pressure. I’ve flown with clogged sinuses before – a journey that culminated in me making a dash for the tiny airline bathroom during the descent because the sinus pressure made me puke my guts out. It was an experience I’d prefer to not repeat, especially over Christmas. However, I am forcing myself to be optimistic here, since after all there is almost a full week for this to clear up. Surely it will be gone by then. Surely it will. Surely.

In the meantime I am scarfing on healthy food. The produce stand by the freeway exit I take to get home had the most amazing grapefruit – thin skinned and so juicy, sweet enough they didn’t even need any sugar. I had one with breakfast yesterday morning and another for lunch today along with my green beans and a container of sweet potato crack, which meant that I managed to fulfill my required servings of fruits and veggies for the day in one meal. Go me. So tonight on the way home from work I swung by the produce stand again and bought a few more. I don’t even have to share them because Richard does not like grapefruit. I might make comments about that except that up until now it was the only citrus fruit I actually liked so I really shouldn’t talk. Ooh. Was that foreshadowing?

While I was at work my boss started talking about these little lumpy orange hybrids that he called satsumas. I know Richard likes oranges and he’s been even sicker than me this week. So while I was at the produce stand I picked up six of them and brought them home with my grapefruit. I gave one to Richard, who promptly said that it looks, peels, and tastes just like a tangelo. I have no idea which is actually the right name because I have started to get really confused about oranges – after all, people everywhere are gushing over clementines, which apparently are the same as mandarin oranges, and then there are tangerines and by the way kumquats look just like oranges only a whole lot smaller, and since I have never liked any of them, I have never much cared what any of them are called anyway. Anyway, on a whim (because even though I really cannot stand most fruit I still keep hoping that this will eventually change), I decided to give them a try. And the amazing thing (family members reading this, you may wish to sit down. The shock may overwhelm you) is that I *like* them! I normally cannot deal with oranges because there is all that nasty white pulp and no matter what you can never get rid of it (and do not get me started on orange juice because you should not have to chew what you are drinking and just the *thought* of pulp in my juice makes me cringe). But these! These are so easy to peel and the nasty pulp comes right off and there’s no mess at all and they’re sweet and they pop right into my mouth and I can chew them up and swallow them before my brain even can figure out that it’s a fruit related to an orange and maybe I shouldn’t like them after all. This is so exciting! How convenient that we managed to plant a tree in our backyard that will grow these.

The few remaining little satsumas/tangelos left will be gone by the end of work tomorrow (because I intend to take a handful as snacks and I expect Richard will want to do the same) so I’ll be making another stop by the produce stand tomorrow night as well, I expect. They sell these things in ten pound sacks. I think between now and when we leave for Seattle for Christmas, one bag should hold us. Well, that and maybe half dozen more of those grapefruit.

By the time I woke up this morning the awful pain in my throat had finally subsided. All that was left was this annoying feeling that there was something stuck in the back of my throat. I know it was only because my throat was so swollen, and frankly it didn’t bother me so much because at least I could finally swallow without wincing in agony. Along with the icky throat I’ve been a little bit stuffed up, and also lacking any energy at all. Richard’s been sick too, so we’re quite the sexy pair, sitting listlessly on the couch side by side, him hacking and wheezing and me blowing my nose. It is kind of amusing though, considering that we’re both so drained of energy that a simple task like cleaning up the latest insurgence of ants can leave us both exhausted.

We both got flu shots this season. I don’t know if this is just some version of the yearly winter crud that has been passed around among everyone we know, or if those flu shots are actually doing their job and we are experiencing a sort of “flu light”, wherein we get the lightning round of the bug and get to miss out on the worst of it.

Richard went in to work for an hour or two to take care of a few things but I’ve just sat at home, alternating between poking about unenthusiastically on the computer, knitting hats (like that’s any big surprise), and napping. Both Firefly and season 5 of Buffy showed up today, which was marvelous timing for two people home sick, but this lack of energy meant I didn’t want to try to watch anything I actually wanted to pay attention to. Luckily the latest batch from Netflix included four more episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation – including an episode I had actually never seen before, despite years of watching the late night reruns on TV. We ate leftover pizza for lunch because it didn’t require any effort. Dinner was steak, sweet potato crack, and steamed broccoli, with an entire head of roasted garlic to spread on the meat. If the hacking and the sniffling and the wheezing weren’t enough of a deterrent, we can now add in a massive amount of garlic to the reasons why we’re simply not fit company to be around.

This does, of course, mean that our tentative plans to catch the midnight showing of Return of the King tonight have been dashed to pieces, but ah well. That’s what the weekend is for.

By the time I got home from work this afternoon my throat was seriously hurting. An hour or two later it is on fire. It hurts so much to swallow that I wince every time I have to do it, and I cannot talk at all – the simple act of trying to force out sound practically has me in tears. So in lieu of an entry I am sharing with you the letter we sent out to our friends and family this year. I would put in all the cute graphics Richard included in the letter we actually mailed out, but I am too tired and hurt too much to bother with them right now.

Dear Friends and Family,

Once again, it’s been a blast. Somehow, 2003 managed to slip past us while we were busy with other plans, and a lot has happened to the Crawfords since last year.

At this time last year, Richard and Jennifer were both working for Benthic Creatures, traveling up and down the state of California teaching public assistance recipients how to use their new benefits cards, and teaching social workers how to administer the cards. It was surprisingly grueling. In fact, it’s safe to say that by February, we both hated the job with a mild passion. Neither of us actually enjoyed the work, and the constant travel was wearying, and the benefits were miniscule. Finally, in March, Jennifer switched jobs to work as a research associate at a construction cost consulting firm in Sacramento. She loves it there, since she gets to read a lot, write a lot, and surf the web looking for important information about how much it costs to build things that are ecologically friendly. She also gets to play with databases, which makes her happy.

In April, Richard decided that even working as a temporary clerical worker at UC Davis would be better than Benthic Creatures, so he gave the Temporary Employment Pool a call, and within two days had landed a position as a database administrator and Solaris systems administrator for UC Davis Extension’s Distance Learning Campus. This was pure luck, but Richard loves his new job as well. If all goes well, Richard will soon be hired on to this job permanently.

Our back yard, meanwhile, has slowly been transforming itself. Over the summer, we bought about five tons of rocks and built a circular wall with them; then we bought about six tons of dirt and filled that circular wall with it. Yes, we did it all by ourselves, by hand. Yes, it was hard. And yes, we hurt afterwards. But now we have a circular wall full of dirt in our back yard, and soon we will be planting things in it. Meanwhile, we’ve also had landscapers come out and lay down some sod, spread some decomposed granite into nice paths, and plant a bunch of nice trees. Already birds have found that the trees make a nice place to rest and taunt the cats in our house, providing endless amusement for the humans watching them. It’s a win-win situation all around. Pictures and periodic updates on the house and yard can be seen at http://www.stonegoose.com/house

We’ve both been in good health this past year. Richard had a bout with diverticulitis, which entailed a visit to the emergency room at about 1:00 on a Saturday morning, but that’s about the worst of it.

The cats haven’t fared as well, unfortunately. Rebecca was diagnosed with thyroid tumors and given a treatment with radioactive iodine. Richard was excited about the prospect of having a cat with super powers (or at least one that could glow in the dark), but all we got from that was a healthier cat. Unfortunately, she also suffers from kidney problems, and had to be put on a special diet. Another of our cats, Rosemary, came down with bladder stones, and now she has to be on a special diet as well. All of the other cats — Allegra, Azzie, Tangerine, Sebastian, and Zucchini — are doing well. None of them have jobs yet, and none of them are going to school, although Jennifer has not yet given up hope that she can persuade at least one of them to learn how to operate the vacuum.

Richard is still in library school, and enjoying it immensely. He volunteers at the Davis Public Library, and has been appointed to the Library Commission of our town. Jennifer is enjoying the power and prestige that come with being married to a local politician. It’s not as thrilling as she had imagined it would be, though. While Richard has been off doing library things, Jennifer has kept busy as well, working out at Curves (which she loves), learning to knit (with seven cats ‘helping’, no less), and wandering around trying to find things to photograph for our newest joint endeavor, an online photo log (http://www.stonegoose.com/catseyeview). Both of us are still active in the choir (where Jennifer has the distinction of being the entire tenor section this year) and other musical ensembles at the church.

So 2003 was relatively busy for us, but a very good year overall. Here’s hoping that 2004 is a healthy and prosperous year for all of you as well.

Last night’s game was one of those sessions that reminded all of us just how much we had missed playing these past six months or so that the game’s been in limbo. We alternated between laughing until our heads were on the table and frantically rummaging through player handbooks because most of us had forgotten all the little important details, like how to roll for spells and fights and such. And it was nice to just get a chance to chat with the other players, aside from the gaming itself, just to catch up on what they’ve been doing. Despite all of our best intentions we didn’t end the game until far later in the evening than we’d planned, and it was after midnight before I finally got to bed.

This morning, after getting up and tossing all the cats into their respective rooms for their respective foods, I called the friend with whom I was supposed to coordinate the words to a song for the food drive at church yesterday. We were supposed to get together on the phone yesterday at some point to finish up the song – now that we’d finally managed to track down the music. Except that apparently both of us completely forgot until it was far too late at night (or in my case, far too early in the morning by the time we were done with the game), so she hastily whipped something together and scribbled it out for the rest of us when she got to church. Our only saving grace was that at least she and I had done this song before as a trio, so all we had to do was recruit an alto to cover the middle.

The song got the laughs we expected for some of the more clever lines, and I can only assume it’s been working because the food drive has been quite effective this year. I will note, however, that I am extremely glad that next week is the last week of it, because I think my friend and I have pretty much tapped out our creative energy for reworking well-known hymns into songs about the food drive for the year.

There was a marathon two-hour choir practice before church since we’re doing the cantata next week, and then the children’s pageant was during the service. I brought one of my hats to church with me since a few of our friends have children who could be used as head models for my niece/nephews. Turns out it was a good thing I did because even though the hat is stretchy enough to fit an adult head, it only looked good on the little one-year-old. So I gave him the completed hat and I think I’m going to take apart the second one and use the yarn to make a bigger one. Ah well. I suppose I could be upset about having spent all that time on hats that are too small, but there’s something rather comfortingly mind-numbing about just sitting there knitting, so I don’t mind so much having an excuse to do more of it.

After church we zipped home, poked around on the computers, changed, and then headed down to Richard’s parents’ for his mom’s birthday dinner, and also to help them decorate their tree. Last year we happened to be there when they were decorating and I volunteered to climb behind the tree and do the hard-to-reach branches, which worked so well that I immediately climbed into the corner this year too and had them hand me things while I did my best not to run face-first into the guide wire they used to attach the tree to the wall. Then there was chicken stew and pumpkin spice cake with ice cream and peppermint and chocolate fudge, prompting me to realize that there is less than two weeks left for me to get with it and do the necessary baking, and also maybe this year I should try not only making some of that peppermint chocolate fudge for us, but also fudge with a peanut butter swirl. At some point this week. In all my spare time. When I am not knitting hats.

On the way home from work yesterday I stopped by the yarn store, and after imposing on the very helpful clerk, I managed to find green and gold yarn. Then I went home and while I waited for Richard to get home I started on one of the little hats.

The instructions weren’t kidding when they said these things go fast. By the time we left for my company’s holiday dinner last night I had finished half the hat and today not only did I finish hat number1, but I also whipped out hat number 2. They’re very cute hats – all bright green with sparkly gold tops and little rolled brims. I felt almost as if I was cheating somehow because it’s only one stitch – really no pattern at all – so it went incredibly fast. Granted my hands feel permanently cramped into little knitting claws and I have interesting pains in my left hand from holding the yarn, but I’ve only got one hat to go. This means that I might possibly be inspired to make a few adult-sized hats as well. I am making no promises, however. Three may just be my limit.

The holiday dinner was fun. There are only seven of us in the Sacramento office so it was a small group, even with some of us bringing spouses or boyfriends. We went to Mace’s, which is a nice and expensive restaurant in a rather snooty and expensive little shopping center. We (the entire group) split a seafood cocktail that came in a martini glass big enough to float someone’s head, and then there were salads and there was chicken and steak and salmon and Kobe beef, and finally there were desserts. Half the group had a caramelized banana torte, but considering my feelings on bananas, I opted instead for a marvelous apple crisp that was covered in brown sugar streusel. I don’t think there was a single one of us who didn’t eat far more than we should have, and by the end of the dinner we were all leaning back in our chairs eyeing our unfinished desserts blearily and looking forward to going home to try to sleep off the excess.

As for today, it’s mostly been about the hats. The one exception was the arrival of the pet sitter to get a key and a tour of the house, and to meet all the cats (or at least the ones who would come out to say hello). And I got the second hat finished just in time because this evening we’re finally restarting the old AD&D game that had been on hold for the past six months. I zipped upstairs to scribble out this entry but now it’s time to rejoin the little group and enter the world of sorceresses and feline familiars and searches for arcane artifacts, and all the laughter and fun that accompanies these games that we have missed so very much in its absence.

Now that I am done with the sweater for my nephew I find myself antsy to start something new. I’ve got this book of patterns for some truly gorgeous sweaters for adults (male or female) but last night on a whim I got online and started poking around looking for patterns for hats. I found this really cute pattern for making little hats for kids that look like Christmas ornaments. Naturally I immediately fired off an email to my sisters asking for the general circumference of their children’s heads, because I am going to hold to the fact that the pattern says the hat can be made in a day. I figure with my skill level and time limitations I should multiply that by at least a factor of three, but that still means I could maybe get these done. This does mean, however, that I am going to have to make a trip to the yarn shop in Davis because the pattern specifically calls for metallic yarn. Gosh. Darn. A trip to the yarn store. Heh. I’m not sure yet how quick these will go, even despite my guestimates, nor am I sure exactly how they will turn out. But I’m going to give it a try because apparently I am just insane.

While I was sending emails to my family, I included one asking about the cookie situation. Our family has a list of cookies that we make every year – some of which require more time and preparation than others. Since we’re all flying up to Seattle to spend Christmas up there it made sense to try to divvy up the baking so we each can just do only one or two kinds. I immediately volunteered for gingerbread men (see above reference to the fact that I am insane) because I make them every year and I would hate to miss my yearly purchase of a box of raisins, which I only ever use as gingerbread man eyes and then promptly pick off the baked cookies before I eat them because I really cannot stand raisins. But traditions are important and besides Richard doesn’t mind getting random pairs of gingerbread man eyes dumped in his hand for snacks so it works.

Speaking of holiday baking, it’s that time now when people start bringing in random goodies to the office. Earlier this week there were Reese’s peanut butter cup bells in the candy jar in the kitchen, which usually only ever holds Tootsie rolls. Tootsie rolls I can usually avoid, but Reese’s peanut butter cups? Bye bye willpower.

Luckily the supply of Reese’s had been depleted by Tuesday and now there is nothing left in the candy jar but Hershey’s Hugs. Those I can avoid easily because they are mostly white chocolate, and really, what is the point of white chocolate except to make you *think* you might be getting the good stuff, only to sorely disappoint you?

And finally, apropos of nothing else in this entry except that I took it at work, I leave you with this picture. So many times I’ve seen a gorgeous skyscape while driving and by the time I have searched frantically for, and located a safe place to pull over and drag out the camera, the clouds and the sun have shifted and it is gone. This one, however, stayed around. It looked as if there was something hovering over downtown Sacramento, spilling through, and I could barely believe that I managed to capture it on film.

I am not usually a fan of canned vegetables, but I make the exception for green beans. I prefer them fresh, of course, but there is something almost comforting about canned green beans – the way they smell and taste. It’s good that I like green beans – really good. This is because one of the mainstays of lunch these days is a can of green beans. I open the can, drain the liquid, dump the beans into a container, and then at work I pop them in the microwave and eat the entire thing. One whole can of green beans, to fill me up so I’m not so hungry during the day. Oh, there’s the added benefit that one can of green beans provides three servings of vegetables and we’ve been trying really hard to eat more fruits and vegetables anyway, but still, the whole point of the darn things is to fill me up so I am not starving again by 3pm. It doesn’t always work because I think my brain is wired to be hungry every two to three hours no matter *what* I ate for the meal, but I continue to make the effort anyway.

The whole reason I am telling you about this is that every day when I take my first forkful of beans I take just a moment to pause and remember the dog.

Back when I was still going to graduate school a friend asked if I would watch her dogs while she went out of town for a few days. They had three at the time – all of them extremely large, and extremely boisterous and friendly. I have never been any kind of a dog person, preferring to watch dogs from far enough away that they cannot jump on me, stuff their noses in my crotch, or try to slime me with their tongues. I am, admittedly, a dyed-in-the-wool cat person, so three dogs was more than a bit overwhelming. But she had no one else, and so I agreed. It wasn’t too much work – I just had to swing by the house twice a day to let them out to the backyard to run around and such, and give them their food and water.

It was the food part that sticks with me the most about this whole experience. One of the dogs – the largest one – had hip dysplasia and so was on a diet. To keep him from being too hungry while getting such a small amount of food, they were feeding him a can of green beans with each meal. It would never have occurred to me to feed green beans to a dog, but he adored them, and would inhale them out of the bowl within seconds of me dumping in the can.

I cannot help but think of that dog every time I sit at my desk and eat my daily can of green beans.

Last week we were all sitting around talking about what comfort means to us, and of course the discussion naturally drifted to food, and since this week’s theme for the class was Comfort, we decided we’d all meet an hour early and have a potluck dinner, with everyone bringing their own ‘comfort food’.

I had to think about what to bring for a while. Pop tarts and ice cream are one of my favorite comfort foods but I wasn’t sure how well that would go over with the rest of the group, and I didn’t want to have to do anything (like grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches) that would require any cleanup later. So I finally decided to make potato cheese soup, which is one of my favorite things in the winter. It’s thick and hearty and it’s delicious and it would also be a way of having at least one vaguely nutritious entrée at the dinner because let’s face it, comfort food is *never* good for you.

The only problem with this little plan was that our blender died weeks ago during an aborted attempt at making peach yogurt smoothies, and we have yet to replace it. The potato cheese soup is a very simple recipe – you cut up potatoes, carrots, celery, and onions, toss them into a pot with some water and then boil them until they’re soft – but it does require the use of a blender to puree all the veggies into something that looks less like a regurgitated squash and more like something you might want to eat. And while potatoes, carrots and celery can all be more or less pureed using a regular kitchen mixer, this does not work for onions, no matter how well cooked they might be. After trying – and failing – to improvise this morning, I finally sent my mom an email begging for the use of her blender for one night. And then I had to leave work early because I had to somehow manage to get home in time to not only feed the cats (darn special diets requiring separate meals, grumble grumble), but to zip off to my parents’ house, find their blender, come home, toss all the soup parts into the blender, and then stir in the cheese and heat it up, all within the space of slightly less than an hour. Luckily when I explained to my boss that I had to leave early for blender issues he was extremely understanding, although that may have had more to do with the fact that I’d managed to finish up all the additional data extraction and creation of pretty graphs by the time I wanted to leave than just that he was humoring me.

It was a dinner with good food and good friends, sitting around a long folding table in the unheated social hall at the church, laughing and talking and passing around the serving dishes and eating it all with plastic silverware and paper plates and bowls because we were trying not to make a mess we’d have to clean up later. It was a wonderful potluck dinner. There was a bucket of chicken from KFC, homemade macaroni and cheese, a taco dip, monkey bread covered in streusel topping and walnuts, and cupcakes made from scratch. An entire dinner of comfort food, with the only vegetable in sight hidden away in the creamy orangeness that was my potato cheese soup.

Sometimes it’s nice to just not think about how many servings of vegetables might be in the meal, or how many points are in each entrée, or whether I’ve calculated out the correct size for the portion. Sometimes it’s nice to just sit back and eat food that you know is probably bad for you, but it tastes so good you don’t care. Sometimes you just have to allow yourself to only eat comfort food, and not waste a moment dwelling on anything else but how nice it is to just, for one brief moment of time, let it be.

I nearly threw the envelope away, but then I realized what it was and opened it. Inside, a one page certificate. Our house has been approved for the state rebate. We have nine months in which to install our solar panels and qualify.

Oh yes. The solar panels. Oops.

Back in October, we had someone come out and evaluate our house for solar panels. We got our estimate and then we were told we would have to wait a few months to find out if we qualified for the state rebate (which, frankly, isn’t all that much in the grand scheme of things). This meant, of course, that I had time to think about this. And think. And think.

The problem is that our energy bills are already extremely low. Because of the raised foundation, lots of good insulation, and the decision to splurge for the more efficient HVAC system, as well as watching the thermostat year round, we already use far less energy for most houses this size. On the plus side that meant we didn’t need too many panels; on the negative side it meant that it was going to take us nearly 20 years to see any kind of financial benefit. And yes, there is the environmental benefit as well, but that’s a long time to be waiting for something you’ve spent so much money on.

Making this whole thing even more complicated was the fact that with Richard’s car nearly paid off, we’re looking at replacing mine – and we’d already decided, back when we first heard about the Prius, that we were going to get a hybrid. In fact, ever since we got the chance to test drive one for the day, we knew what our next car had to be.

On a whim, a week or two ago, Richard called around to all the Toyota dealers in the surrounding few counties, and to our surprise, the Fairfield dealership had one in stock that we could look at if we could hightail it down there ASAP. So we went. We didn’t get to test drive it because it had, technically, already been sold, but they let us poke around, open the trunk, sit in the front seat, play with the buttons and even ride in the back seat from the back of the lot to the front of the lot. Naturally, we both fell in serious like with the car – a feeling that intensified as we sat in the dealership later with a pamphlet detailing all the information about the car. And all the while, in the back of my mind, I realized that we would have to make a choice – either the car or the solar panels. Which one was a better deal for us financially? Which one would make a larger impact on the environment?

In the end, we chose the car. For one thing, it will cut our gas bill significantly, but more importantly, we are firm believers in supporting this kind of technology. The more people who buy the car, the more the demand for it will grow, and the more varieties of vehicle will be designed with the hybrid concept in mind. Less gas used, fewer emissions produced, and eventually the environment will be much better for it.

As for the solar panels, they are not cancelled entirely from our goals for the house. Instead they are merely postponed. Technology being what it is, I fully expect that the field of solar energy will improve quite a lot in the next five or ten years. They’ll make the panels smaller and more efficient, and also cheaper. And in the meantime I am poking around online, checking out green energy certificates. As near as I can figure, these things are tailor made for people like us, who live in areas where the utilities company doesn’t provide a green energy option for consumers. It’s not quite as environmentally ‘good’ as the solar panels would have been, but I figure at least they’re a good step in the right direction.

But I think I’ll hang on to that certificate just in case. After all, it’s most likely going to be a few months until our Prius arrives. Which means there’s plenty of time for me to think about this.

And think.

And think.