Happy Thanksgiving from Resale Retail!

Like many of you, I have spent most of the day cooking a yummy dinner for our family and friends. I find cooking alone in the kitchen is very relaxing if I'm not in a hurry to get on to something else, so I set dinner for late in the afternoon. Some of the top items in my kitchen are things I took over from my mother when she down-sized. My favorite is the flame-colored Le Creuset Dutch oven that I use heavily and I'm convinced there is no better pot in the world.

On to topics of resale retail. I recently found the home page for the National Association of Resale and Thrift shops. It has a link to member shops around the country as well as a bookstore and other resources for those who want to start their own bricks-and-mortar thrift or resale shop. I've added it to the links list also for reference. And for a brief update on the hunt for a used trash can made of recyclable and/or recycled metal - no luck so far. I will need to set up a search on eBay for such an item since even the mighty 'Bay doesn't have one in the size we need.

Saturday House Observations

"Life is just one long dish."

After starting my dishwasher for the 3rd time in 3 days, I realized that most of these loads were made up of glasses from family members picking up a new glass each time they wanted a drink of whatever. Tomorrow I will suggest picking a single glass for the day, then maybe we can get back to our every-other-day dishwasher cycle habit and save additional water. (Water which may end up back in Costa Rica to generate electicity.)

Countries Compete to Become Carbon-Neutral

What a fantastic idea - The Worldwatch Institute announced last week that New Zealand and Costa Rica were now competing to become the first carbon-neutral country on the planet.

As stated in the article, Costa Rica "aims to reduce emissions from transport, farming, and industry, and to clean up its fossil fuel power plants, which account for 4 percent of the country’s electricity (of the rest, 78 percent comes from hydropower and 18 percent from wind and geothermal power)." New Zealand plans to increase its renewable electricity to 90%, up from today's 70%, by 2025. It's very impressive that both these countries already generate the large majority of their electricity using something other than fossil fuel, quite unlike the United States.