Romance a la David Suzuki

The neighbourhood school has joined the David Suzuki’s Nature Challenge.  Our daughters come home from school with interesting energy saving, green ideas. They inspire (and pressure) us to implement changes at home. The results from my August poll “What inspires you to shop/live green?” indicate that the majority of The Mindful Merchant readers (thank you!) are inspired by children and family to be more eco-conscious too.

Last year our kids wanted to try eating dinner by candle light. My first thought was “Fire!” and my husband said something like “I happen to like to see my food when I eat”. They were persuasive and sold us on the idea of turning off all the lights, music and unimportant appliances for the duration of the meal. We agreed to try and made some very interesting discoveries.

We found that our children sit longer at the table and are not in such a rush to do something else. We discovered that turning off the lights and other appliances really quiets the house, in a positive way. Candles give off a surprising amount of light, enough to see your food and each other very well. Candles are magical and make boring grilled cheese sandwich dinners feel special. Blowing out candles is a big deal no matter how young or old you are!    It is also a great way to use the heirloom candlesticks from Great Aunt Lizzy and the “treasured” wedding chatchkas stored in the basement. Best of all you will save money and reduce your energy consumption during peak power times.  Worth considering, no?

Thanks to David Suzuki, shorter daylight hours in the fall/winter and the end of Daylight Savings Time on November 1st (when at we turn the clocks back one hour to Standard local time) dinner time in our house is going to get a lot more sparkly and quiet.   It is a fun idea you might want to try in your home, after all, who does not like a little romance in their life?

Tagged as: $ave $$, energy saving