Should I be ashamed to say....

[Tuckervill]

I'm with you, Eden. I'm not putting them in my reading lamps. I barely tolerate them in the kitchen, but that's where the light is used/needed the most. I can tell the difference in the light, and I don't like it.

Karen

[Flybye]

If you move to the west - Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and some of Utah, trucks and suv's largely outnumber smaller vehicles. Just a different perspective. I guess we have more open air to ruin
Gas prices have changed that.
I don't like to recycle - it is a pain in the rear. We don't have sidewalk recycling - for some things it is a 20 mile drive to the recyclers. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I recycle newspaper, plastic bags, and aluminum.

[Aggie_Ama]

Whew, glad to know we can't all be perfect. We have cable and love it. We can't get Travel Channel, Versus, ESPN (bleck the man likes it), Discovery Channels, Biography, History, Science. Oh and to boot we have a ginormous TV my father gave us, I don't know the size but it is somewhere between 55-60". Ridiculous but I didn't buy it and you should see Science/History/Discovery HD.

Eden- My husband loves the compact flourescent, I am indifferent. The full flourescents can be a trigger for my borderline migraine. We only have replaced one bulb thus far with the compact so I am not experiencing that yet. We turn our lights on so rarely we have only had one bulb go out in 2 years.

Fly- I live in Texas and I would say most native Texans own at least one truck. It is in our mentality, culture, we need them. Not always sure why but we think we need them. In our case we have had the truck one year today, we used it as a truck for about the 5th time this weekend. Moved a bit of furniture twice, got some dirt, went camping, that is all. My car can handle the weekend camping but not the extended trips where multiple ice chests are taken.

Oh and I like sweets, Mexican food, caffeine with reckless abandon, driving my truck, driving in general, hate recycling (we don't have curbside), still trying to break leaving water running while brushing teeth, take a nightly soaking bath once it cools down out. House is all electric, yard has grass (hey we are xeriscaping as we replace). Jeez, if I listened to the media or some people I am the reason there is a hole in the ozone, water is in short supply and trash not biodegrading.

[tulip]

Jeez, if I listened to the media or some people I am the reason there is a hole in the ozone, water is in short supply and trash not biodegrading.

We all are the reason.

[Crankin]

My husband still has his Lexus SUV. Of course, he bought a Miyata to compensate for the crappy gas mileage. The Miyata gets 30 mpg, so he uses it most of the year, but it gets parked in the winter, when it's snowy or icy. We still use the SUV for hauling around 4 bikes, a canoe, 4 people, and luggage quite a few times during the year. Also, we use it for hauling landscaping and home repair stuff. Around here, it's not so much that you need a truck, but you need a car with 4 wheel drive or AWD. I just happen to have a smaller sedan with AWD. Now I know some people get a long perfectly fine without all wheel drive, but personally, I won't drive in the winter without it. When my driveway, which is a 15% grade, is covered with snow with 2 inches of ice below it, I need all the help I can get, especially the cool "descending" assist that guides you down a steep and slippery hill without having to put your foot on the gas.
Other than the Lexus, we are pretty green around our house. We recycle, bring our own bags to the grocery store, and have had all the windows replaced in our house to cut fuel usage (it really worked). I have cut my driving tremendously, not so much because I am commuting, although I do do some errands by bike, but because I have really stopped going places far away for shopping. Everything I do is within a 7-8 mile radius. I take the train to my classes, so I only drive 8 miles round trip on those days. But, even when I was driving to work, I still drove way less than most of my peers. My car is 5.5 years old and has 40,000 miles on it.

[Tuckervill]

(Oh, I wish I could have a car with low mileage! My 2 yo Element rolled over 63,000 on my trip east last month.)

We have an energy saving car in the driveway, a '96 Honda Civic that belonged to my middle son and is now my youngest's, who is still too young to drive it. We keep it insured and licensed so we can have a car for zipping around town. It gets 38 mpg, still, at its age.

My husband is very tall, with flexibility issues in his hips, so our cars will always have to accommodate that. I wanted a Honda Fit but he doesn't fit. He fits in the Civic, and can drive it, but it is uncomfortable. He fits in the Element, but doesn't like to drive it. All of our cars need to be usable by him--you never know when we may be down to one car.

His personal vehicle is an F150, his first truck. Before that he drove big sedans, like a Grand Marquis. The truck and the sedans get roughly the same gas mileage (and they're making the sedans smaller now), so we might as well have a truck, which is more useful. I don't feel guilty about it. His hips will disable him some day, and there's no reason for him to be uncomfortable while he drives.

Me, on the other hand--I drive 5 miles below the speed limit to save gas, and got my Element up to 28 mpg on this last trip!

Karen

[Pax]

I got 92mpg on my scooter last week...as opposed to the crappy 16mpg I got shopping with my Jeep. I'm going to try to ride that dang scooter until it snows!