I love the bucket idea, Melinda! Your thoughts on water have re-inspired me to do more concerning water. I'm going to try the bucket thing, too. One water idea we are going to do is put up rain gutters and barrels to collect rainwater. I was thinking when my shower bucket gets full, I could always dump into the rain barrels for watering things at a later time. I have heard of collecting your used shower water (the water you use as you take the shower) as well by using one of those plastic rectangular dish pan type tubs. Seems like it would either fill up very fast or would be challenging to use. Don't know about that one? Does anyone do anything like that?

Here are a couple small things we've been doing:
1. Write our names on our glasses so we only use one glass each day. It saves on having to wash lots of glasses by eliminating everyone getting out a new glass each time they need something to drink.

2. If at dish washing time any glasses or klean kanteens have leftover water in them, I pour the water into a pitcher and use it to water plants, etc. The pitcher comes in handy, because if the plants don't need any water at that moment I can use it at a later time.

3. We got rid of our clothes dryer! We took it out of the house and put it out in an outbuilding. I don't know what I'll do with it right now. But getting rid of the dryer has really saved us lots of electricity! We have a clothes-line for sunny days and an inside drying rack for rainy days. I first started by trying to limit the dryer use, then I moved to trying not to use it at all. Eventually I just wanted it out of the so it wouldn't be an option at all. We've been dryer free for about 3 months now and I love it!!

Would love to hear more ideas! I'm always looking for some inspiration!

Re: My latest green efforts. Anyone else want to share?

Wow! You are hardcore! That is awesome! I tried limiting dryer use, but I can only do it on hot days since our weather is very moist. I made a clothes line recently outside for this. We don't have enough room that I can find to hang dry our clothes inside all the time. Although, I try to do it when I can now.

I like your idea about writting names on glasses. In the past we used different colored rubber bands to do the same thing, but we should get back to that. Thanks for inspiring me to get back to that.

This is for tub showers: An idea about the shower that I just thought of today (and warning....this is hardcore):
Right before your shower, plug your tub, then draw a water line on your tube with a wax crayon or something non-permanant. This line is where you turn off your water when the water level in the tub hits it. It encourages you to take a shorter shower and limit your water use during your shower. It also gives you some additional water to rinse your razor in if you are shaving. But don't forget to turn the water off when you shave! I am going to try this just for kicks to see if it works.
(I forgot that you might want to take a normal shower first to see how much of your tub you actually fill up...then decide where your water line will be.)