Can't Believe I'm Doing This...

I should have known this day would come.  At some point in their life, every child mimics their parent in some way.  I just wasn't expecting this.  Maybe in the long run it's not so bad.  Hopefully it will save me money...

I'm turning into my father, the you-must-always-turn-off-every-light-switch and don't-touch-the-thermostat  father that I used to laugh at.  For the life of me, I never understood why he made such a big deal about saving electricity.  But we recently got our first electric bill at our new house, and it was shocking!  Now I've found that I'm turning into must-find-ways-to-save-electricity mother!

To be fair, we knew our electricity rate was going to go up.  Our new house is almost twice the size of our old house and has dozens more lights.  Plus, we're no longer in the cheap county electrical co-op, and we actually had to shop for an electrical provider for this house.  Still, this house is extremely energy efficient, and with the cheapest rate we could find, we were a little surprised at our first 2- week electricity bill.  I'm sure that there were some extenuating circumstances (like the broken AC and the movers who left all doors open for 6 hours and the triple digit heat) that contributed to the first bill.  But regardless, I have put myself on a personal mission to save electricity.  

Now, I've made it a habit to check all the light switches in the house before I leave and at night.  I follow my children around during the day so that when they leave a room I can make sure nothing has been left "on."  I follow around my husband when he's home too.  I  also found the perfect way to crack all the blinds during the day so that natural light is all we need!  (I thought this was pretty genius myself.) And I'm doing my best to teach my family how to ration electricity.  It's frustrating though!  Why a 3 year old must flip every light switch to the "on" position when he gets out of bed every morning, I'll never know. I am, however, starting to understand why my Dad used to get so irritated when he would go upstairs and find me basking in the light of multiple lamps and light fixtures as I turned the upstairs into my own personal dressing suite every morning.  (I suppose, in hind site, it wasn't that funny.)

Maybe I'm slightly loco about this issue.  Maybe I just had a good electricity-saving role model in my life.  Maybe we just take after our parents whether we want to or not.  But I'm betting that my electrical bill looks a lot better next month!