Some updates since our last posting:

• Thanks to the generosity of a neighbor, we were lent some software that allowed us to convert our old VHS tapes to digital video. We've posted two short videos of Kathy's mom, Pat van Melle, in the Senior Tournament of Jeopardy in August, 1991. Also, there's a snippet of a TV show that Scott was on around 1993 as part of the Computer Television Network.
• We found an old video of a 3-1/2-year-old Carly, too.
• There are 3 new photos in the photos section.

• Everyone's been knitting away. Carly knitted washclothes for her and Gillie, Gillie knitted blankets for the cats at the Wisconsin Humane Society, and Kathy knitted helmet liners for the troops.
• Kathy has posted recipes for oat burgers and red lentil and squash soup.
• The comments process had a few bugs in it that have been dealt with. All comments now require approval before they show up on the site because there has been a fair amount of "spam" comment posting.
• The images you see on the home page and in the photos section now pop up in a fancy "lightbox" pop-up instead of the drab separate browser window when you click on the photo. This is thanks to some free code off of the Internet.

Yanoff Family "Green" Tip(s):

We do our best to not waste water. As we've posted in previous entries, we have two rain barrels in which we collect water that we use outdoors, such as for washing garden tools or watering the garden. We rarely buy bottled water (see our great list of articles and information on this on our links page). We keep a bucket in the shower to collect that burst of water we use first thing in the morning while waiting for the shower to warm up, and then we use that water to flush the toilet.

But the most unusual things we do are this: we don't water our lawn any more, and we don't flush the toilet every time we pee. As Waukesha begins to lick its lips in anticipation of tapping into our water supply, they continue to water their huge lawns and wash their SUVs with their dwindling supply.

In the typical American home, the water breakdown is as follows:

  58.7% Landscaping (i.e., lawns)
  10.8% Toilet
  8.7% Clothes washer
  6.8% Shower
  6.3% Faucet
  5.5% Leaks
  0.6% Dishwasher
Source: The Urban Homestead (page 227) by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen

Sure, our lawn gets brown towards the end of summer if we're not getting frequent rain showers, but that's a natural state for grass when it lacks water; it's made to go dormant. Unattractive? Perhaps, but what does it really matter? And yes, it's a bit weird opening the toilet lid and not finding perfectly clear water in the bowl, but do we really need to send a gallon of water down the bowl just to wash down a little bit of yellow liquid? How squeemish are we that we have to flush every time at home? It's a small price to pay for doing our part to help out humanity.

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Some updates since our last posting:

• As requested by a few of you, I've programmed a way to leave comments for each posting.
• This year's school portraits for Gillie and Carly have been posted.
• Kathy's posted Dalva's recipe for Seitan Stroganoff, which was a hit at Thanksgiving this year.
• There are several new photos of the girls and the cats.
• The vegetarian restaurants page has been updated. We were sad to see Good Life close because of the lack of traffic, literally, due to the Humboldt Street bridge construction work. We added the Centro Café, however, which is a nice find right around the corner from us in RiverWest.

The December 2009 issue of M Magazine commented on how poorly Wisconsin ranked, 25th, in terms of fruit and vegetable consumption. The lastest data I could find was from 2003, which had Wisconsin tied for a dismal 37th. A full break-down for Wisconsin by gender, age group, ethnicity, and age is available from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. M Magazine, by the way, hardly qualifies as journalism, but it shows up on the doorstep of everyone in the North shore as a painful paean to the vanity of the suburbs in which we reside.

Lastly, consider printing the Burn Calories, Not Electricity sign that has been showing up in NYC. The posters in NYC encourage people to take the stairs instead of the elevator, which is something I continually guide people to do at work. I printed the sign and posted it outside of my cubicle and taking the stairs from the main floor to my cubicle is only a 3-floor trip.

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There's been a debate about downloading or streaming music for many years now on the Internet. As CD sales slip, the music industry has been blaming piracy. Interestingly, survey results were released earlier this week that revealed that the people doing the illegal downloading are still spending more on music than those who claim that they never download music dishonestly. In fact, the study reveals that they spend twice as much.

I'm not one of those people who can simply hear a song or an album and know I want to buy it. Unless it's a proven artist, the 30-second samples offered by sites such as Amazon.com don't cut it for me, either. I avoid the download sites, however, but I get CDs from the library and put them on my iPod for me to survey over a few weeks. Nearly two years ago, I made a pledge to pay for any music I had on my iPod that I hadn't paid for, or I would delete it. I ended up spending at least $100 to purchase songs that I knew I was listening to and were well past my timeframe for deciding.

The "play count" feature in iTunes helped reveal that I really was listening to the songs enough that I surely was beyond evaluating them, yet it also helped me know what was wasting space on my iPod. Since not everyone has access to a wonderful library system such as we have in Milwaukee county (where I can visit their website and request anything in the library system to be delivered to my library in Shorewood), I can understand where some of these illegal downloaders are coming from. I've been tempted to do the same myself, but I've avoided doing so (and in turn, the wrath of the RIAA).

Albums, on the other hand, are not available for downloading but many are offered up as free streams. I don't like these as much because it requires me to be near a computer in order to evaluate them, whereas the ability to put something on my iPod means that I can evaluate it any time I have my iPod with me, such as on the bus, in the car, or when doing house or yard work.

Recently, I took a chance on a guy/band I'd never heard of, Langhorne Slim. His new album, Be Set Free, was streaming from MSN and after about five listens, I knew I would purchase it. Sometimes, bands stream their music from MySpace, but they usually don't offer an entire album. Another route is to look up a band that you know has a new album coming out and find out their website. It's not unusual for them to stream part or all of a new album. David Byrne and Brian Eno offered up their latest album, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, on their site. This is one of the best albums of 2008, and I wouldn't have know that had I not had the opportunity to stream it for my evaluation and subsequent purchase. Heck, Coldplay even went as far as to offer a free live album up for download recently.

So, while I'm not in favor of illegal downloading, I think it is time for the recording industry to realize that there's a ton of music out there, radio can't play it all, and therefore people need a way of evaluating music in advance. With the advent of the single-song purchase, we've seen a decrease in overall album quality as artists look to make their money off of a couple of big hits rather than a all-out album. I believe that this is another reason why album sales are down.

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Have you ever had a perfect day or night? I'm talking about the kind of day that you look back on months or even years later and still get a warm feeling about. Sure, there are the life events that you will always remember: a wedding day, the birth of a child, a bar or bat mitzvah. But I'm talking about something outside of milestone events. For me, a lot of my best days or nights have been associated with concerts. It's probably because I enjoy music so much.

This past summer, Kathy and I went to see Coldplay at Alpine Valley on a bit of a whim. Their latest release, Viva La Vida, had been in regular rotation on our CD player. We often try to catch a band when they're touring for an album we enjoy so much, but I knew they were playing at Alpine Valley and I was not interested in going out of fear that we'd be stuck on the lawn. About two weeks before the show, I did a few searches for tickets and found someone at my company was selling tickets in the reserved section. He priced them higher than face value because of the proximity to the concert date and the fact that they were such hot tickets. Impulsively, I bought the tickets and set up the evening for Kathy and I.

I remember leaving the girls with the sitter and hitting the road early so that we could grab a bite to eat before the show. As we drove to East Troy for the show, we cracked up listening to Tenacious D's debut album (vulgar, but really a hoot). On a tip from a friend, we had a reservation at the Alpine Valley Resort, which allowed us to bypass the lengthy line to enter the outdoor theater's parking lot and instead leave our car at the resort that was just a short walk away from the amphitheater. While their food wasn't the best, it was enjoyable having time for a sit-down dinner while we overlooked the snowless ski slopes of the valley. We left our car at the resort while people were still trying to find parking and hiked up the path to the venue where we found our seats quickly. I had resisted reading too much about the show, so for once the set list would be a surprise (set list).

Now, I know that not everyone is into Coldplay and while I was expecting a good show, I have to say that we ended up seeing a great show, maybe second in our lifetimes only to the U2 ZooTV Outside Broadcast from Camp Randall Stadium in Madison (9/13/1992 - review, set list) Maybe it was the fact that they were touring for an album we just enjoyed so much coupled with the whimsical nature of their show. They came out waving sparklers as they found their marks on the stage and from there it was just them having fun with a large but polite crowd. They dumped gigantic yellow balloons on the audience for "Yellow", went out to not one but two separate stages situated out amongst the audience (and they even got rained on at one of them), shot tissue-paper butterflies all over the crowd during "Lovers in Japan", and gave everyone a free "live" CD on their way out. Kathy and I were still on Cloud 9 a week after the show.

That U2 show from 1992 was another one of those perfect evenings. My friend, Laura, drove a group of us out to Madison for the show, where we picked up my friend, Neil, who lived there. Since she had a Toyota Corolla, the 5 people already in the car were packed in and so when we picked up Neil we had to lay him across our laps in the back seat. I just remember the complete visual assault of the show, the warm breeze blowing at us during "With or Without You", and how it was just an odd group of people coming together to see this band. Between the 6 of us, we had both genders represented, multiple countries of origin (America, India, and Mexico), and multiple religious backgrounds (Jewish, Catholic, Muslim). It was just the kind of melting pot that Bono dreams of.

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Family / website news:

• Scott's taken to playing pick-up games of Ultimate Frisbee on Sundays at Atwater school. It's like soccer, only with a Frisbee. It's 2 hours of start-and-stop running, excellent exercise but very draining.
• We continue to experience mileage over 30 mpg with Ruby, our new Honda Fit.
• The photos section, and quotes section. and vegetarian restaurants have had small updates recently.

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Sometimes, the Universe just gives you what you need. Okay, the reality is that we've been on the lookout for a desk for Gillie's room since we moved the small computer table that was serving as a desk downstairs so that we'd have a PC downstairs. So, when I noticed a candidate curbside on Marion St., I got Gillie and showed her the desk. She liked what she saw, so we put Ruby (that's what we're calling the new car) to her first "fit" test by popping the hatchback and putting down the "magic seats". The desk fit in the Fit, and Gillie got the thrill of riding in the front seat for the first time as we made the 2-minute trek back home. It's a pretty old-school desk, as in "they don't make 'em like that anymore". It's solid wood and after some sanding and painting, it looks good-as-new. Add this to the list of free curbside finds, which include a sofa, Weider weight bench, and hammock stand.

Don't get me wrong, I pay for new items when warranted. Not wanting to take a chance on a one- or two-year old model, the car we recently purchased was a new one. Similarly, we choose to purchase some of our electronic devices brand-new, although my favorite device, my iPod Classic, was a bargain from the Apple Refurbished site, which still gives the same 1-year warranty as a new iPod. But in reading things like Cradle to Cradle, we think more about just how many "new" things we need versus being able to re-use an existing item.

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5 Myths About Health Care Around the World is an August 23 article from the Washington Post by T.R. Reid. Not that we're necessarily going to completely model our health insurance after the rest of the world's, but this article does a great job at dispelling some purported myths about the proposed health care changes.

Meanwhile, a September 29 article in the USA Today entitled Health Care Around the Globe offered a direct comparison of America's health care compared to other industrialized nations. Check out the table showing how our health care system stacks up against other countries. Notice that we have the lowest life expectancy and highest infant mortality rate? Given that, I'm not sure what so many Americans are afraid of losing when we're already ranked 50th in terms of life expectancy according to the CIA World Factbook.

Of course, the "elephant in the room" that is not being talked about in conjunction with reforming health care is reforming our food system, as written about by Michael Pollan in a September 9 op-ed piece for the NY Times entitled Big Food vs. Big Insurance which we wrote about in our September 11 website posting.

Anyway, here's the table from the USA Today article in case you don't want to follow the link or read the whole article. The highlighting is mine.

BY THE NUMBERS: How the U.S. health care system stacks up against other countries on some key financial and medical indicators

	USA	Germany	Sweden	Canada	Italy	Spain	Australia	Netherlands	United Kingdom	France
percentage of health expenses as a share of Gross Domestic Product, 2007	16%	10.4%	9.1%	10.1%	8.7%	8.5%	8.7%3	9.8%1	8.4%	11%
percentage of health expenses paid with public funds, 2007	45.4%	6.9%	81.7%	70%	76.5%	71.8%	67.7%	62.5%**	81.7%	79%
Life expectancy at birth, 2009{+1} (in years)	78.1	79.3	80.9	81.2	80.2	80.1	81.6	79.4	79	81
Infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births, 2009{+1}	6.3	4	2.8	5	5.5	4.2	4.8	4.7	4.9	3.3
percentage of people who want to completely change the health care system, 2008	33%	17%	NA	12%2	20%	12%	18%2	9%2	15%	15%
Inpatient surgical procedures per 1,000 population, 2004	90	79	62	45	53	51	51	40	63	NA
Hospital bed occupancy, 2005	67%	76%	NA	90%	76%	71.6%	71%	64%	84%	75%

1 — estimate; 2 — 2007; 3 — 2006;

** — 2002 Sources: McKinsey; The Commonwealth Fund; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; Central Intelligence Agency; The Harris Poll; Spanish Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs

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It looks like toy car, doesn't it? It's our first car purchase in 11 years; the replacement for our 1998 Toyota Corolla which just passed the 100,000-mile mark. We made the switch to Honda not out of any frustration with Toyota; we've always been happy with Toyota cars. However, the base version of the Honda Fit we purchased gives us what feels like more room. The hatchback combined with the "magic" seats that fold down in the back mean that this can quickly turn into a great cargo vehicle when necessary.

The gas mileage is pretty darn good; we expect to hit in the 30s as we bought a manual transmission and aren't carrying around very heavy people or cargo. We first went to David Hobbs Honda and, having received a less-than-enthusiastic response to our request to drive a Fit or something similar, we headed up to Russ Darrow where the more-accomodating salesperson got us into a car quickly for a test drive. As we had specific requirements (base model instead of the sport model, manual transmission, and no dealer add-ons -- can you tell we're no-nonsense when it comes to a car purchase), and the overly-successful cash-for-clunkers program emptied out Fit inventories across the country, the dealer found either a black one or a red one in the surrounding states. Having owned black cars (and white cars) in the past and knowing our infrequent exterior cleaning of our vehicle, we wanted a color that wouldn't show off dirt as easily. So, after some deliberation, we chose the red one. If we really are using a car to get from point-A to point-B, then we don't really worry so much about color, spoilers, pinstripes, alloy wheels, etc.

The Fit we purchased has a built-in mpg read-out, which ideally scratches that urge to track mileage. Given our propensity for a "green" lifestyle, I am sure many of you are wondering why we didn't purchase a hybrid such as the Honda Insight or the Toyota Prius. On our recent vacation to the Virginias, we rented a Prius for a week. The mileage was killer (50 mpg), but the visibility was horrible as were the touch-screen controls, and everyone seems to forget that once the battery in a hybrid needs to be replaced you are forking over another $3,000. Scott's cousin, David, even did a cost comparison between the Honda Fit and the Insight on his blog. David showed that the fuel cost savings from the Insight versus its premium sticker price would take 29.2 years of driving in order to break even with the fuel-sippin' Fit. Regardless, we're still favoring bike over car whenever possible, as well as bus over car for Scott's trip to work. After all, who wants to end up like these lazy people?

Yanoff family energy usage by the numbers.

Electric Usage 2007 — 2009

We've definitely benefited from a cool summer. Still, we rarely use air-conditioning and instead opt for fans. In previous Yanoff Family "Green" Tips, we've posted some of our money-saving ways such as using ceiling fans, programmable thermostats, and moving our entertainment devices that don't need to remain on (VCR, stereo, bedroom TV, computers) to power strips that we turn off nightly. In mid-2006, we switched from a gas dryer to an electric dryer yet our electrical usage continues to diminish. In looking at our electrical usage for the past several years, it is obvious that a newer, larger refrigerator contributed to an increase in our electrical usage, so we've been consistent with our vacuuming of the coils. Putting "vampire" devices (those that continue to suck power even when in standby mode or appear "off") on a few power strips and shutting the power strips off seemed to start a downward trend ever since.

Gas Usage 2007 — 2009

Our gas usage hasn't had the same consistent downward trend, even with moving from a gas dryer to an electric one. We got a new hot water heater in October, 2006. While it's a newer, more energy-efficient model, what greatly helped was taking the default temperature of 120 degrees down to around 112 degrees. We never run out of water for our showers in our family of four yet we don't have to worry about scalding. Today's dishwashers don't need the water that hot because they have built-in heating elements that heat the water no matter what. Of course, in much the same manner that our electrical usage has benefited from mild summers, a really cold winter a year ago didn't help our gas usage in 2007 even with our energy-saving efforts.

We've posted some photos of our recent family vacation to West Virginia and Virginia. The pictures give a pretty good impression of the vacation, but here's a quick run-down otherwise of our week away:

• Friday - Sunday: We spent 3 nights in West Virginia at Kathy's brother Andy's place. The girls got to spend a lot of time with their cousin, Anna Lisa, as well as her new puppy, Goldie. Sister-in-law Dalva is still a fantastic cook and introduced us to several new vegan dishes that we need the recipe for.
• Monday: We drove the Skyline Drive through the Shenendoah Valley. It was a slow, beautiful ride where we saw about a dozen deer (including one that came close to our car which you will see in the photos). We had a great night at The White Pig which was a vegan bed & breakfast. We got a suite which meant that the girls got their own room just down the hall from us. We were the only people in the place that night so it was nice. The owner, Dina, had baked some vegan cupcakes for us as a snack that day and we were able to enjoy a homemade vegan breakfast of soy yogurt and Belgian waffles on Tuesday morning.
• Tuesday: We headed to Monticello and explored Jefferson's mansion that he designed. It was a hot day, but we made it through the tour as well as exploring the surrounding plantation.
• Wednesday: We visited Colonial Williamsburg on another sweltering day. The girls seemed to like it, but after several hours we hit the road for our final stop, Virginia Beach.
• Thursday - Friday: Having been graciously hosted by Andy and Dalva for the first few days of our trip, we had planned to splurge with a beachfront stay at the Hilton hotel. The hotel was really nice and in a happenin' spot on the multi-mile boardwalk. Along with direct access to the beach, 20 floors up was a roof-top pool and hot tub which was a fun stop before we eventually braved the sun and sand. When we did, we relaxed so much that we literally spent a day in sand and ocean and we each ended with a sunburn somewhere. The Hilton was a bit frustrating as the check-in for our reservation was 4 p.m. yet they didn't have a room for us for about 20 minutes (and a missing morning paper didn't help make things any better). Special treats included renting multi-person family bicycles for nighttime rides on the boardwalk as well as an unexpected show by some wild dolphins barely 40 feet offshore.

It was a tough weekend as we had to say goodbye to Lucy after 16 years. She was a good cat who we will always remember for the way she'd bat around a wadded-up piece of paper, how she'd sneak up on us at the dinner table and "tag" us, or how she'd knead Scott's stomach about 50 times after a meal and then end up going over to Kathy's lap and conking out there. She got sick rather suddenly which made us a bit unprepared for her getting sick and us having to put her to sleep, but in her honor we've scanned in some older photos of her and put a few of the photos up in the Photos section. While you are there, check out some recent photos of the girls atop the massive hill at the very curvy part of North Avenue, taken last weekend.

Today we went to the Schultz Aquatic Center with Kathy's sister's family and had a good time. The cost is a complete bargain for a nice, new water park. It's nothing to compare to the Dells, but for $6.75 you get a pool, a lazy river, and a couple of slides. Situated on Hampton Avenue, it's a great mix of people from the city and the suburbs with (over-) attentive lifeguards and the watchful eye of the Sheriff's department. The water temperature was good but on a 90-degree Sunday such as today, the park fills up a lot in the early afternoon so we'd recommend timing a trip to the earliest part of the day.

We are off to West Virginia and Virginia soon for our annual family vacation. Our next posting will probably be of details and photos from our trip.

Website updates:

• There are some new photos of the mantids, the hawks, the garden and Gillie and Scott's 1st-degree black belts.
• There is a new photo section that contains historical documents related to Van Melle and Yanoff Family History.
• We've made it to another one or two vegetarian- and vegan-friendly restaurants and added them to our Vegetarian and Vegan Restaurants in Milwaukee list.

Other news:

• Happy birthday to Dad and Tina today!
• We've got our annual family vacation planned. We're heading to West Virginia to spend a couple of days with Kathy's brother, Andy, and then exploring parts of Virginia, including the Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah Valley, Monticello, Colonial Williamsburg, and Virginia Beach. If we have time, we'll make it to a museum or additional historical location.
• We're getting involved in an herbicide-free-Shorewood movement. Actually, it's more like we're starting one with a few neighbors (but in a 1-square-mile village such as Shorewood, isn't everyone a neighbor, really?
• We're on the path to get a new car in August. We've had the Toyota Corolla since before Gillie was born (1998). The engine's still great as it is about to pass 100,000 miles but our family is ready for something with more clever use of storage space, so we're thinking about a Honda Fit.
• An expression read on a Facebook friend's site: Pay the grocer, not the doctor. That simple phrase sums up a lot of our dietary philosophy.

Website updates:

• There are some videos of Scott and Gillie's successful test for 1st-degree black belts in Taekwondo.
• There are some new photos.

Some website updates:

• The artwork section has Gillie's submission for this year's Doodle for Google contest.
• There is a photo of the finished garden beds, with Kathy having added some frames for a grid to designate for specific crops.
• We've made it to a few more vegetarian- and vegan-friendly restaurants and added them to our Vegetarian and Vegan Restaurants in Milwaukee list. We were especially ga-ga over the pizza at Marchese's Olive Pit, had some nice sandwiches at the Fuel Cafe, and enjoyed great brunch options at Ginger. The list now offers the option to show only places that serve breakfast along with a "recommended" icon next to our favorites.

And to our fellow neighbors in Shorewood: good news — the city now recycles electronic equipment for free (except for TVs and appliances) on the first Saturday of every month.

Yanoff Family "Green" Tip(s):

One frugal yet effective way to be "green" is to buy used items instead of always buying new (and thereby forcing what may be a perfectly reasonable used item to end up in a landfill). Recently, Scott bought a pair of gap khakis in his hard-to-find size off of eBay. They were labeled "NWT", for "New With Tag" and if you know your size but have to shell out money for the same type of business casual clothes from time to time, eBay is a great option for this. His $44 Gap khakis were less than half that from eBay. Kathy's had luck finding jeans on eBay as well.

Another option is "freecycling", which is basically either swapping items with someone or lucking out on something someone left on their curb. This is fantastic alternative to simply throwing something out, or buying something new. There's a Yahoo Group, MilwaukeeWIFreecycle, that you can join and post something you'd like to give away, or something you are interested in. We haven't picked anything up from the group yet, although there seems to be a tradition in our area where people put something on their curb when they are done with it in the hopes of neighborhood scavengers finding a use for it. Here is a list of the best freebies we've found curb-side so far:

• Sofa (currently in our basement)
• Hammock stand (est. value $100)
• Weider pro weight bench (est. value $80)
• A new desk for Gillie
• Swiffer wet jet
• A full set of Taekwondo sparring equipment
• Office chairs
• Halloween decorations and misc garden ornaments
• Garden hose reel

I'm an avid fan of Fareed Zakaria's, and I subscribe to his feed from Newsweek. A while ago, he had an excellent article that I'm just getting around to posting. It's a great article on the economy, along with some comparisons to our neighbors to the North. Now, I'm not in any hurry to head for Canada, but that's not to say that we can't learn a thing or two from them. The article can be found here, but here are the salient points:

• The Canadian tax code does not provide the massive incentive for overconsumption that the U.S. code does: interest on your mortgage isn't deductible up north. Interest deductibility alone costs the federal government $100 billion a year — because they allow the average Joe to fulfill the American Dream of owning a home.
• In addition, home loans in the United States are "non-recourse," which basically means that if you go belly up on a bad mortgage, it's mostly the bank's problem. In Canada, it's yours.
• Sixty-eight percent of Americans own their own homes. And the rate of Canadian homeownership? It's 68.4 percent.
• Not only do they have housing figured out, they also have a solvent pension system versus our troubled Social Security system, and its health-care system is cheaper than America's by far (accounting for 9.7 percent of GDP, versus 15.2 percent here), and yet does better on all major indexes.
• Life expectancy in Canada is 81 years, versus 78 in the United States; "healthy life expectancy" is 72 years, versus 69. American car companies have moved so many jobs to Canada to take advantage of lower health-care costs that since 2004, Ontario and not Michigan has been North America's largest car-producing region.

I know it's a bit of a controversial topic, but I think what Zakaria is pointing out is that homeownership may not be for everyone, and even without the incentives that America provides, Canadians still found a way to more than match the American rate of home ownership.

We saw a great show by Neko Case on Saturday, April 25, at the Riverside Theatre. She's one of Scott's all-time favorite performers and this was the 2nd time we've seen Neko (the first was in September 2008). Here's my attempt at a set list. Or, is it setlist?

1. Maybe Sparrow
2. People Got a Lotta Nerve
3. Fever
4. Hold On, Hold On
5. The Pharohs
6. Middle Cyclone
7. Deep Red Bells
8. I Wish I Was the Moon
9. I'm an Animal
10. Prison Girls
11. The Tigers Have Spoken
12. Margaret vs. Pauline
13. Red Tide
14. Don't Forget Me (a Harry Nilsson cover)
15. That Teenage Feeling
16. This Tornado Loves You (w/ Crooked Fingers)

Encore:

17. Vengeance is Sleeping
18. Favorite
19. Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth (a Sparks cover)
20. Magpie to the Morning
21. Knock Loud

First off, back to the basics. Here's what is new on the site in the past month:

• We've finally put up some family photos and videos for 2009.
• In case you haven't noticed lately, there are new quotes for 2009 from both Carly and Gillie.
• Check out the updated vegetarian restaurants list as well.

Meanwhile, we spent our Spring Break in town and were fortunate enough to have some really great weather. Along with the usual yardwork, we put together 3 garden boxes. These will serve to replace and expand upon what Kathy started last year with the replacement of a third of our backyard in favor of vegetables. We've met several like-minded people in the area who are promoting a "Move Grass, Grow Food" movement. Kathy and Carly made several signs, one of which is now in our front yard. It seems that our backyard vegetarian movement is complimented by a fully-carnivorous diet of mice, chipmunks, and rabbits being carried out by the hawks that always return to our area in the spring. There's photos of them in the photos section, although someday we'll get a camera with a really great zoom on it and get some better photos.

It's been a while since our last update and there really hasn't been much to report. Carly continues with the flute and seems to have a knack for it. Gillie went to her fourth piano Federation and received an Excellent rating to end her 3-year streak of Superior ratings.

Meanwhile, here is what is new on the site:

• The Vegetarian section has some updates, such as some new articles on bottled water in the articles section and updates to the blogs, books, and vegetarian restaurants sections.

Yanoff Family "Green" Tip(s): With the economy the way it is, people are looking for cheaper living ideas. Just last year, we used up most of our common household cleaning products and started making our own. At the time, the driver wasn't just cost, but the fact that all of these cleaners consist of unnatural, and probably harmful, chemicals and colorings. We often use these store-bought cleaners and don't think twice about what may be in them, and how spraying them into the air or on the surfaces we touch and eat off of may affect us.

We haven't replaced everything with homemade products. There's some very eco-friendly dishwasher detergent available at the big-box grocery stores, and we're still fans of Murphy's wood oil for cleaning our floors. Our smelly blue window cleaner has been replaced, however, by basic club soda. We were surprised to find that the spray nozzle from the window cleaner easily transferred to the top of the soda bottle. The magic ingredient, sodium citrate, softens water spots and other grime on mirrors, windows, and TV screens. It's even fairly safe to use in a pinch on a wall or grimy kitchen surface.

Meanwhile, our toilet bowl cleaner and general countertop cleaner have been replaced by a homemade solution consisting of liquid hand soap, baking soda, white vinegar, water, and tea tree oil. The tea tree oil can be purchased from Outpost Foods or other stores of that nature. It can seem expensive for a small bottle of organic oil, but because you're using drops of it at a time as opposed to spoonfuls, it goes a long way. We use the tea tree oil because it not only has a pleasant smell, but it supposedly has disinfecting properties as well, which makes it ideal for cleaning the toilet bowls and countertops. The baking soda provides enough grit to make it useful for scrubbing gunk off of countertops and possibly even for bathtubs. There's a great book you can get from the library called Clean House, Clean Planet by Karen Logan that has all kinds of cheap but safe household recipes.

We've had great success mopping our floors with warm water and some peppermint oil in the summer. It makes the house smell good and the peppermint throws off any trails ants that make their way into the house lay down. It's definitely a safe form of ant control. And, a couple of drops of the oil in the trunk of the car make their way into the car itself and are better than any car freshener you can buy.

The one thing we haven't found is a recipe for Clean Shower, which seemed to hold soap scum and mold at bay when we spritzed it on our shower walls after showering. We've been using a squeegee pretty effectively, however.

Neko Case has a new single out, and it is FREE to download! Every time a blog reposts "People Got A Lotta Nerve" by Neko Case, her record company will donate five dollars to the Best Friends Foundation. "People Got a Lotta Nerve" is Case's first single from her forthcoming solo album, "Middle Cyclone", due March 3.

Download the song via her record company, Anti records: http://www.anti.com/media/download/708