Until I was in the market for shades, I didn’t realize that they can actually make a big difference in insulating your windows. Shades that present a continuous barrier, like roman or honeycomb (cellular) shades, can raise the R-value (resistence to heat flow) of your window significantly. And honeycomb shades create pockets of air that are even more insulating. (Double-paned windows are based on the same concept.) I like to think of it like adding layers of clothes—it’s the air in between that makes you warmer.

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A typical window has an R-value of anywhere between 1 and 3. By adding honeycomb shades, you can more than double that, especially for older and single-paned windows.

We ended up choosing single-cell honeycombs for our living room because we’re on the first floor and wanted to allow light in when the shades were down, but double- or even triple-cell shades would be more efficient. Adding side tracks to the triple-cell shades would create a full barrier around the window and make them as efficient as possible. I think we’ll look into those for the rest of the house.

Honeycombs are more expensive than regular blinds, but like most efficiency upgrades, they’ll pay for themselves in energy savings. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that heat loss through windows can account for 10-25% of heating bills.

Of course, the absolute best thing you can do is replace old windows with more efficient ones. But if, like us, you’re renting, adding honeycomb shades is something easy that you can do to improve your home’s efficiency—and save money on heating bills.

This weekend we got Oliver a huuuuge cat tree. We weren’t sure he’d use it, but he immediately climbed straight to the top. Now he’s sleeping on it, watching our bird feeder from it, tossing his toys up and down it, and doing acrobatic leaps off it. It’s a real hit.

Isn't he adorable?

Now you might be thinking, “Isn’t this an environmental blog, not a pet blog?” I do admit to a ridiculous fascination with my cats, but keeping them indoors is actually an environmental issue. Domestic cats are unnatural predators for birds and small mammals whose populations may already be declining because of habitat loss. According to the American Bird Conservancy, “nationwide, cats kill hundreds of millions of birds, and more than a billion small mammals, such as rabbits, squirrels, and chipmunks, each year.”

Feral cats are a major part of this problem (which is why we need more trap, neuter, return programs), but 65% of housecats are allowed outdoors. These pampered, healthy, well-fed cats have an unfair advantage over wild birds and their native predators. This is why the Audubon Society and the American Birds Conservancy strongly recommend keeping cats indoors.

But it’s not just me and the bird people who think cats should be kept inside. The Humane Society, the ASPCA, and vets recommend it, as well, for the well-being of the cats themselves. According to the ASPCA, the average indoor cat lives 10-12 years, while the average outdoor cat lives only 2 years.  Outside dangers include traffic, predators (dogs, foxes, hawks), diseases from other cats (rabies, FIV, feline leukemia), poisons (antifreeze, pesticides, herbicides, rat bait), parasites, cruel people…the list goes on and on.

People often worry that their cats’ quality of life will be reduced if they’re kept inside, but proper enrichment can make their lives very fulfilling. The important thing is to allow them to engage in their natural behaviors, like hunting, scratching, climbing, and hiding. The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine’s Indoor Cat Initiative has lots of information on this—you should check it out.

The cat tree is a step in the right direction. One other thing that we do along these lines is hide Oliver’s food in his various toys and perches around the house. We began doing it to give Jasmine time to eat without him bothering her, but we’ve kept it up because he seems to like “hunting” for his food.

We love our cats and the birds who come to our feeder; by keeping the cats happy indoors we’re protecting them both.

Now that we’ve closed all the windows, my allergies are acting up again. They periodically will until spring, depending on how often we clean the house and bathe the cats. I go through a frightening number of tissues—not even recycled, but the good ones with lotion, so I can avoid the dreaded lizard nose.

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To cut back on my tissue use at least a little bit, I bought some handkerchiefs to use at home. But I just can’t figure out how to make them practical. I decided to use them only one day each and tried to find out how to fold them properly, but I’m still a little grossed out when I pull out a used handkerchief. There don’t seem to be any general tips out there. Doesn’t anyone even use them anymore? My dad does, but he just balls them up and sticks them in his pocket. Ew! Maybe if I store them in an old tissue box and toss them into the laundry after one use? That would solve my storage problem, but it wouldn’t be very efficient. Any suggestions?

This weekend we were able to prep a lot of food for future meals. We didn’t cook all the meals themselves (although that would be a good idea, too), but components of them. We’re really pressed for time during the week, and by doing this on the weekend we can have homemade meals but cut the prep time in half.

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We prepared:

• blueberry/almond granola
• potatoes for hash browns
• apples for apple crisp
• pesto
• squash for fall harvest couscous
• sweet potatoes for sweet potato/black bean burritos

We also made “chicken” tortilla soup (with salsa we’d canned this summer from tomatoes our landlord gave us), and half of that is in the freezer right now.

This was the first time we made this flavor of granola (we did raisins and cashews before), but I think it’s going to be a favorite. We had it mixed into our oatmeal this morning, but it’s also a yummy snack.

The hash browns turned out to be more like fried mashed potatoes (also good!). Next time I’m going for hash browns, I’ll definitely cook the potatoes less—more like blanching than actually cooking.

The apple crisp was for a brunch, so to prevent me from cutting off a finger first thing in the morning I cut up the apples the night before and put them in the freezer to stop them from discoloring. I don’t even know if that last part was necessary, but the crisp came out great. (Unless my friends were just being nice about it….)

It’s getting awfully chilly, so we pulled our basil plants inside and made another batch of pesto. I didn’t even know I liked pesto until we started making it ourselves. We freeze it in ice cube trays (pre-parmesan) and then transfer the cubes to a freezer bag to use later.

The fall harvest couscous is for lunch later this week—having the squash pre-roasted and seasoned should save us time first thing in the morning. I just hope it doesn’t end up being too mushy, like the potatoes.

The sweet potato/black bean burritos will be dinner some night this week, and we’ll freeze the extra burritos for later. We’ve done this before and it’s delicious—maybe my current favorite meal.

We don’t often have the time to do this sort of thing, but when we do, it feels good. I’m thinking next weekend we’ll can some applesauce and apple butter, and freeze apple slices for crisp and pie. I don’t much like winter, but I do like wanting to use our stove again.

Boston Gal’s Open Wallet turned me onto Don’t Throw It Out: Recycle, Renew, and Reuse to Make Things Last. As embarrassed as I am to admit this about a book put out by the editors of Yankee Magazine, I’m actually really happy to have found it. It’s full of all kinds of tips on how to maintain the things you own (or, if all else fails, how to use them in different ways).

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I’m sure I could have found much of this information online, but it would have taken a long time, and I would have been wading through a lot of useless ideas. And most valuable are the tips I wouldn’t have thought to look up because I didn’t even know they existed. (Like, did you know they sell paint-on sealants to stop your dishwasher rack from rusting? Me either.)

That said, this is more of a reference book than one you’d read straight through, so I think I’m going to return this to the library and buy a copy. Then I can stick post-its on the parts I especially want to remember to revisit.

Marking the pertinent info is especially important because different chapters feel like they’re for wildly different audiences. For instance, I’m very interested in cleaning tips. (Like don’t use glass cleaner on mirrors, because if they seep onto the back, they cause the silver to oxidize, resulting in black edges.) However, the chapter on how to make crafts from things you’d otherwise throw away fell on painfully deaf ears. (Can you imagine me making coasters out of old CDs?) And the chapter on how to maintain your computer doesn’t say much I don’t already know (although Jason’s mom could probably use it). That’s a little reassuring, actually, because I feel that if their info on computers is good, the chapters on stuff I don’t know about might be solid, too.

Reading this makes me think that I must have missed something growing up. I have a hard time with basic household tasks that a lot of people seem to take for granted, like cooking without a recipe or sewing. Jason does better than me, but he’s still very much an amateur. Our house would be much more efficient if one of us could do these things well. Does the Cambridge Center for Adult Ed offer remedial Home Ec?