When I set out six months ago to chronicle Alisan's and my carbon neutral journey, I really had no sense of what I  would learn from our year-long quest to reduce our household's carbon footprint and tell the world wide web all about it.

First of all, I've learned that it's not hard to conjure up something to write about every day. Whether or not what I write is informative, entertaining or useful is another matter, and something for the reader to decide. But I must be doing something right–Google analytics tells me I've had 6,512 visitors and 12,887 page views since January 1st, with readers spending an average of two minutes and 26 seconds reading the journal.

Those are very modest numbers, of course, but they do tell me I've got a regular following (of family and friends, at least). Besides, they're not the numbers I'm focused on; they really have nothing to do with the progress Alisan and I are making in our efforts to become carbon neutral.

Here's a quick recap of the January through June numbers that really count:

• we're on track to reduce our use of electricity and natural gas by 10% for the year
• we've only driven 5781 miles and that includes two road trips (470 miles to Sun Valley and back, 1875 miles to Santa Fe and back) … even with upcoming trips to Oregon, California and Colorado, I think we've got a real chance to reduce last year's driving miles by 20%

On the spending front, we continue to invest in Green Power and carbon offsets for our car:

• 5 blocks of Lower Valley's Green Power at $3.50 per block = $105
• 1/2 the cost of our annual TerraPass = $40

One time expenses include:

• 23 compact fluorescent light bulbs through LVE's lighting audit = $25
• compost bin = $66
• beefing up the insulation in our home (per LVE's recommendation) = $650

Six months ago, if you had told me I'd spend $886 on various efforts to become carbon neutral, I don't know how I would have responded. If you had told me that writing a daily post would be relatively easy, I would have called you crazy. Today, I can honestly say it has been very satisfying, well worth the expense and something I look forward to doing for another six months … at least.

Carbon Neutral Journal's stats are brought to you by Blue Spruce Cleaners.

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