5-minute shower

In an effort to continually increase my level of "greenness", my good friend Andrea got me something to try out. It's just a little hourglass similar to the one below that helps you be aware of the time that you are in the shower and how much water you are using. Not only will this help me save water but also will help cut down on our water bill too, which is always a good thing.

Since I did a lot of cleaning up yesterday, and trying to get organized, I finally got it in my shower and so this morning decided to try it out. And I made it in under 5 minutes! I got a little quicker at the end trying to get the conditioner out of my hair so that I wouldn't go over, but I think for the most part I usually do a good job of taking pretty quick showers. So try it out. You can get a shower timer at a ton of places, but here's a link that I found this morning for one that's only $4. Or you can just take your kitchen timer in the bathroom with you too. At least when those 5 minutes are up you get an alarm to jolt you awake in the morning!

I found a quote in The Green Book at work, saying that Jennifer Aniston takes only three minute showers. That's pretty amazing b/c I took up almost every second of that 5 minute timer this morning. But the quote she said was thought provoking "I found out that every 2 minutes in the shower uses as much water as a person in Africa uses for everything in their life for a whole day - drinking, bathing, cooking, and cleaning...everything!" That's pretty amazing. So yeah, try it out and see if you can cut your showers down to 5 minutes or less. It's a small thing, but still every little bit helps!