Before we get into our Challenge, I thought we should elaborate a bit more on our baseline situation.

1. Living Location: We live in a house that was built in 1908. It is about 1400 square feet. The house sits on two lots, with a total area of 4/10th of an acre. We live in a Chicago suburb at the end of the Metra commuter train line, about 60 miles from the city. A trip into the City on an express train is about 1 1/2 hours. It takes that long to drive too.

2. Windows: In 2001, when we moved in, we replaced the old downstairs windows that were painted shut. We chose vinyl, mostly because of cost, and we aren't quite sure how energy efficient they are. The main consideration at the time was that we wanted to be able to open windows! The upstairs windows were not replaced because they still opened.

3. Air Conditioning: We do not have central air. We use two window A/C units - one upstairs and one down. We usually put them in late June, and take them out in early October. Our house, in part because it is old, has lots of mature trees around it, so we don't get a lot of direct sun in summer. This is a negative for growing tomatoes, but a real positive for A/C use. We rarely have the A/C on while sleeping, opting instead to open windows and put on a ceiling fan.

4. Electricity Use: Tom is a fanatic about turning off lights and not wasting electricity. I agree with him on this, but I can also be forgetful, so it's a good thing that he reminds me a lot! The reason I bring this up is that we rarely have more lights on than we actually need at any given moment.

5. Commute: I drive about 20 miles to work (40 miles roundtrip) each day, and Tom drives about 30 miles each way (60 miles r/t). When we first moved here, I took the train 2-3 days a week, but when that job ended, I started driving because my new job wasn't near the train. Tom used to work 3 blocks from the house, but he switched jobs last year and started a commute. The decision was mainly so we could spend more time together - his nearby job was in the evening and some weekends, which meant very little time together.

6. Yard work: We have taken out about half the lawn and replaced it with native plantings. We have two electric lawn mowers - one only holds about 45 minutes of charge, which until we took out so much of the lawn, was about how long it took to mow half the yard.