Young Cultivator Merit Badge: Energize Me, Beginner Level

The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 7,387 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—10,656 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! ~MaryJane 

For this week’s Cleaning Up/Energize Me Beginner Level Young Cultivator Merit Badge, Andy and I went on a tour of his house, pen and paper at the ready. We were List-maker Extraordinaires already, and now we were putting our skillz to good use: counting everything around the house that uses energy, how our food is kept cold, how the car starts, even how we need and collect energy and keep warm ourselves.

We started off by counting the things that plug in. In five minutes, we had run out of fingers and toes to keep track of our counting, and had to rely on tally marks in our notebook. Guess how many things we found plugged in (not counting other things that use electricity but weren’t plugged in at the moment, like the blender in the cupboard or the hair dryer in the bathroom)?

29!!

It was fairly shocking. Get it? Shocking? Hahaha, just a little electricity humor for ya. Back to the show. Ahem.

Next, we lovingly gave the hardworking refrigerator a hug (and snacked on some cheese slices to keep our own energy levels up) and lowered the thermostat a degree for conservations sake. Then we flipped over to the next page of our notebook and began noticing and counting the lightbulbs in the house.

Guess how many? No, really, go ahead and guess. I’ll wait.

If you said 32, you would be frighteningly good at this. Or perhaps your electrician wired your house as well as Andy’s. Of course, eight of those were in the dining room chandelier, but still. That’s a lot of bulbs! Then we remembered the garage … more bulbs, not to mention the electric garage door opener and the two cars themselves.

I was starting to get a bit bummed out at the carbon footprint we were leaving, so we ate some more cheese while we lowered the thermostat one more degree. We turned the topic of discussion to our own energy levels and degrees of warm fuzzies.

What do we need, as people, to keep our energy up?

Jane’s List of Must Haves for Healthy Energy Levels:

• Coffee and/or tea. Preferably organic and fresh. Hot in the winter, icy cold in the summer.

• A good slice of sharp Cheddar.

• A hand-knit sweater.

• A high protein and fiber breakfast.

• Snacks.

• Brisk walks in the cool air.

• A seaside trip each year.

• Snowball fights.

• Pets.

• Walking instead of driving when possible.

• Writing letters to friends.

• Holiday traditions.

• Good books.

• Baking bread.

• Hobbies.

• Occasional naps (I like mine on Sundays).

• Fresh air.

• Dates with Mr. Wonderful.

 

Andy’s Must Haves for High Energy Levels:

• Soccer practices.

• Lots of sleep.

• Smoothies with fresh fruit and honey and whipped cream.

• Headstands.

• Somersaults.

• Spaghetti with meatballs at least once per week.

• Pizza with extra cheese.

• Trail mix.

• Ninja practice.

• Bugging and pestering little sisters.

• Homework.

• Bedtime stories.

• Kick the can, basketball, and street hockey with neighbor kids.

• Climbing trees.

• Fort building.

• Arm wrestling.

• More spaghetti and meatballs.

• Midnight snacks.

This wasn’t part of the badge earning, but we decided to swap lists for the next week.

After all, who couldn’t use a bit more somersaulting and headstands in their lives?