doing the blog thing. fifteen minutes at a time.

Thursday, May 31, 2007

big day!

fifteen minutes starting conveniently at 10:15 a.m.

first things first: I GOT A BIKE!!! across from the chiropractor's office last night there was a stoop sale going on, and the guy had three different bikes for sale. the one i picked is a blue ross ten speed that needs new tires and at least one new inner tube. i'd like to put panniers on the back of it, and i also need a helmet and a chain lock. i'm going to try to take it in to the bike shop as soon as i can, but that might not happen tonight because:

TONIGHT IS THE FIRST CSA PICKUP!!! lol. exciting stuff. they sent out a newsletter for the week with a list of what we'll be receiving (arugula, spinach, salad turnips, radishes, rhubarb) along with a recipe for rhubarb compote and another one for dijon vinaigrette. i'm so excited. i'll visit the pickup station on my way home from work (it's two or three blocks off the 40th st stop on the 7, so i'll get off the train, go pick up, and get back on the train to head home). i see some lovely salads in our near future involving arugula, spinach, radishes, and turnips with vinaigrette ;) and erin wants to try to make a pie with the rhubarb. yum.

the last two days i've been getting off the train at brooklyn bridge/city hall (2 stops before the stop i used to get off at). i've discovered the bike lane that goes across the brooklyn bridge. it's separated from the walking lane, which is good. i was vaguely concerned that i would have to bike around the pedestrians. i would ideally like to go from the city side of the bridge to the brooklyn side of the bridge first, in order to find out where the bike lane starts/ends on the brooklyn side, but i don't see that as very feasible seeing how we live on the brooklyn/queens side of things. i did map out the bike route from home to work a while ago (before i really thought biking to work was going to happen for me), so i know how to go, theorhetically speaking.

oh, i didn't finish the getting-the-bike story. so i bought this bike for $10 (!), and it has a flat tire, right? so we go back and forth as to whether we can take a bike on the bus, and we decide that we probably can't do that. the only way to get ourselves home? walk. it turns out it is roughly 3 miles from the chiropractor's office to our house. we stopped for dinner (add $5 to the cost of the bike cos we wouldn't have stopped for dinner if we hadn't been walking the bike home), and tried to stick to the shade. my arms and abs and legs are sore today, and i have a bruise where my calf repeatedly hit the pedal of the bike i was walking. i think i got a sunburn, too. but i have a bike now! and a story about our awesomeness! yep. it's a big day in my life.

also, it's about time for a garden picture update because five of the six tomato plants have tomatoes on them (still green), and we have baby yellow squashes and yellow squash flowers going on, and the pea plants are flowering and the peppers are about to start flowering.

fifteen minutes is up!

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

excerpt from jean hegland's INTO THE FOREST

starting 10:34 a.m.
"maybe it's true that the people who live through the times that become history's pivotal points are those least likely to understand them. i wonder if abraham lincoln himself could have answered the inevitable test questions about the causes of the civil war. once the daily newspapers ceased to appear every morning and radio broadcasts grew more and more sporadic, what news we did get was so fragmentary and conflicting as to tell us almost nothing about what was really happening.

"of course, there was a war going on. we had moved our mother's radio from her workroom into the kitchen, and before the batteries died last spring we used to coax it into muttering its litany of disaster while we were fixing dinner. sometimes the news of the war would make father stomp and swear, and sometimes it would send him upstairs to his bedroom long before our meal was cooked.

"the fighting was taking place half a world away, taking place, the politicians promised, to protect our freedoms, to defend our way of life. it was a distant war, but it seemed to cling to our days, to permeate our awareness like a far-off, nasty smoke. it didn't directly affect what we ate, how we worked and played, yet we couldn't shake it - it wouldn't go away. some people said it was that war that caused the breakdown.

"but i think there were other causes, too. sometime in january we heard that a paramilitary group had bombed the golden gate bridge, and less than a month later we read that the overseas currency market had failed. in march an earthquake caused one of california's nuclear reactors to melt down, and the mississippi river flooded more violently than had ever been imagined possible. all last winter the newspapers - when we could get them - were choked with news of ruin, and i wonder if the convergence of all those disasters brought us to this standstill.

"then, too, there were the usual problems. the government's deficit had been snowballing for over a quarter of a century. we had been in an oil crisis for at least two generations. there were holes in the ozone, our forests were vanishing, our farmlands were demanding more and more fertilizers and pesticides to yield increasingly less - and more poisonous - foods. there was an appalling unemployment rate, an overloaded welfare system, and people in the inner cities were seething with frustration, rage, and dispair. schoolchildren were shooting each other at recess. teenagers were gunning down motorists on the freeways. grown-ups were opening fire on strangers in fast-food restaurants.

"but all those things had been happening for so long they seemed almost normal, and as things got darker and more uncertain, people began to grasp at new explanations for what was going wrong."


it's fiction, originally published in 1996, but it could well be non-fiction written today. the first two times i read this book, i loved it. it became one of my favorites, and while i appreciated that it was a version of the future that could actually happen (as opposed to something like star trek), i didn't really see it as my future. now i think it could be. it's a story of hope. they get through it in the end stronger than ever, and the story is a good one and well-written. it's like i'm reading it with new eyes, getting ideas this time.

i know this makes it look like i'm a defeatist and an extremist regarding where we're heading and what we're doing now. it's not intended that way. i'm not saying the world is ending and we're all going to die and all that. but i rather like recreationally thinking in terms of different paths that things could take. different ways things could go. and this book explores one of those paths. i still rank it among my favorites.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

note to self: don't try to do it all at once

starting 10:41 a.m.
one hard number so far: electric usage the last 12 months for us was 6,663kWh

that's higher than i thought it would be, but that also includes about 10 months when we had regular christmas lights on our bannister that were on 24/7. we used two air conditioners all summer long last year, even leaving one of them on during the day when we were at work (for the pup who was crated in our bedroom that heats with the afternoon sun). we had all regular bulbs in our house until two months ago. now our usage in the last two months is in the 100-150 range instead of the 300-400 range. interesting to see where it goes from here.

we've vowed to do our best without air con this summer. this time last year, we had the bedroom unit blowing already because the mosquitos were rampant and our screens were holey. we replaced some of the screens last year, and this weekend we replaced the rest of them. next step is taking the bedroom unit out of the window to let the breeze in through both sides of the window. baby steps. we're going to leave the kitchen unit in the window for now because cooking in there does heat it up something royal. i hate to use energy to heat up food while using energy to cool the room at the same time. argh. but that's just until we baby step our way to not needing both things.

next i want to make a list of things to eat and how to eat them. that sounds simple, but i almost cried in the stop n shop because i felt like i shouldn't be buying a lot of the things i was buying but then i also didn't know what i COULD be buying to feed myself. it was my first moment of overwhelmingnessosity. i got through it.

i also got some [clear] kool aid mix to make popsicles once i find something to use as popsicle molds. buying popsicles is so wasteful, but they're so tasty! all that plastic individual-wrapping. *sigh*

sharon has a nice essay up about how to eat seasonally. i'm not yet in a place where i think that way. i'm working on it. at the market this weekend there was an abundance of radishes and asparagus. i bought some asparagus, but not radishes. to eat seasonally, i will want to get a bunch of what's available NOW instead of thinking "what the hell will i do with a ton of radishes??" and "why can't i get celery yet? what will i snack on?" without putting two and two together. mindshift.

i noticed when i bowed to convenience this weekend. we ate pizza friday night. i took the bus home from the farmer's market instead of walking the mile or so like i usually do (it felt effing hot that day and i had got a sunburn. stress is one thing that will make me bow to convenience, i'm finding). we ordered in on sunday while we were cat-sitting jack and stevie. we ate breakfast out on monday morning on our way home from cat-sitting. we drove over monday night to feed jack and stevie because we had taken that same damn bus three times already throughout the weekend, and waiting for that particular bus takes a looooooong time, plus there's the walking at the other end to get from and to the bus again. plus more waiting to get home. that's the first time we've used the car in the last week, though.

there's good and there's less good. and there's baby steps. it's ok when it's a baby step.

sixteen minutes!

Sunday, May 27, 2007

sunday morning baking bread

notes:

rye flour makes the bread dough sticky!
sarah and tanya's way ensures quite a rise.
the "urge to merge" is strong with sourdough bread,
therefore, loaf form pans are pretty much necessary.

Friday, May 25, 2007

a culture of convenience

two stories:

the other day i was talking with the administrative woman at my chiropractor's office about why erin hadn't shown up on time for her appointment. i told her that erin was taking the bus from work and she asked, "is the car on the fritz?" no, i told her, we're just trying to use the car less and public transport more... save the world a little, you know? apparently she takes the bus when there's too much snow to drive in, and "it's okay, but taking the car is just so much more convenient".

yesterday my boss was complaining to me about how the kitchen is now supplied with paper cups instead of the styrofoam ones we used to have. "now you have to use two cups or else it's too hot to hold on to," she says. i suggested that maybe if she used an actual mug for her coffee, then she wouldn't have to waste two cups or burn her hands. she assured me that she has a couple of mugs IN HER OFFICE, but that if she uses those, then she has to WASH them afterword. erin says i should have offered to wash them for her, and that's a good idea except that the moment had passed.

these are just two examples of what i'm starting to notice about how very many things in our culture are based around the idea of convenience. we buy our bread because it's more convenient than making it. we throw our clothes in the dryer because it's more convenient than hanging them up on a line. we drive our personal vehicles to the store, four blocks away, because it's more convenient than walking with the granny-cart.

what is convenience, anyway?

the first definition that dictionary.com comes up with is this:
[kuhn-veen-yuhnt]
–adjective 1. suitable or agreeable to the needs or purpose; well-suited with respect to facility or ease in use; favorable, easy, or comfortable for use.
2. at hand; easily accessible: Their house is convenient to all transportation.
3. Obsolete. fitting; suitable.

"easy". convenience makes life "easier" for us. it makes us need to think and plan less. it makes it so that we no longer have to have nearly as much knowledge as we used to. i'm learning, really LEARNING, so many new skills and ideas now that i've given up a lot of modern convenience items. i now KNOW how to make sourdough bread. i KNOW that putting the starter in the fridge for most of a week won't kill it (found that out this morning. yay!). i KNOW that i need to check the schedule for the bus before i leave the house. i KNOW that putting laundry on the line in the morning means i only spend 25 minutes at the laundromat now instead of the hour and a half i used to spend. i KNOW that when my plants start to turn yellow in the leaves, it means they need a bigger pot.

these things are a big deal to me. i'm proud of my knowledge. i don't think it makes me "better" than my neighbors who don't know these things. i take pleasure in learning and using the skills i have. i take pleasure in finding ways to do something "the best way". i'm starting to take pleasure in trial and error.

that was much more than fifteen minutes ;)

Thursday, May 24, 2007

barbara kingsolver sees red

this article literally brought tears to my eyes. i identify with the rural caste and always will, no matter how big the city is that i'm living in.

90% observation, biofuel, visual aid, and excess water

fifteen minutes starting 10:48 a.m.

today i feel a bit paralyzed, and it has nothing to do with The Environment, though much to do with my environment. i feel like there's something i should be doing right now.

i joined the riot for austerity web ring :) see the link over to the right under the blogroll? i haven't explored it much yet because i just got approved last night, but i assume it will take you to the blogs of other people trying to get 90% down. it's so nice to know that there are a bunch of other people out there who are about to embark on a similar journey as i am, and it's interesting to see how they're planning to do it compared to how i'm planning to do it. the main theme i see on baseline posts (which i'm still working on. i'll get it up sometime) is the dependence on gasoline and driving places. almost everyone i've looked at says that the gasoline guideline is likely one of the places they will not be able to get all the way to 90% down. i take mass transit every day to work, and i'm STILL over my allotment.

an article in the ny times this morning says that big oil is trying to place the blame for high gas prices on biofuel development. this sounds like passing the buck and avoiding anything that might cause a panic (like saying that we're running out of available oil supplies). i'm not a proponent of biofuel. i've heard that to make fuel out of corn not only completely messes with the world market on corn, but also uses at least as much energy to produce it as it generates in the end. this is mostly hearsay, but i'm more likely to believe that than i am to believe that biofuel development is the wave of the future and the thing that's going to reverse global warming.

erin is reading a book called deep economy, and she related a tale the author tells which gives a great visual for the effect of mining/using oil on the atmosphere. the oil under/in the earth's crust is in large pools that we drill down and suck up so that we can use it. now, when we take the oil out of the earth, it doesn't just disappear (matter can neither be created nor distroyed; it is just changed into anther form). instead, pulling the oil up and using it creates an equivalent "pool" of carbon dioxide/greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. that's a pretty striking visual, eh?

news this morning is that erin tried the bucket-under-the-tub-faucet thing i talked about the other day (yesterday?), and it turns out that our tub faucet runs more than 2 gallons during one shower (i didn't time the shower, and our bucket only holds 2 gallons). that's a lot of water! one idea i had was to limit a shower to the time it takes to fill the bucket. that would definitely shorten our showers and avoid run-over on the water capture... or we could get a bigger bucket. either way, i don't think our plants can use 2 gallons of water EACH day. what else could we use it for?

fifteen minutes is up!

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

"you are doing, without help, what they said could not be done"

fifteen minutes starting 10:18 a.m.

ok. i sent my official "i'm in" email to miranda over at simple reduce. the idea that i'm actually doing this is indeed a little overwhelming, and i definitely appreciate the way they are stressing that failure in this project is not failure at all but more like progress. i can totally make progress.

something i noticed in the shower this morning is that even when the showerhead is on, the tub faucet runs at a bit more than a trickle. greywater anyone?

i really feel the need to do something imminently because i am starting to not have anything i want to write about.

news:
-my coworker jenny brought in a book on raw dog food for me this morning. if we get toby on a raw diet, it will be so much easier to bring him into local eating with us without the guilt of spending however much of our "bulk dry" allotment on artificially colored kibble each week. the book has lots of information in addition to recipes and adaptations for dogs of every size and age. and in addition to it being more local, it'll be much better for him, too. it's interesting to me how things that are "earth-friendly" are also way better for us as organisms than things that are industrially produced.

-a woman from share our strength gave a presentation at the company quarterly meeting yesterday, and one of the things she stressed was their program that teaches nutrition and cooking because as she put it, a lot of emergency services and food pantry items are things like cookies and kool aid because those are the things that are cheap and shelf-stable. well would you look at that. ties right in with the "farm bill" subsidies and that article by michael pollan that was in the ny times magazine a couple weeks ago. speaking of which, the slow food site has a sample letter to congresspeople regarding that very bill and changes that would make it less horrendous.

-today is the first day that i'm switching from those string cheese sticks (individually wrapped in plastic. ugh.) to fresh mozzarella balls (they come all together in one large tub that would be easily reusable). i'll let you know how it goes. i've considered making my own fresh mozz balls, but i don't think i'm "there" yet. i did read up on how to do it, though. it's one of those things that will take a bunch more thinking before there's any doing. i also read up on making yogurt, but it takes a candy thermometer and sterilization of containers and milk, so i think that project is also down the line a ways.

-working where i do and doing the things i do at home seems completely incongruent. because i'm just starting to make changes (everything here has begun since the start of the month of march), i don't feel like i'm in a position of having enough confidence to push people i work with or even plant a seed in their minds as to making their own changes. it's frustrating, and i'm daydreaming of working at or starting my own csa farm. i think maybe when i "retire" i'll head back to my dad's place and try to make it work. until then, we'll see.

fifteen minutes is up!

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

garden pictures may 21, 2007

zucchini plants:
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pea plants:
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little baby roma tomatoes!
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mighty cilantro plant:
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spearmint from seed:
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ok. that's quite a few pictures for one blog post.

this just in: excitement to override gloom and doom

fifteen minutes starting 9:17 a.m.

exciting things going on today! today is the aha wall street heart walk, which marks a couple firsts for me: it's the first 5k run/walk i've ever done, and it's the first charity fund raising activity i've done where i actually got donations from people. ha. two of the girls from my department are walking, as well as several people from around the company. it should be a good time.

also, yesterday i went out and took updated pictures of our garden (to come in a later post), and discovered that not one but TWO of our tomato plants have bitty baby green tomatoes on them, and the yellow squash plant has miniature squashlings happening! woo vegetables!

crunchy chicken has had crops already, and i was inspired to pull a few of our [horribly overcrowded and in need of thinning] green onions to help season the cauliflower we had for dinner last night. the rest of last night's dinner included felafel from a box mix and steamed local asparagus from the farmer's market. it was tasty.

the conversation erin and i had with Emily the Biology Major was interesting because (as i understand her) she says that the combination of humans' huge brains and opposable thumbs has spelled evolutionary disaster for us. we have these tools and this intellect that helps us override a lot of our natural circumstance, and yet we still maintain these urges for power and leisure time and conflict and dominance that originally helped us to survive in the wild. this means that we can use our brains and thumbs to create things like guns and factories and industrial farms, thereby killing ourselves off and taking a ton of other species with us. sad, really. we're a danger to ourselves and our fellow beings.

that said, it doesn't mean that everything is or should be gloom and doom regarding our current situation. the lady christine warned me against falling into the "rabbithole" of gloom and doom environmentalism because ultimately it could just lead me into a deep depression about how un-saveable the world is. it's good to be reminded of the positive things sometimes. (i'm not an eternal optimist.)

fifteen minutes isn't quite up yet, but i feel like i'm done for the day.
have a good one!

Monday, May 21, 2007

more about food and numbers and fear.

fifteen minutes beginning 9:52 a.m.

i'm feeling a little naive about the 90% down project. i'm looking at my numbers and seeing some of them already within the guidelines or very near within. i'm looking at what i could do to bring them down, and it doesn't seem that difficult. maybe it's because of where i live that it feels this way. i mean, i definitely COULD bike to work every day most of the time. it does require buying a bike, yes. and a helmet. and a chain. i can buy local food every weekend at the farmer's market. i mean this week even we made a trip to the union square market (omg. what a FEAST that is!) and we spend $60 on local foods there, plus we spent $45 at stop and shop (mostly spent on cheeses and salsa and turkey bacon), plus $25 at the veggie stand (celery, broccoli, oranges, almonds). that's 46% local, 34% stop and shop, and ~20% veggie stand. now, i haven't broken down the non-local things into dry vs wet yet, which would make it more in accord with the guidelines sharon has laid out. and this is just the beginning of the season. i understand that during the winter, it'll be much less varietous to eat local. *sigh* i just worry that it's going to be more difficult than i think it will be.

plans for food:
- rice and dry beans in bulk bags (instead of cans the way we generally do now) until we manage to grow beans ourselves
- continuing to make bread from local flour (blew family farm)
- more seasonal veggies in our diet
- bulk tea from the indian foods store rather than coffee

i'm thinking that winter foods will be lots of beans, whole grains, cabbage, apples, winter squash, bread, milk, cheese. maybe i'll start eating potatoes again.

what scares me about the way i'm doing this is that i'm still relying on others to provide for me. i'm relying on the farmers in the area to get their goods to the market in the city so that i can buy them. while this is a big step toward more sustainable living, it's not quite good enough for me to feel 'safe' should something actually happen that breaks down the infrastructure (see sharon's post about avian flu pandemic here).

wow. is fifteen minutes up already? dang.
(and i didn't even get to talk about the convo i had with Emily the Biology Major about humans as an evolutionary failure!)

Friday, May 18, 2007

the truth about flying

an article by george monbiot emphasizes that high-speed long-distance travel will bring us down. follow the link to read more.

fifteen minutes starting 10:55 a.m.

over at casaubon's book sharon has laid out guidelines for a 90% reduction of emissions/consumption. i'm going to do my best to cut what i conceivably can. that does mean that i need to figure out the numbers for my household/person in the next day or two. this means contacting the facilities guy at work to see what the electric bills are like for the company and dividing by number of people in the office (roughly 100 people, but i'll count them to be sure). also need to contact the landlord about amount of heating oil our house uses and figure some way do get water figures. erin suggests timing and multiplying by the gallons per minute to figure out usage.

my boss interrupted my fifteen minutes with a call for aid on his pc.

figures as i see them right now:

~electric used at home in the last month: 113 kwh (entire household and it's wind energy)


~natural gas used at home in the last year: 51 therms (only used for cooking)


~mass transit travel each day: 20 miles/day times 365 days/year = 7300 miles/year by mass transit calculated at 100 miles/gallon = 73 gallons of gas getting around the city


~2 round trips to ithaca, ny to see my aunt and pick up/drop off jake = 500 mi/round trip times 2 round trips/year = 1000 mi/year divided by 35 mi/gallon (estimate for erin's saturn sl 2002) = roughly 30 gallons

more calculations to come.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

food, farming, and redefining 'down to earth'

fifteen minutes starting 9:20a.m.

there's a lot to think about out there, and a lot to get m'f-ing depressed about, too. there was a storm last night, and as my co-workers and i were watching through our 41st floor windows the brown clouds that rushed across the hudson, i commented that maybe the world was ending and this is all our pollution coming to get us. exaggeration, to be sure, but in the last two years the weather has changed. things are more extreme. maybe the world IS ending.

one thing i'd like to change personally is how much food we waste. we buy about $40 worth of vegetables from the veggie stand each week, and they sit in the fridge. we eat a good deal of veggies, too. i bring three ribs of celery and a crown of broccoli to work each day. veggies are at least half of what we eat for dinner. but i think we're so out of the loop of seasons and cycles that we eat based on mood rather than based on what's there. this morning there was no chili left and i didn't feel like having tuna again (plus someone of my weight isn't supposed to have more than 6oz of tuna more than once every 9 days - mercury issues). i was going to give up and buy some lunch at work, but you know what? we have a TON of food in the house! in the end erin helped me to put together some rice and beans, and i cut up some cauliflower to go with my broccoli. poof! lunch! all it took was to put aside what i FELT like eating and go with what was available.

the idea of instant gratification of any whim we have is mind-boggling. you want some ice cream? go to the store and get some. same with coffee, grown thousands of miles away. same with strawberries, not always in season but always available at the store because they ship them in from places where they ARE in season. i'm very excited about both our garden and being part of the csa this year because those things will hopefully start to bring us back down to earth, so to speak. we'll HAVE to eat what is available. i'll feel horribly guilty if i let a bunch of tomatoes and peppers rot on the plants because i didn't FEEL like eating them just then. i read an article about the people who run the golden earthworm farm that our csa food comes from. it said that matt had been a chef and thus runs his farm thinking not only like a farmer, but with a mind for how the plants will be served at table. i think this is a MAJOR benefit for those of us involved in this csa. one friend of ours said they had been involved in urban farm food delivery something or other previously, but they had to quit because they didn't know what to do with all the damn kale they received. if the farmer is a chef, he knows that a person/family can only eat so much damn kale! lol. plus they grow heirloom varieties of veggies. i am interested to see what that means exactly (i know what it means intellectually, but to see and feel and taste them is a different story entirely).

so i'll raise my glass of tap water in a spirit of returning to roots and re-joining the cycle. bon santé!

fifteen minutes is up.

garden pictures

erin took these of our garden-o-pots
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Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

post number 2

fifteen minutes starting 9:30a.m.

when i start a new blog/journal/writing project, i find myself thinking about what to write ALL THE TIME. it's really annoying in that my thoughts take on a narrative quality that i don't appreciate.

i forgot to mention two other changes we've made in the 'recently' category:
~using only reusable bags for most of our shopping (sometimes i forget to bring one)
~i went shopping at a thrift store on friday for the first time in aaaaaages, and i bought us some cloth napkins as well as an outfit to wear to liz and craig's wedding. it's pretty.
~i've been picking up 2 recycleable containers on my walk from the train for the last two days (two because that's what i can carry in one hand. i'm considering bringing a bag to pick up more, but i do a lot of thinking before i do any doing... in general)

that's not two things. hmm.

flylady is big on progress rather than perfection. and i like that idea, but i can also see how my habit of perfectionist thinking could get me in trouble with the eco-changes. i can see myself possibly getting burnt out on the walking everywhere thing. pay attention, anna.

no impact man posted his bread recipe today! it's very exciting and doesn't require me to buy yeast. it does require several days' worth of time, but most of it is non-intensive time. there's a lot of "let it sit for several hours/days". i can do that. it also requires a lot of flour. i'd love LOVE to find some local flour i could buy around here. colin says he uses local flour, but a ten-minute google search around the nyc area yielded very little in terms of leads on that. hopefully since someone asked for colin's source of flour in the comments of his post, he'll provide a contact.

i like eating local. today i have a tuna sandwich (not local tuna), with green pea sprouts on it (those ARE local). who knew you could eat baby green pea plants? and they taste a lot like green peas. pretty darn cool. next year when we plant peas and have to pare down the ones that came up, we can have them on a salad or a sandwich. yum.

speaking of yum, i tried tempeh the other night for the first time. the texture is kind of like veggie-burger. i cut it into bite-sized rectangles and cooked it in an oiled skillet with some soy sauce and a touch of water when the soy cooked down to nothing. then i served it over a bed of the very same green pea sprouts. muy tasty. i want to look into other sources of organic/local groceries besides whole foods, though. the sheer amount of packaging and advertising in that store is ridiculous. and to think that's the ALTERNATIVE to the norm! *shudder*

you'd think because my boss is out of town that things here would be quiet, but it was very busy yesterday, and today looks to be similar.

oh, one other 'recently' and a 'not so recently':
~i've quit using paper towels and napkins at work. i have a washcloth with me that does that job instead.
~the diva cup rocks my socks off. get one. unless you're a guy. then talk your ladies into getting one.

it's totally weird to me that women in our world are quite so squeamish about their bodies that they don't want to even think about something that requires them to touch and/or insert something up THERE. i think it's a sign of our disconnection.

fifteen minutes are up!

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

in the beginning

fifteen minutes. starting 8:51 a.m.

i wanted a place to talk about my accomplishments lately plus whatever else is going on in my head.

this weekend:
~changed to low flow shower head
~added soak and soap valve to shower
~added aerators to kitchen and bathroom sinks
~did not drive anywhere in our car

our plants are doing well. the tomato that got run over by mr. mustang out front has a bunch of leaves growing back on it, and the herbs from seeds are finally starting to look like they're differentiating from one another.

recently:
~planted a pot garden with >2 dozen plants
~switched to cfl bulbs in five of our lights in the house
~started unplugging everything when it's not in use
~are hanging out laundry to dry in the back yard
~using soapnuts to wash our clothes
~shopping at local farm markets
~using mass transit more and car less
~composting in the back yard!
~switched our electric company to wind power
~joined the sunnyside csa (community supported agriculture)
~i've started baking bread on sundays, though i have yet to perfect my recipe
~plus all the things above that we did this weekend

it's funny to me the way it seems like everyone finally has begun to DO something now. like, right NOW. it's like we've been bombarded with information for a long time, and it finally reached a tipping point where the tide starts to change in noticeable ways. it makes me want to actually read the book 'the tipping point' even though i don't really know what it's even about. the guy sitting next to me on the subway was reading it yesterday.

so with all these baby steps starting to add up, i'm wondering what else i could do without/change. we're looking forward to participating in a "low impact week" where we try something a little more extreme. it's happening in june, and two of the things we're considering are no a/c at home, and unplugging the refrigerator. greenpa says he's been living without a refrigerator for the last thirty years. it can be done. it just takes some thought and planning. no keeping food around for weeks without eating it. we'd be going to the store more often (maybe) for things like milk and um... other keep-cold-ables. but with our garden coming along well, and our participation in the csa this year (first pickup is thursday may 31!), i'm thinking we'll be buying less at the stores anyway. it's a thought.

and you know what? i feel more relaxed and rested now that we're doing all these things the "inconvenient" way (hanging laundry up, baking my own bread, taking mass transit, etc). it's really really nice. weekends have started to feel like two-day vacations. bliss in slowing down. go figure. speaking of which, i've also begun to read a book that teresa sent me ages ago called "take your time" by eknath easwaran.

fifteen minutes is up!