dinners this week:

MONDAY: chicken sausages, salad (non local bits: sausages, vinegar, olive oil)
TUESDAY: rosemary roasted beets, homemade bread, salad (non local bits: a couple bread ingredients like baking soda and salt, olive oil, vinegar)
WEDNESDAY: leftover roasted beets, rice, salad (non local bits: rice, olive oil, vinegar)
THURSDAY: boiled potatoes with garlic scape butter, steamed zucchini with green onions, salad (non local bits: olive oil, vinegar)
FRIDAY: pizza out (non local bits: EVERYTHING lol)

not too too terrible.

what the times says today about the power outage

apparently, they don't know what the cause was. the mayor is playing it off. people's feathers are still a little ruffled. click the title for the whole story.

but what does it really MEAN???

starting 5:46 p.m.

this evening heading home there was a service problem on one of the subway lines i take. the announcement said, "due to a temporary power failure, 4, 5, and 6 trains are not running IN EITHER DIRECTION. for service to..."

this comes two days after the ny times (among other sources) reported that the 4/5/6 line has exceeded capacity and is thus overcrowded at rush hours. they cannot put more trains on the track for safety's sake (the trains must have enough space between them to be able to stop in an emergency). the cars cannot hold more people (and if you've been on one of these trains at rush hour, you know for SURE they can not possibly hold any more people). in fact, the train capacity is supposed to allow for 3 sq feet for each passentger (1.5ft x 1.5ft). this doesn't happen. today because of the train issues, the 7 i was riding was packed so that my back was pressed against the back of the guy behind me, and my left side was brushing the guy standing there. it's not comfortable, but it's waaaay better than walking ten miles home. this is all the more reason for me to start riding my bike all the way to work. none of this shit would affect me!

about that, though: my bike needs brake pads... or something. i can't wait til i know my bike well enough to know exactly what it needs. until i get it fixed, i'm not going to ride it. i don't think it's safe right now.

i can't help thinking about the train electricity problems, and what i'm thinking is along the lines of, "is this the beginning of the end?"

wonderful wonderful food

starting 10:16 a.m.

i talk a lot about food. it's important. it's very likely one of the most important things in my life. and i've noticed that it's the one main thing that i don't mind spending excess money on. it always seems worth it. (things i don't like to spend money on include: clothing, haircuts, entertainment, the internets, "things"... pretty much anything that's not food.)

so, food is important to me. plus it's really enjoyable. we eat all manner of foods at our house, even more so now that we're receiving veggies from the csa where the deal is "you get what you get!"

one of my co-workers asked me about how jake was doing with all the vegetables, and the truth is, he is a great eater! he started out not being totally keen on all the salads we've had lately, but then we discovered the garlic parmesan cesar dressing in the fridge. then we ran out of that. erin eased us into olive oil and rice vinegar for dressing. jake loves it! he really enjoyed the sauteed zucchini we had last week. he's getting into the idea of tofu with soy sauce. part of it is the idea that THIS IS WHAT THERE IS TO EAT. if you don't want it, or don't like it, at least try it. if you still don't want it or don't like it, you can remain hungry. plus, all this food is normal in our house. we're not a household of twinkies and sugar coated cereal (whose idea was that invention?!?). the one thing we have in our house that's not "good" for us is probably the home-made popsicles from kool aid (made with splenda). for snacks there are strawberries or unsalted peanuts or an apple. it's just the way it is.

sharon talked yesterday about how picky kids result from picky and/or lenient parents. i've heard tales of parents who routinely make two meals: "adult" food for the parents, and either macaroni and cheese or chicken nuggets for the kids. the reasoning behind that is sort of a twisted "they won't like what we're having, so why offer it" kind of thing... i think. but how do you think they might start to like something, if they've never seen it on their plates? jake claims to not like the peels on an apple, but one evening erin cut one up for him and told him that if he didn't want the peel, he could eat around it. he ate the peel, and we didn't make a big deal about it at all.

so, what's the big deal about food? it's wonderful wonderful! that's the only big deal i see.

three steps forward, two steps back, three more steps forward

starting 2:35 p.m.

we make progress. we take steps. we feel good.
along comes a stressor*. we step back into a place of comfort until we adjust to the stressor. we step forward again.

i had a lot to say this morning, but at this point i'd like to talk about the pendulum swing of personal progress. because we can only keep so many balls in the air, each of us pulse like the waves toward where we would like to be. i'll give a couple examples.

number one: my son lives with my girlfriend and i during his summer break from school. he arrived mid-june this year, and having him in the house completely shifts the way we operate. i don't mean this in a bad way, either, it's just different to live with such a dependent being in our care than to live with three independent adults in the house. it puts stress on our "normal" routines. for instance, going to bed takes roughly an hour now when before it was a fifteen minute routine, if that. all this to say, we had taken steps and put routines into place toward our goal of reducing our impact, and then along comes a stressor. we backed into a comfort zone a little bit. we ate out several times last week. we bought milk at the grocery store. we drove on a couple outings (at least one of which would have been easily done by mass transit when it was the two of us adults). and now i can see us gradually starting to step forward again after a short period of adjustment. i made us dinner last night after thinking there was nothing to eat (salad + strawberries w/milk + local popcorn = dinner!). i'm sure there are other things that show we're adjusting, too, but i can't think of them off the top of my head.

number two: i've begun biking the 1.4 miles to the train station and home again on work days, and i've shifted my work day a half hour earlier in order to get home "on time" to relieve the babysitter. before starting these things, i had been getting off the train two stops earlier than i needed to do and walking the rest of the way. the first day i biked, i stepped back into the comfort zone of riding the train all the way to my destination. the next day, i rode the train to the stop one stop away from my destination. this morning (the third day i've biked), i am back to being early enough to walk from two stops back and still have time to stop and change into my work shirt/blouse thingy at starbucks (although i felt guilty for using their bathroom and ended up with a double tall latte in a paper cup, argh!)

three steps forward, two steps back, three more steps forward.
sixteen minutes!

fair share international

starting 9:00 a.m.

directed by bryan, this morning i discovered fair share international which is an australian organization suggesting a formula of 5.10.5.10 for a better world. the formula breaks down thusly:

5. redistribute at least 5% of your gross annual income to help people who are financially disadvantaged somewhere over the globe

10. reduce your use of water, energy and minerals by at least 10% and keep it there forever

5. contribute at least 5% of your leisure time to community-building activities in your neighborhood, or with a volunteer organization which helps disadvantaged folk

10. perform 10 acts of significant democratic action per year to correct practices associated with greed and injustice over the world

it's an interesting concept, and bryan says it ties right into the 90% project for him. it's a little baffling as to where to start, though. i could pretty easily give the 5% of my income to friends and family, some of whom are relatively financially disadvantaged. or i could give the money to an organization that directly helps truly financially disadvantaged people somewhere else on the globe. speaking of which, i saw this site yesterday that describes one man's project to bring bicycle-powered ambulances to namibia for use with the HIV/AIDS home care program, among other programs, i'm sure. intriguing. i'd sort of like to have my hands in an organization so that i can see where my money is going, but that may be my tendency toward trying to control everything...

i wonder what 5% of my leisure time is. let's see. i work 40 hours weekly, commute 20 hours weekly. that's 60 hours out of 168 (24x7). i sleep roughly 40 hours weekly, so that puts my count up to 100 hours. i spend three hours grocery shopping, 1 hour doing laundry, let's say 10 hours preparing and eating food, an hour a week in the shower... that puts me at 115. let's say i have roughly 53 hours a week that are leisure time. 5% is more than 2 and a half, less than 3 hours per week to spend in building community. not so bad, is it? hmmm...

reducing my use of water, energy, and minerals is already underway. i'm going for 90% rather than just 10%. we'll see how low i can go.

i'd have to step up the writing of letters or campaigning for political revolution. i did send two letters already this year, but i think i may have sent them to the wrong people. i sent them to my federal representatives when i think the issue is actually an issue for the state legislature.

oh my! that was 17 minutes!

random updates!

starting 11:22 a.m.

bike update: this morning i rode my bike the 1.4 miles to the train station instead of taking the bus! i locked it up to a pole (not one it could be lifted off of, though) near a group of other bikes locked up similarly. i just hope it's still all there when i get back. my chain wasn't long enough to go through the front wheel AND the frame AND around the pole. it felt good to do, but it took me longer than i anticipated. i was still at the train station earlier than i would have been if i had waited for the bus, even though the bus passed me on my way up 65th place. i also had to get off and walk up this brutal hill. i was out of breath from the walking, but not from the biking!

garden update: the landlord has finished laying the pavers for our new patio, and will be tearing out both sides of the fence and removing the 4' diameter stump that has been there since they took down the old elm tree two and a half years ago. we had moved our potted garden away from where they were putting the patio, and now we've moved it back onto the new patio and thus away from the stump/fence area. i had worried about all the moving of the plants, especially with so many of them bearing immature fruit just now. my fears were relieved when erin pointed out three bright yellow cherry tomatoes on one of the plants! (they're supposed to be yellow) yay! maybe it finally got hot enough to start them a-ripening.

csa update: tonight is another pickup already! we've been working at the lettuces slowly, and carter helped us make the collard greens on monday night, but we still have lots of green peas and lettuce and all the beet greens left :\ i need to buckle down and get to cooking these things. we've still been eating out too often. we stopped for pizza last night again on the way home from the chiropractor.

hmm. time's not up, but that's all i've got today.

thank you mom and dad, and the cycle of lifelong learning

starting 10:12 a.m.

i am utterly grateful to my parents for all they did while raising me. especially for the useful skills they taught me instead of just doing them themselves. i may not have liked having to go out and feed the animals in the morning and evening, but it did teach me responsibility. i may have gotten bored with gardening, but i knew how to plant things and how to tell when they needed something i could provide. i may not have liked the crunchy jeans and sandpaper towels that came from hanging them on the line, but i did know there was an alternative to throwing them in the dryer. i learned to do my own laundry early on, and have been doing all my own laundry since i was 14. i learned to cook at least 8 different meals, so i could feed myself (not well, mind you, but feeding myself poorly is still better than going hungry or getting fast food). i went on almost every grocery shopping trip and learned the layout of the store and the benefits of buying generic. likewise i learned the benefits and perils of shopping at goodwill. i learned how to use the hand tools and then the power tools in my dad's machine shed. i could drive the riding lawnmower and then the tractor and then the tractor-with-implements-attached. i know when the weather is right for making hay, and i have driven the tractor during all three stages of haymaking (cutting, raking, baling). i've been involved in the mad-dash hay bale collection process when we were racing those dark clouds.

this was my childhood, and it was good. i love knowing all these things. i love the memories of doing all these things. i'm absolutely glad that i grew up on a farm (albeit a recreational farm rather than a working one... though maybe that made the experience even better). but because i was a child and then a teenager, i missed some parts of the lessons and the knowledge, and now as an adult i have to fill in the blanks. things like stretching clothesline and having enough clothespins for all my laundry. things like how to tell when to harvest my vegetables. when are tomatoes supposed to turn red again? are they supposed to sit green on the plants for more than a month? where might i get a hand drill so jake can help with hardware projects? for that matter, where do i get a hand saw that's fit for cutting down a small tree?

i'm guessing that this is maybe how life is supposed to work. your parents lay down the ideas and some of the rudimentary skills, and then when you're an adult, you go back and fill in the gaps in learning either with outside resources, personal experience, or by calling mom when you need to roast a turkey or dad when you're trying to replace the old showerhead.

in other news, i wasted a batch of yeast bread dough the other day by letting it sit too long. i guess i'd gotten somewhat used to the ease and long timeframe of sourdough bread already! speaking of which, i should mix together some new starter tonight.

reminder to be slow

starting 11:47 a.m.

colin has posted about how his daughter reminds him to slow down and enjoy life. now that jake is here for the summer, i am trying to remember to do things at his pace and enjoy the things that a slower pace helps me see.

yesterday we took turns kicking a piece of insulation foam all the way home from a trip out of the house.

today we went to the farmer's market, and we had a rockin good time. jake helped me pick things out and pay for things, and then he wanted to help carry things, but they got too heavy after a little bit. that's ok. regardless of the hour long trip there and the hour long trip home, it was way more enjoyable than going to the grocery store with a small child has ever been. i asked jake whether he preferred the market or the grocery store, and he said the market because it doesn't have the thing that beeps as you buy the groceries. he said that thing is annoying.

now he's taking the "brains" out of the cherries that he picked out and paid for with his own money :) and i gotta go enjoy that.

birthday party!

starting 3:06 p.m.

yesterday was erin's birthday, and we had a lovely party last night. our friend emily came over and brought 90's music, guacamole makings and some chips, and i put together things for making beverages/smoothies from local strawberries and organic bananas and some non-organic, non-local wet goods (seltzer, sparkling cider, pineapple juice) which we sipped from pretty new-to-us glasses with straws and paper umbrellas while we worked on a totally unnecessary dinner. we were so full of guacamole and strawberry smoothie by the time dinner was ready that we each only ate a small bowl of salad before declaring ourselves too stuffed to eat anything more! we soon re-evaluated that declaration when we remembered that christine had procured a vegan cake with erin's name on it, and i had snagged some organic ice cream to go with. yum! there was a lot of laughter and good friends togetherness in the name of celebrating that erin is in our lives :)

oh, there were also presents from emily in the shape of a mortar 'n' pestle and a set of star-shaped popsicle molds that we promptly filled with smoothie!

happy birthday erin!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

another baby step i'm taking: i've given up q-tips cold turkey. i'm on day 3 without them. this is a big deal. i was seriously addicted, and it was dangerous to my health/wellbeing. yes, i'm dramatic. i used to get ear infections through my teen years that stemmed from moisture that got into my ear canal. scared by the pain of some of these infections, i started meticulously cleaning any and all moisture out of my ears at least once a day. then they were itchy... so i soothed the itch by "scratching" it with another q-tip. sad sad story is that i think i've totally stripped my ears of any useful oils and wax that could reside in there, and i'm hoping that they'll even themselves out in time with the discontinuation of q-tip use. i've also heard that a drop of olive oil in the ear can help them stop being so dang itchy until they figure it out. i'm not ready to try that yet, though.

food food food... and a deodorant adventure.

starting 10:11 a.m.

baby step: we ran out of the tom's of maine deodorant the other day, and last night i went to whole foods to pick up a couple things (locally roasted coffee, organically raised chicken, organic peanut butter, and the deo), and i decided to take the plunge and try the salt crystal deodorant. so this morning has been my first go, and i can't smell myself! woo! lol. it's protecting me better than the tom's did, and it's not sticky like the tom's was. i walked my half mile from the train to work, and i did sweat, but i do not stink now, so that's great!

the other night i made a nice meatless, beanless, soyless dinner. i whipped up a roux with local milk, butter, and whole wheat flour. then i added local green garlic and local asparagus bits (about an inch long each), and served that over non-local whole wheat pasta with a biiiig salad. yum!

speaking of salad, i'm very proud of us for eating two salads each per day because of all the greens we're getting from the csa. this week we got a bunch of arugula, a head of boston lettuce, a head of RED boston lettuce, AND a bag of mixed greens. it's a lot. of salad. we have learned a new salad dressing, though, which is fun. it's olive oil and white wine vinegar with spicy mustard and some herbs-of-choice (lately it's either green garlic or rosemary or thai basil from the garden). the dressing truly makes the salad.

as i mentioned, i did buy chicken last night, and we had one breast split between the two of us last night with dinner. organic chicken is so tasty, man. it makes me wonder exactly what the hell they're feeding the non-organic chicken. no, please don't tell me!

time's up!

still thinking mostly about food

starting 11:45 a.m.

the last couple weeks we haven't bought any meat. we've bought tons of local tofu (made at dj organic farms from soybeans grown on the farm in yaphank, long island), and we've eaten loads of home-cooked beans. we're not lacking in protein in our diet... i don't think.

dang it. i always forget about the turkey bacon. we HAVE bought meat the last couple weeks, in the form of jennie-o turkey bacon, which i've vowed to give up in exchange for more humanely produced turkey bacon from whole foods (i don't want pork bacon - the fattiness is just too much for me). but we haven't been buying meat for lunches and dinners.

we're not vegetarians yet. and looking at our eating habits the last couple weeks, i don't think we're ready to be vegetarians. yes, we HAVE tofu in the house. do we cook it and eat it? some of the time, sure. but more and more often we're ordiring in or eating out for dinner instead of finding something to do that provides us with something tasty and protein-providing.

so ok. i'll say it: i'm tired of the taste of tofu. it's... distinctive. and it's not salty. and it doesn't take well to salty accoutrements (garlic salt, adobo, etc). it still tastes like soy and water in a patty. *sigh*

you know what i want? an easy, tasty tofu cookbook that goes beyond "cut it into small squares and sautee it in canola oil [until it tastes like fried crappiness]." that's what it took for me to learn to cook meat properly. god bless the south beach diet 30 minute cookbook. cooking from that each night for a good 6 months is what helped me realize that i liked to cook! now that feeling is starting to go away :(

i know what they all say, "you can really substitute tofu into any meat recipe and cook it the same way." it's not true. because meat has a taste of its own, as does tofu, and so substituting one for the other doesn't really satisfy me. plus the texture of tofu is... nonexistant. it's very weak, like a soft cheese (which is what it is, essentially, since it's "bean curd").

if what it takes to make tofu taste better is to keep it soaked in brine intead of regular water, i'm into it. how do i make brine? it needs something more than just salt in the water. hmmmm... however, i'm not looking to pickle the tofu.

until i start to have some idea of what to do with it, though, i'm going to put up my white flag and admit that i'm not ready to be vegetarian! not yet! i'm going to buy some pasture-raised, organic, local chicken tonight! and i'm going to enjoy it!

the end.

starting 2:56 p.m.

today went really fast.

one of my co-workers brought in some cherries to share with all of us, and it's funny because i have no idea whether it's cherry season here or not. i asked him if he has cherry trees. i saw on the internet that mid may to june is cherry season in california... and it's quite a different clime here on the east coast. i don't even know if cherries can grow around here.

at my dad's farm, we used to have 2 cherry trees. they'd produce a good number of cherries, and it was nice to just pick them off the tree and eat them. unfortunately, both trees had some manner of illness in them and one of them died. my dad cut down the other one before it had a chance to die on its own. it seemed like a very sad thing to lose those trees, even though it completely opened up the view from the kitchen window out across the hayfield toward the woods.

i love that view. my grandma has a similar one from her house next door, and when i visit, i can hardly take my eyes off of the view across the field. when my dad had animals, the horse and sheep would dot the pasture between the house and the trees. it's all so very... slow. just looking out there makes things happen more slowly.

i always wanted to live somewhere where i could see the horizon. we were in colorado when i started to remember things, and there were the mountains. then in ohio, there were always trees between the land and the sky. now in new york, there are buildings and bridges in between. am i the only one who dreams of a place like kansas or dakota where the grass waves like ocean from here to eternity? it's probably not as romantic in real life as it is in my mind.

kathleen norris writes about the beauty of dakota. things sound slow there. of course, because of the limited population and the nature of people, folks tend to be closed off from "outsiders" there. she says it makes it terribly difficult for someone new to become part of the culture of the plains.

reading kathleen norris always made me want to be a monk.

on critical thinking skills

starting 9:08 a.m.

several of the home-schoolers whose parents are involved in the riot for austerity are doing school projects that involve following one product from cradle to grave. that is to say, choosing one thing, like a pair of jeans, and looking into what it takes to create the jeans (cotton made into fabric, thread to sew, metal for the metal bits, etc.) and what happens to each of those raw materials before they become part of the jeans and then what happens to the jeans during their life as jeans, and how they continue until they go back to the earth as nutrients.

i was thinking about all of this and how even with my 17 or 18 years of schooling, including a h.s. diploma and a b.a. degree, i wouldn't have any idea how to go about starting this kind of a project. i mean, how do you find out where the cotton comes from for a pair of jeans made by levi? my assumption is that vague notion that cotton comes from "the south", but how to find out if that's true? then to go and figure these things out for each and every component in one pair of jeans... it's overwhelming to me just thinking about it.

what i think it would require, something i don't think i picked up on my journey through the various schools i went to, is real critical thinking skills. what did i learn in school? tons of random useless facts (trivial trivia, ha!), and how to do something once someone tells/shows me how to do it. what's missing is the idea that i can figure out how to do something WITHOUT someone showing me how to do it first. critical hands-on learning on my own. which leaves me paralyzed with overwhelmingness when i'm faced with something i don't already know how to do when there's no one there to point me in the direction of a solution.

in this, i think some home-schoolers have an advantage. but only if their parents/teachers have the critical thinking skills to encourage their children to figure things out on their own. funny, that. i don't have any confidence in myself as a home-schooling mom because i have no idea how i would teach my children any of it. which is ok. i can be ok with that. it's just interesting to me that some people can get by without critical thinking skills. i wonder if that's an evolutionary thing. specialized abilities, as in, if everyone is good at being a leader and coming up with ideas, who will they lead and how will their ideas come to fruition? a beehive needs drones and a queen and all the rest (my trivial trivia knowledge is letting me down here). maybe human society works better with a division of responsibility/strengths?

rainy monday weekend recap

starting 10:31 a.m.

rain glorious rain. it started to sprinkle yesterday afternoon (after about half of our laundry was dry), and it modulated between gentle rain and downpour through the night and into today. it's been a long time since i was happy that it was raining. yesterday after it had been sprinkling for a couple hours i went out in it and emptied the compost. the dirt under the first 1/8 inch was dry as a bone. it hasn't rained in at least the last three weeks. beautiful rain.

we had a[nother] nice low key weekend. several small victories were had :)

-we got to the farmer's market early and made one round of the place, buying everything they had. kidding, but it felt like that. $70 worth of local food, 15 different items, a half hour of time. when we got there, the first thing we saw was that there were STRAWBERRIES! so exciting! perfect for the rhubarb we got at the csa! it was also exciting to see pea pods and green garlic available. eating seasonally seems like a much more exciting way to do it.

-when we got home, erin and i split up and i took my bike to the bike shop to get fixed up and she headed to the post office on her bike.

-i started the dough for oatmeal/oat flour/whole wheat sourdough bread for the week.

-we napped (personally, this is the best part of these low key weekends).

-we headed out to the brooklyn museum for their free first saturday thing. there was square dancing! the one guy who seemed to have previous dancing experience sought me out and asked me to dance. go figure :)

-we didn't take a cab home even though it was late and the G line was a mile away and that only led to a bus (which ended up leading to another bus because this one was only going half the route cos it was late). it wasn't an easy trip home, but we did it and didn't give in to convenience!

-when we did get home (at roughly a quarter to midnight), i kneaded my bread dough and made it into loaves to rise overnight. it's big when i do something instead of just going to bed. i love sleep.

-sunday morning i baked my bread,

-erin made pie crust dough,

-we went and washed laundry and hung it up,

-erin made pie filling and we started baking our very own strawberry rhubarb pie :D

-i quick soaked beans and then cooked them for the week's lunches (or however long a 16oz bag of kidney beans lasts with two people eating them every day),

-we pulled in the laundry as it was beginning to rain a little, hanging the not-quite-dry bits on whatever we could find (bannister, backs of chairs, shower curtain rod, hangers upstairs),

-we walked to the store in the gentle rain,

-we bought FIVE things at the store, spending $18! that's a big one for me because when we were doing all our shopping at the stop n shop, we were spending some $200 each week on completely non-local things.

-after walking home in the rain, we made a nice dinner of local veggies and rice and lentils, watched a disappointing movie, and went to bed.

not a bad weekend at all :)

time's up!

in the mean time...

ok. i have some time now.
fifteen minutes starting 6:55 p.m.

i picked up my csa veggies, but in the excitement and my confusion i forgot to grab my bunch of radishes. so i got rhubarb, arugula, white turnips, and spinach, and my radishes were donated to a food charity. i made a salad this morning for lunch, but then my coworkers wanted to go out for sushi, and i made the decision to be social instead of eating my salad. i paid for it all afternoon with my stomach's reaction to the white rice. it's so easy to see in hindsight that i shouldn't eat crap! haha.

this morning when i went to make breakfast, i took a bite of my granola, and the milk tasted kind of sour. fair enough, that quart had been in the fridge for almost two weeks now, and we still had two quarts left from this past week (less than a week old at this point) to get through before tomorrow's trip to the farmer's market. open a "new" quart, go to pour, and it's solid on the top. smells like yogurt cheese only a little more sour. :( both quarts were like that, and i don't think it was our fault. it was freaking hot last saturday, but we wrapped them in newspaper and i brought them straight home, so they were only in the heat (under my care) for an hour or so and they totally still felt really cold when i got them home and in the fridge. oh well. we get new milk tomorrow.

today is the official beginning of the 90% down project. it feels less like the start of a race and more like the germination of a seed to me. other people are talking about "last hurrah"s and what they're starting to do differently today that they weren't doing before. because i'm taking a year to GET down to the reduced point, it's supposed to be gradual, right? like growing. growing smaller emissions. hmm...

one thing i did do today is to track my mass transit. i think i want to log my mass transit (at least until i get bored or can estimate better than i can now). that means carrying a paper or a book to write down where i got on the bus/train and where i got off (to be tracked on google maps later on in miles). i want a lighter bag *sigh* and i've been thinking about this for a long time, so maybe it's time to act on it finally. i have this idea where i have like, a regular tote bag (which we have several of), and then i take a bandana and make it into a smaller pouch bag that fits inside the tote bag and is clipped to the handles somehow. the smaller bag holds things like my wallet, ipod, comb, check book, pen. the tote bag is used for things like my lunch, book, bottle of water. i'm still thinking about it because a) i don't have a sewing machine and am loathe to do much sewing by hand at this point, and b) i want to work on the design so it ends up having a "finished" look rather than an "i threw it together on a weekend" look. vanity.

fifteen minutes is up!