Convenience

With all the madness of back-to-school, and starting work full-force again, convenience has really been on my mind. For example:

Walking/biking to school
Why do so many parents drive their kids to school? My kids walk or bike with their dad every morning. The school is very close to our house and it would be ridiculous to drive. But there are other parents who live nearby who drop their kids off with a car. Why? I guess because it seems more convenient.

Maybe they are on the way to work and school is on the way. The problem here is that it's not just a quick drop-off. The traffic around the school is INSANE.

My kids don't walk by themselves because they're little, but older elementary school kids should be able to walk a quarter mile by themselves (I think) unless they have to cross a busy road. What I have noticed is that despite the insane traffic (slow, but lots of distracted drivers), there are only crossing guards right at the school. Our road is a little ways from the school, and although many kids walk up our road, there is no crossing guard.

One solution might be to walk the kids to the point at which it would be safe for them to walk on their own (and where they meet the surge of other kids and start to ignore their parents anyway).

But then I thought about my youngest child......

I drop her off at day care every morning and I don't have time to walk her to the school (which is within walking distance) and walk back home to get my scooter. So, I have ended up driving her to day care 2 days out of the week and then driving to work from there. And I have found that I like listening to NPR in the car on the way to work. It's the only time in the whole week that I get to hear the news without interruption.

So, here I am.... I can either:

• Walk her to daycare, drop her off, walk back, scoot to work (total of about 45 minutes, no NPR, but good exercise) OR

• Drive her to daycare and continue on to work (total of about 25 minutes with NPR and killing the environment).

Grrr....

I don't think I'm the only one facing these kinds of decisions.

What's interesting is that she HATES riding in the car and shrieks like a banshee, so in the afternoon I come home, leave the scooter or car, and then walk or ride my bike to pick her up.

Maybe when it's not in the 90s I'll be in a better position to ride my bike to work, but right now I'm a little daunted by the 4 or 5 mile hilly ride.... (Any thoughts on electric bikes to assist on the hills and not get to work a sweaty blob?)

Be prepared!

Maybe because I was never a scout, I seem to be having trouble learning this lesson: Be Prepared.

I drove the little one to the Children's Museum today. Why? Because it was hot and the trailer was hooked up to a wimpy bike. It's actually a pleasant bike ride, so I really should have ridden the bike. Alternatively, I could have taken the bus, but that (of course) would have required some planning.

So what happened? I drove E to the museum, and the car broke down. I had to push it into a safe place and C had to rescue it after work. What a pain. And I ended up taking the bus home anyway (which was very pleasant).

So now the car's broken, and it will be a few days (at least) until it's fixed. Time to experiment with being car-free.

I scooted to work this evening. Blech! The traffic is awful, and it's much worse sitting in the humidity and heat, breathing in exhaust than sitting fresh in my car listening to NPR. It threatened rain, but did not rain after all, although I was prepared with a big rain coat and a change of clothes. I'd feel much safer taking the bus. I checked out the schedule and it might be doable.

Can you go car-free or car-light?

I just finished reading How to Live Well Without Owning a Car by Chris Balish. It's a very inspiring book. I really like its realism -- the author does not want you to give up ever driving a car or riding in one, just owning one. He provides a nice worksheet to help you figure out how much you spend owning a car. I figured that our car expenses are a little over $250 a month. My friend, who just paid off her car, figured hers at over $300. We were both a little shocked.

Balish's main point seems to be that you can save a lot of money and have an even better life if you give up your car. You can have a rich social life, date car-free, and get in shape. I like his story of how he accidentally fell into living car-free. He has a chapter devoted to families that have two or three cars, and encourages them to become one-car families.

Now, I have to be realistic. I could give up my car, but my life would become a giant pain in the neck in many cases. I would probably need to rent a car about once a week to visit family or go camping. My car expenses would not be $250 if I really reduced my driving -- according to my calculations, if I only used the car for longer trips with heavy stuff, the cost of renting and the cost of owning would probably be about the same. So, for now, the car stays.

Balish says that if you can get to work without driving, you can probably go car-free. So, it's really important to consider where you work and where you live. If you are going to move, you need to be near your job (ideally) or near a transit stop. In some cases, it may be worthwhile to move closer to work or even to change your job so that you work closer to home.

Once you can get to work, other things can be taken care of without a car in most cases. Balish is a big fan of delivery services. Yes, the delivery van uses gas, but it's a lot more efficient than you driving around town. The delivery van probably has a route. I think this is good for ordering stuff off of the internet, but maybe not as good for something like grocery shopping.

For something like grocery shopping or a big trip to Costco, Balish recommends going with a friend (among other options). I have to admit that this is very appealing. Combine the social and the practical. Of course, you want your friend to live nearby and to already be going to the destination. It doesn't save any energy for your friend to drive across town to take you to the store. You might fear mooching off of your friends, but Balish recommends buying them a thank-you lunch or drink. Seems like a win-win situation.

I have a friend who lived car-free for a while, and she frequently had to get rides to go to social events or to go shopping, and I really don't think that anyone resented it. She was always very good company.

We will be moving pretty soon, and we have taken a lot of trouble to find a place that is close to the things we use on a regular basis (grocery store, library, post office, elementary school, etc.) and with good connections to our jobs. It is also a very pleasant, albeit longer, bike ride to work. It will be interesting to see how it goes. I am really hoping that we will be able to drastically reduce our car use.

P.S. I will be doing the calculations from my June Food Challenge and reporting back soon. My new challenge is not to do any month-long challenges (not of my own, anyway), because I'm pretty bad with follow-through.

P.P.S. Check out Arduous-- she's doing a month-long pseudo-Freegan challenge. I can't wait to see what happens. Go girl!

June Food Challenge

The last time I filled up my car, it cost over $50. Ouch! Gas prices have been all over the news, and it seems that people are finally starting to change the way/how much they drive. Unfortunately, with the heat, house hunting, and 2 out-of-town vacations over the last couple of weeks, we have been driving more than ever... so much, in fact, that I have not been keeping track.

I went to an elementary school picnic today and many of the parents were talking about the high price of gas and food. One person mentioned that food had gotten so expensive that she had given up on organics. I think that many other people are probably making the same kind of calculations at the grocery store. Organic or conventional? Local or who cares? Meat or veggie? How much veggie? Packaged foods or make your own? So many times, there's a trade-off in taste, time involved, healthiness, price.... it's hard to get everything that we want. For example, I'd love local organic strawberries at a reasonable price, but that just doesn't seem to be happening (4 dollars for a small basket is not what I consider reasonable). My kids want to schnarf down corn dogs, which are certainly convenient, but lacking in the healthy/decent price area (even though I buy veggie corn dogs).

The grocery store price problem and gas prices coincide when I start making too many trips to the store, or when I decide that gas actually costs so much that I might as well go to Expensive Mart, since I can walk.

With a quick look back at recent food bills, I've noticed they've gone up... way up. I actually spent 150 at the store a couple of weeks ago, which has never happened before. Some of this is due to higher prices, but I know that some of it is avoidable. It is very hard for me to cut back spending in the area of food, but I do think that we could be wiser in the way that we purchase food, so I am going to have a special June Food Challenge. Here are the rules:
1. Make a weekly menu and a grocery list.
2. Stick to the grocery list.
3. Limit grocery shopping to one weekly trip plus one smaller trip for fresh foods (such as milk and lettuce) only.
4. Eat as much food from the garden as possible (so, pretty much... tomatoes)
5. Choose organic when possible and financially feasible. Blog when it is not.
6. Record weekly cost of groceries.
7. At end of June, compare to May cost.

Join me in the challenge! Make a comment if you'd like to join.

How Expensive are Kids-- Part IV -- Driving

We did something very strange when we had our 3rd child -- we downsized our car. We had been driving an Oldsmobile. We sold it and bought a Hyundai. I like the Hyundai. It gets great mileage (on our recent South Padre trip we got about 400 miles to a tank) and the price was right. It doesn't seem to cause any serious problems (knock wood). BUT it is very uncomfortable and 3 car seats barely fit in the back.

3 car seats
When the 3rd child was on her way, I spent a LOT of time searching the internet for cars that would fit 3 car seats because not all of them do. Even then, I searched the dimensions of the car seats and did some crazy shopping with a measuring tape to find the perfect combination that would fit in the back of our car. It works -- barely. What helps is to have a car seat that fastens in front of the child (harness) rather than a booster for as long as possible. We tried to move our 4 yo into a booster seat but found it impossible to fasten the seatbelt.

So what does this have to do with being green?

Having 3 young children really affects car choice. You can't buy a really small car because all the car seats won't fit. I guess you could buy a hybrid SUV, but it's probably better just to have a regular car (and certainly easier on the wallet). Our budget for a car was around 5000, so we got as green as we could given our needs -- we could NOT fit in a car any smaller -- even 1 inch smaller in the back seat would not work.

It also affects the need for driving. For example, yesterday I took my kids to a really awesome park with spurting fountains (it's 95 degrees... we needed water). It is 3 miles away. Here were my options:

a. Bike to park with girls in trailer. J (6 yo) rides his own bike.
PRO: totally green
CON: OMG it's SO hot. J would cry and probably refuse to ride home. His limit is about 1.5 miles at a time.

b. Take the bus.
PRO: pretty darn green.
CON: have to walk .5 miles to bus stop and then bus does not go directly to park. Probably need to walk .75 miles at other end = crying and heat. Would take at least 1 hour to get there (and then another hour back)

c. Drive
PRO: fast, no crying, go directly to park
CON: car is really hot
drove 6 miles

These are not great choices. What did I do?

I drove

I guess there's also:

d. Don't go.

But I do that a lot. This was a special treat.

Second Time's the Charm!

Today we went to my brother's house for a BBQ. We had a great time. Thanks Gato Negro! (that's what he wants his alias to be :) )

Last time we went to Gato Negro's house, which is 15 miles round trip, we had a park and ride disaster. We missed the bus on the way home, and we ended up getting a ride home in 2 different cars. Today we valiently tried the same trip, but with success!

Here's what we did:

We parked on the street near a bus stop (total driving: 2 miles). We took the bus across town and then walked 2 blocks to my brother's house. My kids like the bus, it was on time, and the weather was very pleasant, so it was quite enjoyable. The trip there took about 40 minutes and included 3 types of transportation (driving, riding the bus, walking). On the way, my kids tickled each other and my son pointed to someone asking for money on the street -- "Look! He's poor." Luckily, he did not point to anyone on the bus and say the same thing, because that would have been awkward.

We had to time our departure a little bit. We could either leave immediately after my dad, or wait another hour. We left right after him because the little one was getting pretty cranky. We had some trouble finding the bus stop on the other side of the street, but we had allotted some extra time, so it was not a problem. We walked four blocks on the way back. The bus was right on time, and dropped us off across the street from our car. In all, the return trip took about 45 minutes, about 10 of it spent waiting for the bus.

I think the key to something like this working is to not be in a hurry. I like riding the bus with my kids better than driving with them in the car. It takes longer, but it feels like time we are actually together. In the car, I can't really see them and often can't really hear them. We have 3 car seats in the back of a compact car, so everybody's squished and often poking each other. The bus is roomier, more interesting (?) and we can actually talk to each other. My son also points out all the poor people* that he sees. I'm not really sure what to think about that.

*Austin has a pretty large homeless population (Austin Health and Human Services estimates 3625). Every day my children see people on the streets with signs asking for money/work. They also see people sleeping and living under bridges. I have talked about this with my kids to some extent, but I'm not sure how deep to get into the problem. My kids think of all these people as "poor people" and always want to give them money. Obviously, they are not just poor, but my children are pretty young, so I haven't gone really in-depth.

Wed. Driving Update

Yes, I know that today is not Wednesday. But I am swamped with grading. I have also apparently lost my mind.

The mileage on the car (I checked twice) is 97304.
Last Wednesday it was 96933.

That means that this week we have driven 371 miles. Have I gone crazy? Did I go joy-riding in my sleep? I don't see how that's possible. So, I have no idea what that means, and I will have to be more careful with the math next week.

Driving Decisions

C has a job that is pretty far away (maybe 12 miles?). He really hates to drive (especially since last month, when he "divorced" the car, but sometimes they have to get together again). It's hard to bike/bus sometimes because, depending on the shift that he works, he gets out very late.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I can't take the bus or bike to work because I wouldn't make it home in time to meet the kids.

So.... what do we do? A couple of years ago, we sold our second car and bought a scooter. When we both need to "motor" somewhere, the person who needs to go farther takes the scooter so that we can save gas. Of course, this does not ALWAYS work because the scooter can't go over 35, so we have to be able to take slower roads, but in the case of us both going to work on a Tuesday, it works out fine. I drive about 8 miles in the car roundtrip, versus about 24 for C. It also saves money. The gas prices are killing me -- it actually cost over $4.00 to fill up my scooter -- that's insane! (Don't you love that I can complain about a $4.00 fill-up?) But I'm being serious. Filling up the car costs a bundle, so we're really trying not to drive.

How much do you think gas will need to cost for people to cut down on driving? Is the price making you reduce your driving? Do you ever think about how much a trip will cost?

It's an important calculation to make. For example, the other day I needed parmesan cheese (okay... maybe not a total necessity, but spaghetti is just not the same without it.) I can get it at ExpensiveMart for about .60 more than at the regular grocery story. But the grocery store is at least 10 miles round trip. I can walk to ExpensiveMart. Hmmmmm....

Driving Update

169 car miles this week -- 80 from camping. The rest of the miles were either from driving kids across town to visit MIL or for work (which couldn't be done on bike or scooter).

I'm seeing that it is very difficult to get our weekly mileage much lower. The only way that could reduce it further would be to move closer to my MIL or.... that's really all I can think of. Unfortunately, that's not really going to work because, although I love my MIL, she lives near a bad elementary school. I also prefer living close to town.

image from xtracycle.com

I have thought about getting an xtracycle to make hauling the kids around a little easier, but I'm not sure if it would really cut down on car trips.

What are the main reasons that we drive?

• car pool -- we share with 2 other families, so we only drive every 3 days. If we biked the kids to school, it would not cut out that much mileage. Plus, it would be a big pain. Next year, my daughter will be able to ride this bus so this will not be an issue. If I wake up late, the xtracycle would help get the kids to school without driving, however.
  
• camping -- I'm not in good enough shape to haul the kids and all the gear at least 30 miles.
  
• grocery shopping -- could be done on an xtracycle -- kind of a long ride (10 miles round trip unless I want to go to ExpensiveMart)
• have to pick up large heavy objects and transport them around town. Could be done on xtracycle.
• Bring kids to MIL -- can be done on bus, but takes a long time. Too far to be realistic for xtracycle.
• Going to work in bad weather -- besides the car, the bus is the best option here. Unfortunately, out of the 4 jobs that C and I have, only one can be reached without transferring or walking a long way. All jobs could be reached via bike, but would arrive wet. Hmmmmmm....

Any suggestions?

Driving Update

Since last week, we've driven 189 miles. Actually, that's not true. I only drove about 10 of those miles. The rest was trips across town to my mother-in-law's house and "business" trips. There were, once again, 4 miles to the elementary school because I overslept and had to drive my son to school.

One of my friends says I sound like a drug-dealer when I put "business". Let's just make it clear -- there is no drug-dealing involved. So, from now on, no quotes. :)

On NPR this morning, I heard that el Presidente said that we should stabilize greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. Time describes this as "revising his stance on global warming." I guess. So he admits there's global warming, but we are only going to cap it in 17 years?! I don't understand why we can't cap it NOW and then work to reduce. As a teacher, I can relate this to teaching in three ways:

1. El Pres. complains that other countries need to do their part. True. But we need to serve as an example. The other kids in the class will follow the example of the cool kids. You don't want to be the last kid in the class pronouncing the "h" in "hola".

2. People rise to high standards and lower themselves to low standards. If your class is a blow-off class, nobody does any work. If your class is demanding, students will rise to meet the expectations.

3. Most people need a test to make themselves study. I'm a big nerd, but without a test, I do nothing. When I'm assessed, I make the changes in my life (studying -- blah) to do well. Companies are not going to do anything until they have to. Yes, that can come from consumer pressure, but that's not happening fast enough. We need to legislate change so we don't leave a terrible environmental legacy for our children (or our golden years!)

Or how about the parenting argument? Imagine this discipline technique.

Mom: Bobby -- you are hurting your sister. Stop hitting her by the time you're 23.
Bobby: Uh... okay.
Suzy: Ow! Ow! (for the next 17 years)

How do you think this is going to turn out? Not well. Actually, that argument is a little off, because Bobby should actually be able to increase his hitting until the age of 23, at which point he has to cap it, then reduce.

(I think I might sound like a crackpot in this post. If so, I'm sorry, and I'll try to sound more normal in the next one... the Thursday Experiment!... it's going to be AWESOME!)

Driving Update & Depressing Plastic

Driving Update
Over the last week, C and I have driven a horrifying 287 miles! GAH! It seems like every week we drive MORE instead of less. Here's the breakdown:
190 miles -- camping trip
3 trips to elementary school - 12 (one of these trips was my fault because I overslept and my son missed the bus. Bad me!)
1 trip to work -- 8 miles (it was raining)
1 family trip to hang out with another family -- 8 miles
C drives to school -- 15 miles (or so)
"business" -- 40 miles (at least)
That leaves 14 miles. My estimates may be off.

I wish that we could drive less. The trips to the school are always in a carpool -- there is no bus service for PreK in the morning. The camping trip was a lot of driving, but there is a limited camping season before it gets too hot. I think camping is important for children, but I think driving is bad -- it's a quandry. I do feel good that we have basically eliminated a lot of the short trips we used to take in the car. I don't drive the car 1/2 mile to the grocery store to pick up something for dinner. I ride my bike or pick it up on the way home from school.

The main reasons that we drove this week were:
1. Camping -- impossible to reach any other way: 190 miles
2. Much faster to drive/need to carry kids or other stuff in car: 48 miles
3. Bad weather: 23 miles
4. Car pool: 8 miles
5. Oversleeping: 4 miles

We did keep to the goal of driving less than 100 miles if you leave out the camping trip, but I'm puzzled as to how to get the mileage down.

Depressing Plastic
I LOVE Beth's Fake Plastic Fish blog. She is so inspiring. She is trying to eliminate plastic from her life and is educating others about the evils of plastic. Her blog and others have had me really thinking about plastic lately.

Here are some fun facts that I have learned:

• All plastic that has been made is still around.

• Plastic doesn't biodegrade -- it just breaks into smaller and smaller pieces.

• There is a huge amount of plastic swirling around in the middle of the ocean (The Great Pacific Garbage Patch).

• Plastic is really hard to avoid.

I ran into this picture of a sea turtle on shipwreckcentral.com. Guess what's around its middle. Yep. Plastic. This picture horrifies me, and I can't help but think about it when I'm at the store.


The more that I read about the issue, the more I can't believe that people aren't more upset about it. I think it's a natural tendency to look away from hard problems. I am mad that when I go to the grocery store I am forced to buy plastic that I don't want -- and then I have to figure out some way to responsibly reuse it or recycle it. And it doesn't even really recycle! Plastic bottles don't become new plastic bottles! They need virgin plastic for that. Plastic bottles become stuff like fleece or park benches... (actually, I am still kind of surprised that fleece is made out of plastic). It's sickening.

BUT! I did have a small moment of plastic happiness today. I saw someone throwing boxes full of plastic bottles into the dumpster, so I ran outside:
(let the freak show begin)
GG: Hi! Are there bottles in those boxes?
Dude: Yeah... mostly plastic ones.
GG: Oh! You don't have to throw them away. We recycle. I'll recycle them for you. (I am such a geek. I cannot believe I am offering to recycle a stranger's trash)
Dude: Yeah, but they're not #1 or #2.
GG: Ecology Action accepts all the numbers.
Dude: They only accept #1 and #2.
GG: Yeah, they used to, but now they take them all. It's new.
Dude: Oh, great, I recycle there anyways.

(And he put the boxes back in his car to take them to the recycling center)

...or maybe he drove around to the other dumpster to throw his trash away in peace.

Driving Update, More CSA, Plastic Bags

I have two updates today. This week, we drove 180 miles. ACH! C, although he is divorced from the car, drove about 170 of them. Over the course of 2 days, he drove 100 miles for business, and then he had to drive an extra 30 to go visit his mother, who is sick. He could not have taken the bus to visit his mother, because he had to bring her lots of food. He could have done the business by bus and walking, but it would have taken several days, instead of one afternoon.

My students debated the advantages and disadvantages of various modes of transportation yesterday. For the bus, they said that the advantage was the price, and that was it. I thought that was interesting, because for me safety is a major reason to take the bus. I feel very secure. My students, however, feel that the bus is not safe because of 1) the type of people that ride the bus, especially late at night and early in the morning and 2) because of unsafe walks home from the bus stop. I am spoiled because I have a bus stop in front of my house and because I do not usually ride a city bus, but a university shuttle. Obviously, Cap Metro needs to work on their PR campaign.

So, as far as the car driving, 180 miles is a huge disappointment, but there was very little we could do about it. Today is the first day in two weeks that I have driven, and it was mainly out of laziness. I feel bad.

CSA
Week 2 of CSA today. The basket contained:
1 bunch spinach
1 bunch lettuce
1 bag mixed greens (with arugula?)
kale (traded for more spinach)
chard (!)
2 green onions
8 asparagus
baby carrots (they are very cute, but there are only about 6, and they are 2" long)
a couple of cauliflower florets

I'm not overwhelmed. We still have lettuce left over from last week. We are going to have to go crazy with some salad. My current feeling about CSA is that it's not worth it for us. In addition, I got a total of 5 plastic bags in my CSA box. Grrr.... Granted, 4 of them are biobags, but I am not currently composting bags, and I would really just rather have naked greens.

Speaking of bags, my friend alerted me that a group called Ban the Bags is calling for a ban on plastic bags in Austin. Yeah! According to their website, it takes 430,000 gallons of oil to produce 100 million plastic bags. Guess how many bags Austin uses in a year? That's right. About 100 million.

A woman quoted on the news said that she was too busy to bring her own bag. How can that be? I'm pretty darn busy. You know how much time it takes me to bring my own bag? None. You know how many times my cloth bag breaks, spilling the stuff onto the sidewalk? Never. Did it take me a few tries to remember to bring the darn things in the store? You betcha. But now it's a habit, and I haven't looked back. Now I'm working on remembering to bring my own bags for bulk stuff. It's just a matter of making it a habit. Her comment just doesn't make sense -- it's like saying you're too busy to wash the dishes, so you should just use plastic. Or too busy to wash towels, so just dry yourself with paper after a shower (Don't get any ideas!).

Experimental Thursday -- Butter
I thought that for Thursday I could make my own organic butter, but I don't really see how it could be worth it. The cheapest organic butter at the store is 4.49 a pound. A pint of organic cream is 2.29. How much butter does a pint make? I don't know. But unless it makes 1/2 a pound (which doesn't seem possible), it's not a better deal. In addition, since the cream that comes in glass containers is even MORE expensive, I would have to buy a plastic container. So it seems better to buy butter that comes packaged in waxed paper and wrapped in a cardboard box. Several bloggers have been making butter, and it seems like fun. But it doesn't seem like a better deal, or a reduction in plastic waste (at least in my case).

If anyone has made butter, let me know what the yield is like. If I'm wrong about the cost, I'd love to give it a try.

We ARE Traffic -- Critical Mass and bike riding

Today I ran into the critical mass bike ride. Pretty much literally. I was on the way home from school on the bus and the bus got stuck behind the cyclists. Since my bike was on the bus, I rang the bell, hopped off, and joined in.

About 10 years ago, I seem to remember a debate about critical mass -- some cyclists thought it was good -- others thought it just made drivers hate us. I'm not sure if this debate is still going on. What I do know is that I had a GREAT time, on the ride.

Basically, once a month a bunch of people meet on campus and then ride around town en masse. There doesn't seem to be a real organizer or a real plan. Maybe there is, but it doesn't seem like it. The people in front just decide where to go and the other people follow along. What is amazing is how great it feels to ride through the streets (during rush hour, mind you) and not be afraid. Because usually when I ride my bike in the city, I'm afraid. That's messed up.

So yes, critical mass does mess with traffic. But the people on the ride didn't seem too confrontational. They seemed pretty happy. And the people in cars can just chill out and wait for a few more minutes (because really that's all the delay we caused)... that seems fair considering the huge detours I make on my bike to avoid the busy streets that scare me.

This is supposed to be a "bike friendly" city, but it doesn't seem that way to me most of the time. The bike lanes are full of parked cars. How is that a bike lane? The bike lane on my road is probably 3 feet wide and full of cracks and holes and gravel. When I ride with the kids, I make them ride on the sidewalk because I don't feel like the bike lane on our street (which sees a lot of traffic going at least 35) is safe at all.

I think it's a bike friendly city in that there are lots of trails and there are a lot of people that ride recreationally. But not that many people ride for transportation. It seems like that number is increasing, but it's still a very small number.

Why don't more people ride for transportation? Here's some reasons:

• They can't get all sweaty before work.
• It's too far.
• They're out of shape.
• They think it will take too long.
• It's too scary.
• They have to carry a bunch of stuff.
• Bad weather.

There are answers to these excuses (and more!) here.
My main reasons to ride the bike (instead of driving) are:

• Parking is free and easy!
• Don't need to go to the gym.
• For short trips, it takes about the same amount of time.
• If you are riding along at a relaxed pace, you don't get too sweaty.
• People smile and wave and you can smile and wave back.
• Gives me a good excuse to eat more :)
  

Riding is especially fun if you bring your kids. Last summer we usually rode with the kids to the swimming pool. I would pull my son on a tag-a-long (tandem that attaches to my bike) and C would pull the girls in a trailer. People ALWAYS complimented us when we got to the pool -- "Oh, you're so fit... Oh, good for you." :) Sometimes I would take all the kids by myself, J on the tandem and then attach the trailer to that (bad for bike -- killed my gears) -- people were REALLY amazed by that. That was part of the fun. Then, because we didn't spend any money on gas or parking, we could justify a little treat like popsicles or something.

Car Update, CSA

So.... today's an exciting day in Grad Greenland. The worm factory is here. Which means that I ordered the worms. There are many worm sources, but it seems like they run from 25 to 30 a pound, usually with shipping included. OUCH. They'd better work. Sometimes I fantasize about selling the excess worms once they start making worm children, thus becoming a worm farmer, and pretty soon independently wealthy. Then I remember that I'm grossed out by worms and that the only reason that I decided this was doable at all was because my husband said he'd deal with the worms. :)

Today was also my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) pick-up. This is another of those things I had been thinking about a lot before starting the blog, and the blog gave me a kick in the pants. A quick internet search and I found a CSA open to subscriptions -- they're certified organic, and the drop-off house is about a mile from my apartment. So I rode my bike over, picked up my stuff, and sampled the first off it today at dinner.

I have wondered about the price of CSA. The one I'm using is 120/month (30/week), and is supposed to feed a family of 4. It will DEFINITELY feed my family. It's a lot of vegetables. But... is it less expensive than buying the same thing at the grocery store? Hmmm...

Here's what was in my box:
swiss chard
collard greens (I switched these for more chard in the "trade" box)
asparagus (7 spears)
lettuce
cabbage
leeks
spinach
beets (3 with greens)

I don't think it's really less. The chard is 1.99 (organic) this time of the year. Lettuce is 2-3 (organic). Asparagus is 2.99 a pound at WF (not sure if organic or conventional). I got a total of 8 items. They would have to be less than 3.75 each to be less expensive than the store. BUT... they're all local (5 miles from home... pretty darn local) and organic. And I will be eating a LOT of veggies. I'm still not sure. Maybe it's a better deal later in the season, when it's not just greens. If you subscribe for more than a month, the price per week is lower, but I wanted to test it out first. So far, I'm happy, but not wowed by the price.

Car Update
Last week I posted about my husband "divorcing" the car. He has stayed pretty faithful to the terms of the divorce, bike/bussing all over town. He has also guilted me into riding my bike a lot more. Since last week, we have driven a total of 60 miles. That total includes:

• Driving with the kids to look at a house.
• Driving to work with my sick son. (can't bring him on scooter)
• Driving to the bus stop to go to my brother's house.
• Bringing the kids to my MIL's house (left car & rode bus home)

That's it! I think it would be harder to make the total go lower, as other weeks might not have sick kids involved, but they might involve trips to the grocery store or something like that. In addition, this 60 miles does not include the 30 miles of driving I caused b/c I missed the bus (or.. the bus missed me!)

If we could keep the driving under 100 miles/week (including camping trips... maybe "save up" for those) that would be a HUGE reduction of our driving and reduce our spending on gas by about half. So, I'm going to aim for that.

Problems with the Bus

Last night we went to my brother's house for Easter dinner. (Which was awesome, thanks guys.) We decided that we would do a sort of "park and ride" by driving to the bus stop, parking the car on the street (free on Sundays!) and taking the bus. Going to my brother's house was no problem. The bus was right on time, the ride was pleasant... the walk from the bus stop to the house was about 10 minutes -- not too bad. It took about 40 minutes in all (driving would have been about 20). But on the way back, we missed the bus. Big problem! We walked to the bus stop, but just as we were getting there, we saw the bus go by -- early! Almost 10 minutes early. This was NOT COOL, as the next bus wouldn't be by for another hour. It was already past my kids' bedtime, so my cousin and my brother's girlfriend gave us a ride to the car -- why two people? Aha! Because we don't all fit in one car. So, it didn't save any gas at all -- in fact, it was worse. We should have saved 14.6 miles of driving. Instead, we caused 30 miles of driving. ARGH!!

Lesson learned? I guess it's not realistic to take the bus at night with the family. OR we'll have to plan to be at least 15 minutes early at the bus stop.

My brother did let me know about a cool new feature of google -- in some cities, you can do google directions and click on a tab that says "Take public transit". It will give you various options of where to take the bus and tell you how much money you will save. According to this feature, driving would have cost us 7.06, whereas the bus only cost us 1.00 (because of the young kids and my student status). I think this is a pretty realistic driving cost. A while ago I calculated how much it cost us per mile to drive, and it came out right around .50 a mile. This figure is not just for gas, but wear and tear on the car, maintenance, etc. The IRS rate for 2007 business use was 48.5 cents per mile, so about the same.

I'll be updating the driving numbers on Wednesday.

Baa Baa Black Sheep... Three Bags Full!

Unstuffing status -- three bags full.
Today's stuff includes:
2 pillowcases
2 shirts (mine)
9 pieces of clothing from my youngest daughter

Children's clothes is an area where I have an embarrassment of riches right now. I was going through her clothes and found about 20 pairs of 3T pants. That's probably more pants than anyone, even a toddler, needs. What's funny is that the 9 pieces of clothing don't even include those 20 pairs of pants. Those I will assess another day. I will definitely pare it down, though, as it will cut down on arguments about clothes.

My husband came home today very angry about the car. Not only is it slurping down gas like nobody's business and making a funny sound that will probably cost hundreds of dollars, but my husband got a traffic ticket today. He says he won't be driving to school anymore and took the car key off of his key ring. He had to go back to school and he went on the scooter. An interesting turn of events, considering that I was just blogging about the car.

The current mileage on our car: 96048
Fuel expenses in Feb: 120.25 (15.90 for scooter fuel)
Fuel expenses in March (so far):104.55 (5.76 for scooter fuel)

Obviously fuel expenses are going to be higher in March. We went out of town for spring break, so we used more gas. Still, this shows that we are spending a pretty good chunk of money (although not as much as I had feared) on gas. Add to that repairs, oil changes, insurance, etc. and it's more than I would like.

I used this handy dandy calculator: http://www.bikesatwork.com/carfree/cost-of-car-ownership.html
According to this, we spend about 248 a month on driving. That's without calculating in the occasional ticket. I did not include car rental in the calculation because I wanted to see what it costs to drive our car. We will still have to rent a car when we go on vacation. For the cost of the car, I put 500 a year, because our car is paid for, but if we paid 4000 and it lasts 8 years, that's 500 a year. That may be wildly optimistic, but the point is that the price per month would not be lower... only higher.

So the only way to decrease the amount we spend on the car is to decrease the amount that we drive. Obviously. I've considered getting rid of the car in the past, but with 3 little kids, getting around can be pretty hard. My oldest can ride his bike for a couple of miles, and my oldest daughter can ride the tag-a-long, but the baby needs to go in the trailer, and the trailer and the tag-a-long don't work together (I've tried... I broke the gears on my bike pulling all the weight) and the girls are really heavy together in the trailer. It works pretty well if we go somewhere as a family because then I can pull the tag-a-long and my husband can pull the trailer. As you can see, it gets complicated. We also need the car to be able to go camping. I love camping.
I think the most realistic (baby step) thing to do about the car for now is to not drive to work. I will commit to that and keep track of mileage on the car for the next week and keep brainstorming.

Two bags down...

Today I was going around the house, looking for things I don't need in my goal to unclutter this week. I found some random toys, a crossword puzzle book (where did this come from?), and was just about to despair when -- jackpot! -- I found a whole bag of clothes that I had ready to donate to Goodwill already. Is this cheating? Nah! They've been clogging up my closet for months now and pretty soon I'll need that space for the worms.

That's right. The worms, or at least their house, is on the way. I watched a bunch of youtube videos on worm farming last night (just to be sure that Sustainable Dave is not making it look too easy). I figured that if Dave "wimped out" as he says on the video, then so can I. We opted for a Worm Factory, and as soon as it arrives I'll get the worms because I don't want to have a bunch of worms with no place to live.

So today was a pretty good day, green-wise. Here's the progress I made :)
-Worm Factory on the way
- Planted about 1/4 of my plot in the community garden with lettuce and squash. Hope it's not too late for the lettuce. Maybe it will just be baby lettuce, which will atleast be something. This was actually a major triumph because I can't find the key to get in the garden, so I had to climb the fence and have my husband throw the compost over. I'm a mess.
-One more bag of stuff gone (that's two so far). They're big bags, too.

What I'd like to work on is driving to work. Two days out of the week I drive about 10 miles round trip to work. I can't really ride my bike because I wouldn't be back home in time to meet the kids off the schoolbus. I guess the next best thing is to ride my scooter. Next semester I'll try to plan my classes better so that I can ride my bike or take the bus.
According to fueleconomy.gov, my car gets 21 mpg in the city. That's shockingly bad. It doesn't seem like it's that low. I will have to look into that further. My scooter gets about 70 mpg. I can't find a reliable source that says exactly what the mileage is right now, but averages on various sites seem to be around 70. Obviously, the best solution here is to ride the scooter. Today was rainy and windy though, and I'm afraid I'll blow over. But after looking at the numbers, I'll be sure to ride the scooter if I won't blow over or at least combine an errand if I have to drive (as the grocery store is on my way to work).