Low Impact Reflections II
Well, some good news and some not so good news. First the not so good. One of my goals was to unplug our appliances (tv, computer, vcrs, etc.) when not using them. I have not done this at all. Hey, I'm just being honest with you. I never did get a chance to get some power strips, and most of my things are in cabinets that make it very difficult to get to. I know excuses, excuses. My wife and I still want to get to this point; actually, it's something that she first mentioned to me. The other thing that I have not done terrible well at, or terribly bad at for that matter has been the television watching. I have not been watching it, per se, but for instance, in the mornings, my kids are watching cartoons, and I catch a glance without thinking about it (Yeah, I love cartoons, I just have to admit it.) and at night my wife watches television in bed while going to sleep. Try as I might, it's darned hard to lay in a bed and not watch it.
On the up side of this, we did call and reduce our Direct TV package by half down to the bear minimum programming, and cancelled TIVO service, (For the summer mind you, I've been warned about taking it away forever.) as well as dropping the extra receiver that we rarely use, yet pay for to put in the home theater. We, my wife and I that is, have been really good this week about doing other things with the kids. For intance, playing a new dominoes game that I got from my parents for my birthday. Thanks for that by the way guys, what a fun game! Also, every night we have been taking a bikeride for I'd guess a mile or two with our kids. They all get to take turns "leading" us around our community and we talk and enjoy the perfect late spring evenings; so far we've found a new park, criused the grounds of the Jr. High school that our oldest will go to next year, and found the ultimate stash of wild Asparagus growing along the irrigation ditches near the new park. (Watch for a post on that one, what a find! I'll document it soon, and try out some to tell you how it tastes.)
The good news, is the my sweet darling wife informed me that I could officially claim to have inspired her. She told me on Friday that she decided that it would be a great idea to take rides every couple of days with the kids to the Local stores for our grocery shopping. I, however, would need to either make her a trailer or get her one so that she could get the stuff back to the house. We sent that wish out to the universe, and the powers that be put us in touch with a very good condition duo seat child carrier trailer for $35.00 as a second hand store. a couple of dollars worth of parts and I should be able to rig up a connector for the bike. (Again, watch for an update to this.) All in all, this has been a great weekend. I can't say that I've been able to meet all of my goals, but I feel pretty good about the progress that I've made so far.
baby steps, baby steps; we walk before we run!
P~
Labels:
green living,
Low Impact Week
6 comments:
I love reading your blog! It is very inspiring. I appreciate your honesty. Like you said, baby steps. I'm sure very few people could make so many changes all at once. One step at a time. Isn't it amazing what you see when you 'slow down'? I'd love to see the wild asparagus. Several summers ago, we were walking through an overgrown residential alley here in Seattle, and we found a huge wild raspberry bush, and some wild mint. MMMM Treasures.
I look forward to reading more about your LIW adventures.
Eva,
Inspiring? Me? Awe Shucks... thank you!.
It is great to find all the little treasures in your neighborhood. In our last home, my family and I took a lot of walks around, and found blackberry bushes all over the place. I guess that an older generation must have loved the things and everyone planted them along their back fences. We could walk through the alleys and come home with a bucket full every couple of days. (After asking the owners, and promising to drop off some finished jams of course.) The best one I thought was, and don't get grossed out by this, we took a lot of walks around a huge cemetary near our house. The cemetary had planted plum trees as decorative borders around their edges probably thirty years ago and they were huge and had so much fruit on them we collected them and made plum jelly. MMMMM just thinking about it makes my mouth water. It had an almost irridescent red color to it and we named it "Tombstone Jelly".
I hope to get to the asparagus today or tomorrow. Watch for it.
P~
P.S. did you by chance see my post about the Deseret Industries thrift store? I found the trailer I was talking about there.
Was it the older generation...or the birds? I swear I spend half of every saturday pulling little mulberry trees out of my plant beds.
I think what you're doing is inspiring, too. People don't talk enough about how *great* biking (or even playing dominos with the kids) is. There's this weird macho vibe to living green that I think puts lots of people off.
Sunday, some guy a friend of ours knew moved all his stuff from an apartment in the burbs into our neighborhood by bike. I didn't make it all the way, I dropped out after about 4 miles (nobody told me how far it was before I got there so I didn't have a rain jacket or my helmet or *shoes*), but this crazy group of like 30 people came out with trailers to help. They used a Bikes That Work trailer to move a twin sized mattress & box spring 16 miles. It was amazing to see just the beginning, it was like being in a parade, kids waved at us as we went by.
baby steps, exactly. MHO is that it is the surest way to get it into your normal routine.
I told another blogger that I can't bike like the rest of you do, it would end up a 2 day trip just to go to the store, but we do ride around to talk with nieghbors.
Phelan, Yes but I'm sure you plan your trips and optimize your travel time/expense. Sometimes I think that living close to all of the amenities lulls us into a false sense that it's OK to just drive to the store every day or two and to the mall, or wherever because it's just a "quick" trip. It does have an effect, and with gas prices what they are, that effect is greatly felt trust me.
P~
Rosa, That guy is just plain ole' too motivated for me. I ride for the excersise, and because it's something I can do to reduce my consumption and thus my impact and my expenditure. It's new to me, and I hope to keep up with it. I have begun to look forward to the rides to a certain extent which is something that I did not foresee.
P~
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