Little Green House in the Town on the Prairie

Yesterday I rode my bike to the grocery store and filled up my new baskets for the first time. It worked MUCH better than the backpack on my back! I actually made it home with a loaf of bread that was still shaped like a loaf of bread this time. We were all getting a little tired of eating sandwiches on bread that had been squished to the size of a credit card.

While I was loading the groceries into the baskets in front of the store, a guy in his pickup truck was watching me. I don’t know if he was checking out my butt or waiting for me to fall on said butt once my bike was loaded, but either way it made me nervous. It was a little wobbly on the first pedal, and I bonked my heels against the baskets on the first rotation, but before I’d even made it out of the parking lot I figured it out. Whew! It would have been sooo embarrassing to tip over and lose my groceries. Visions of chasing oranges across the parking lot left my head, and I made it home just fine.

Yesterday, I was informed that I’m not updating the blog often enough. I guess now that I’m done spending time with Sully watching the Dr. Quinn DVDs, I need to get back to work. I was also informed that people like it when I’m funny, so I need to be writing more funny blogs. I’m not sure that I was ever funny, per se, but I’ll give it a go.

So in the spirit of being funny, I’ll tell you a joke that my little brother told me the other day.

A blonde walks into a library and goes up to the librarian at the counter.

Blonde: I’d like a hotdog.

Librarian: Ma’am, this is the library.

Blonde: (whispers)  I’d like a hotdog.

My mother-in-law, that is.

Alice has had this horrible cold for the past three or four days. Actually, we’ve all had it, but Alice lets us know louder than anyone else because her nose is all stuffed up. Combine that with a need to use the pacifier at bedtime, and it makes for an unhappy baby.

So there she is, lying in bed, snorting and snotting and crying because she can’t breathe unless she spits the pacifier out and she can’t sleep without the pacifier. It’s a conundrum, I tell you.

Anyway, my mother-in-law was over yesterday and mentioned that if you rub Vicks on their feet and then put socks on them, it clears their nose. I’m not afraid to say it. It sounded a little nutty. But desperate moms call for desperate measures, so I tried it last night. We’d already tried everything else: a humidifier, elevating her mattress, using the blue booger sucker…nothing else helped. So I gooped up her feet and put some socks on her.

And it worked! Hurrah! If the baby hadn’t been sleeping, I’d have called in the brass band to celebrate. Instead I went to bed. Next time I have a stuffy nose, I’ll try it out on myself, too.

Now, please. Nobody write in to tell me that Vicks is toxic and going to cause my baby to sprout an eleventh toe or flippers or something. And if you are going to tell me that Vicks is single-handedly causing the polar ice caps to melt, you’d better have a damn good alternative to the Vicksy-Sock cure.

I feel like I should explain why I’ve not posted very often lately. You see, I’ve been doing something very important: watching “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.”

Yes, you read that right. I ordered season three through inter-library loan, and they gave me one week to watch all eight discs. That is twenty-nine hours of “Dr. Quinn” in seven days. Thirty-one hours if you count that I’ll have to watch one of the two-hour episodes twice so that I can listen to the commentary, too.

So far, I’m right on track for finishing it up exactly one day late. Hey, I can only watch so much television each day.

I love this show. I was ten years old when it first came out, and I can still remember watching it for the first time. My dad, who was also the one who introduced me to the “Little House on the Prairie” television series, insisted that I sit and watch “Dr. Quinn.” I was instantly hooked. It was canceled in 1998, and I’m still ticked off about it. I still haven’t even gotten over when they replacing old Colleen with new Colleen in the middle of season three. Sorry, Jessica Bowman, I got nothing against you. But you just aren’t Colleen.

There are so many things that I love about this show. First of all, it’s set during my favorite time period of American history: post Civil War, pre 1900s. Second, I get to see all kinds of cabin-y goodness. And third, Joe Lando as Sully. Need I say more? How about a picture? (There you go, Mom. That’s for you. Wink, wink.) Oh, and let’s not forget Hank the bartender.

So, yeah. I’ve been parked in front of the television for twenty-five hours now. Only six more to go. I guess it’s a good thing (good thing?) that I’m up four or five times a night with Alice. Gives me plenty of “Dr. Quinn” time.

We did pretty good again this week! For the week of May 4-10, we spent $49 in gas. That is one tank of gas, which was used only to send Ryan to work and back.

We used the car twice this week. Once to make a large grocery trip (I haven’t gotten my rack and baskets yet for my bike, they are ordered from Amazon and on the way, though.) and once to go out to eat with my parents. (We don’t have seats or a trailer for the kids yet, so trips with the kids are still out of the question.)  These trips were both around one mile.

So that brings us to a grand total of $96.75 so far for the month of May, and it’s not even halfway over. Luckily, this tank of gas should hold out until next Saturday or Sunday. We’re still on track for making my $200 goal, but going to the zoo at the end of May for Wesley’s birthday may just push us over the limit.

I’m now seeing that spending only $150 a month just isn’t going to happen, especially with gas continually on the rise. Even if we go NOWHERE but to work, we’ll have to spend a minimum of $200. I’m kind of bummed about that. If I didn’t love our little town so much, I’d think maybe it was time to move closer to Ryan’s job. But ugh, I really hate the thought of that.

I think it’s time to get the car a tune up and see if we can’t get a bit better gas mileage. According to TreeHugger,if every American’s tires were properly inflated we could save around 2 billion gallons of gas each year! Holy moly!

I’ve been riding my bike all over town, running errands, and I’ve learned a few things.

1) There is no convenient way to get to the only grocery store in town. To get there, I have to ride three blocks in the opposite direction, backtrack back to the main road, cross the main road, drive through three parking lots and TA-DAH! I’m there. It’s really a pain. I’ve decided to go to the next city council meeting and ask about the possibility of putting a sidewalk on the main road through town.

2) Crossing the main road is a major pain in the patootie. And people are jerks. I wait. And wait. And wait. The cars come past at a steady pace, and no one slows down or stops to let me cross the road. No one speeds up, either, to give me a wider gap to cross. So I wait. And wait. Last time, I had to wait no less than five minutes each time I crossed the road. And this is not some big huge town with a traffic problem. In fact, we live in a town with only one stoplight in it.

3) It doesn’t matter if you are walking or on your bike, people are STILL inconsiderate. Today, the kids and I were out walking to a few garage sales, because it is citywide garage sale day. It started raining pretty good while we were out. So there I am, walking down the road with two kids, getting soaked, and people in their nice dry cars are forcing me off the road. Thanks a lot, jerks! 

4) I have no idea where to park my bike most places I go. We have a gorgeous town square, with wide brick-paved lanes and old buildings. Each sidewalk is painted with the words, “Do not ride bikes on sidewalk.” (a fact which Ryan didn’t notice until I told him…after he’d ridden on them three days in a row.) So when I go to pay bills at the city hall or our car insurance office, I’m stuck trying to figure out where to park. Do I haul it up the steps to the sidewalk, where I’m not supposed to be? Or do I park in a parking spot, and risk having some inattentive driver on a cell phone smash my bike? I’m still totally stumped on this one.

I’ve issued a personal gas challenge for this household.

Last month, we spent $300 on gasoline. Approximately $80 of that was to send Ryan to work, which is non-negotiable. However, the rest of it was largely unnecessary.

My goal is to cut our gas spending this month to $200. Next month, it will be only $150.

This month, we have some driving that will have to be done. We have our nephew’s first birthday party, Ryan’s sister is graduating from high school, and Wesley’s third birthday is at the end of the month. All of these things mean we will have to do some driving. I’m not willing to miss out on our family’s special days, or cut out our annual trip to the zoo for Wesley’s birthday.

So each week, I’m going to post on here how much we spent on gasoline so that I have some accountability for how much we are spending.

For week one of the challenge, April 27th to May 3rd, we have spent $47.75. That is one tank of gas. We have already spent 1/4 of our monthly budget for this month, and we have four more weeks to go! (Yeah, I’m counting a few days in April as part of the month.)

I invite you to try your own personal gas challenge! Figure out how much you are spending on gas each month, and try to shave a few bucks off of that amount. How will you accomplish this? Will you walk or ride a bike? Take public transportation? Stay at home all month? Let me know!

Hey, with gas prices rising every day, we can all use all the savings we can get!

Even though I hadn’t been on a bicycle for (gulp) probably eight years, I hopped right on my new bike and took off. Like my dad would say, I rode like the wind. I guess it turns out that riding a bicycle is just like, erm, riding a bicycle. Hey! That’s where they get that saying.

Yup, I got a new bike. I couldn’t hold out for a good find at a garage sale. So instead, I bought a new one at a bike shop. I love it! (Picture of me on it coming soon!)

Today I even took two carbon emission-free trips to do a few errands. The first time I rode to the bakery and picked up a loaf of bread. (I stretched out the quarter mile trip to about a mile and a half because it was so fun.) Then this evening, I rode to the grocery store to pick up a few things for Ryan’s work lunches this weekend.

On the way back from the grocery store, I saw something that made me very sad. There was a small herd of cattle gathered near a fence at the side of the road. I was just chatting away with them (yeah, I’m weird, I know) when I noticed that one of them was chowing down on a plastic grocery bag. I stopped to try to coax it away from her, but as soon as I stopped the bike they took off running. So anyway, I just saw your cheeseburger eating a bag. How gross is that?

Out in the backyard, exciting things are happening. Our potato plants are growing nice and tall, and the corn, peas, and beans have all popped up. No sign of any carrots yet, and we’ve given up on the onions ever sprouting, so we’re going to go and buy some bulbs to plant.

And the willow house is budding out!!! This is super exciting for me. Once it gets a bit more impressive I’ll snap some pictures of it for the blog.

Back to the subject of bicycles, here is an inspiring page with pictures of Dutch people riding bikes. I love the pictures of all the women in heels and skirts, with kids piled all over their bikes looking extremely bored. It makes me feel good about my plan to pile my own children all over my bike and ride around town in flip-flops.

I’m drooling over these bakfietsen. They are a Dutch cargo bike that can hold two to three children, groceries, and whatever else you can think of to cram in there. The difference between a bakfiets (It’s pronounced BAHK-feets and is Dutch for box bike) and most cargo haulers is that instead of putting the kids in a low trailer behind the bike, they are right in front of the handlebars.

How cool is that? Unfortunately, the price pushes them a tad out of my price range. How much, you ask? Oh, a mere $3,000…plus shipping from Portland, Oregon, the only location in the US that sells these bikes. And since my price range is roughly $2,800 less than that, I guess I’m just out of luck.

But I do want to get a bike and start running my errands on my own power. We only have one car, and it would be very handy to have a second “vehicle.” I’ve decided that since I can’t have the fancy awesome Dutch bike, I want an old school retro bike. Something like this:

So I’m going to be scouring garage sales this spring, in search of the perfect (and cheap!) vintage bike. They just don’t make things like this anymore, anyways, if they do, they don’t sell it at Walmart in the bike section. Besides, buying used is always a green thing to do!

This is a question that was posed by an online friend of mine. And lately, it kind of seems like it is.

First we’ve got the biggies, that we’ve been hearing about for awhile: global warming, crazy high gas prices. We’ve got the tanking economy, with real estate prices in the pooper, the lousy exchange rate of the U.S. dollar. Now the food shortage. Sam’s Club and Costco are both putting a limit on how much rice people can buy. I look into my nearly bare cupboards and feel a little uneasy.

Now, I’m not panicking. I’m not rushing out with the shovel to dig a fallout shelter in the backyard. Yet.

But seriously, when is it going to end? Was I just oblivious as a kid or what? Was I just trotting around in the 80s, swinging my Strawberry Shortcake lunch pail in one hand and Cabbage Patch Doll in the other, completely unaware of things going on in the world? Because I do not remember the kind of natural disasters and money worries that we are seeing today.

Even in high school in the 90s, when I was slightly more cognizant of my surroundings, I don’t remember this kind of thing. Earthquakes in the Midwest, hurricanes nearly wiping out major cities, busy bridges collapsing…I just don’t remember any of it.

I’m sure a quick Googling would tell me all I need to know about what I missed when I was paying more attention to the cute boy in English class than I was to the morning news. But I’m not going to bother. I know that no matter what happened back then, all I need to worry about is what’s going on today. I have my kids to think about, and damn if I’m not worried about what’s happening to the entire world.

I don’t want to start hoarding food, because I’m afraid that we would be adding to the shortage. However, I do think that I’m going to keep at least a small stockpile of non-perishable food on hand. Not just in case all hell breaks loose and horrible things start happening (more earthquakes, terrorists attacks, George W. being re-re-elected to the presidency) but also for more mundane reasons: job loss, food price hikes, unexpected cravings of Spam and canned pears.  

In any case, by keeping food in stock, I’ll save trips to the grocery store. And that’s green, right?

That’s right, garage sale time! I absolutely love going to garage sales. I like holding my own slightly less, but this year, I’m really looking forward to it. Today we started The Big Purge.

I sorted through mountains of baby clothes, and I now have four massive garbage bags full of clothes that will go in the sale. I sorted through all of our kitchen stuff, went through both Ryan’s and my clothes, and have an enormous pile of baby paraphernelia in the bedroom, all ready to be sold in one fell swoop on the front lawn.

I’m a little overwhelmed at deciding on prices for everything. I don’t want to overprice anything, but I want to get my money’s worth, too! How much do you charge for a onesie? A crib? A maternity shirt? Gak! It’s too many numbers! Math was never my strong suit.

We’re basically trying to scale down most of our belongings so that we can fit into our tiny little dream home, which doesn’t exist yet. Once the house is less bloated, we’ll be calling our real estate agent to come over and tell us how much our house is (or isn’t) worth. This is what I’m most nervous about. I’m terrified that we won’t be able to sell the house for enough to get out of here, and we’ll be stuck in the house indefinitely. Blast you, crappy housing market!!!