You're already asking yourself "How can someone desperately seek simplicity? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?"
Yes. But if I had already achieved simplicity, I wouldn't be desperate, now, would I?
This blog begins because I foolishly pledged, at the beginning of January, that I would drive my car only half as much this year as I did last year. Now for a multitude of reasons, mostly economic, I and my Progeny live in a first-ring suburb despite the fact that he and I both attend school intown. We also go to church intown, recreate intown, and see our friends intown. We spend a lot of time in our suburb-mobile, which is, logically enough, a Suburu. It's not an SUV but it's not a Prius either. In fact, last year, we spent the national average of 15,000 miles in that car, which included a couple of side trips to Mountain Region and Beach Area, but no cross-country roadtrip movie adventures.
So skinnying down to 7,500 miles this year will be no small feat. There is some public transportation available in my neighborhood (it's a little less than a mile to the bus stop), but although it is now February, we have ridden public transportation a grand total of once. Yes, that's right. Once.
With any luck, dear reader, I will also be able to regale you with my more successful attempts at being a responsible global citizen: eating more local, less processed foods; installing new, more efficient windows on the west side of our house; and so on. But given that it's mid-February and I'm still a drivin' fool, you can expect to see most of the blog drama here taking place behind the wheel.
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4 comments:
Good luck, in the more specific goal of driving less and also in the larger goal of living a more simple life. Any insight you may be able to provide on figuring out ways to achieve that larger goal are certainly appreciated.
Hi Scriv, thanks for stopping by. I'm not sure I'll have all that much insight about driving less here in Cola Town. I'm still trying to figure out how to be serious about this without being so damn self-serious.
I was pretty sure that you were who I thought you were, but thanks for confirming my suspicions.
I used to drive a lot when I lived in Atlanta. MARTA takes forever and there are NO sidewalks or bike lanes. I signed up with that clean-air organization hoping to find folks to carpool with, but had no takers. And I KNOW there were folks commuting in more or less the direction I was. It's tough too when you are doing the carpool-the-kids thing.
Since we moved out to the boonies, I only buy groceries if I have at least one other reason to go to town (town, where groceries and school are, is 20 miles away). I try to keep the pantry stocked and I cook with powdered milk. Combining trips does help.
Cutting it in half is going to be tough.
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