It’s called slow down my schedule and plan for some exercise

Hi, it’s now spring 2008.  I fell off the planet for a long time.  I don’t work in the city anymore, I’m up in a northern suburb.  But I live in the city now!  which is cool.  it’s a nice house, nice apartment.

And gas prices are rising.  Rising like crazy.  I “overheard” someone on facebook last month writing on their brother’s wall about wanting an SUV and everything but sadly reconsidering due to gas prices.  I wanted to yell.  I think SUV’s are dumb for about 90% of the owners.  You live in suburbia, you go to blan job about 10 miles away… seriously, you don’t need an SUV.  I have a friend that yells at people in their SUVs when he’s driving.  I agree!!!!

So now that I have seen my first gas price sign that says 4.099 for super duper gas, and because my boyfriend has braved the biking to and from our apartments (probably 7ish miles) and figured out it takes about 40-50 minutes, I’m making this statement (and hope that I have the spine to stick to it)

$4.00 a gallon for unleaded and I swear on my life (and death because I’m really out of shape and anything I do is like 5-7 miles away from me) that I will bike to most places: i.e. work and church and stuff.  because I don’t want to “afford” $4 for 87 gas.  and I don’t want to budget for it because it’s out of control and I’m going to stop supporting Gasoline.

I won’t necessarily agree that the prices are out of control and need to be lowered. there could be a strong argument for that because its the fuel we use for everything in our Global market.  But I say it’s out of control because it’s a substance, a fuel that we’re dependent on.  and in this global supply and demand chain that’s what we get when things go crazy, higher prices.  So in leu of the commanlity of alternative energies (yes plural on purpose) I’m going to make my own alternative energy when my spending on gas is toooo much.

So, $4 for the low grade stuff and I’m off to saddle sore land!!!

Getting fired for something – no hard feelings, it’s understandable (not me, the article) but having the cops show up is completely over the top… welcome to america??

http://www.fleen.com/archives/2007/05/03/breaking-news-3/

http://www.dieselsweeties.com/blog/?p=44

Thank God for sisters, no?

My sister put me onto this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/25/dining/25loca.html?ex=1335153600&en=a7fce62f62a607bd&ei=5124&partner=facebook&exprod=facebook

Barbra Kingsolver has a new book coming out.  it’s all about eating locally and things of that nature.  In my humble opinion if you can combine eating locally with eating organic a) you have lots of money and b) you’re really helping out a lot.  you’re helping your diet, you’re helping the earth, you’re helping the local economy and much more.

Check out the book.  Joan Dye Gussow’s -This Organic Life is also really similar to this topic.  a great read indeed.

So this great (canadian? or australian) cartoonist has a fun sense of humor.  he did a great series of the alpha bet – and all i could think of when i saw W was

hmm… that’s where america is right now – in the other direction.

http://www.dirtflake.com/?p=342   – check it out.

So I don’t write here much.  Life’s pretty sumin’ at this point.  I just finished gobbling up Barbra Kingsolver’s book Prodigal Summer.  Best book every.

I want to be those two women.  It’s a great book.  One thing it totally made me think about was the fact that as humans we don’t think about personal responsibility.  This goes WAY beyond nature.  there’s the whole cause and effect thing and life cycles are DEPENDENT on each other.

It’s crazy how as humans we’ve separated ourselves from this.  I argue that technology is really something that has a big hand in this.  I was thinking about technology really gives us as humans the opportunity to be individual and do tasks individually.  We have to rely less and less on other people, other people’s skills and subsequently (however indirectly) less on the earth.  I mean if you go to a grocery store – you’re not really connected to the food as in where it came from, what was used on it as far as pesticides, how long it had; as a crop; grown in that field, what the condition of the soil was let alone the condition of the farmer, the farmer’s life, the farmer’s house, his finances and his opportunities.   We’re completely separated from that.  And we also don’t know what that single farm is doing to the ecosystem around it.  I’m a vegetarian.  I’ve heard people say (and i think it’s really cool) that if you’re going to eat the meat, you should at least be comfortable with where it came from and that whole process.

But this part of the book really sums it up for me.  “Her body moved with the frankness that comes from solitary habits.  But solitude is only a human presumption.  Every quiet step is thunder to beetle life underfoot, a tug of impalpable thread on the web pulling mate to mate and predator to prey, a beginning or an end.  Every choice is a world made new for the chosen.  All secrets are witnessed.”  (adapted from the first and last page of the book.)  Every life has an effect on an entire chain of life cycles and ecosystems.  I thought of this when I killed a fruit fly on my parents counter.   I wondered what predator was absent that made fruit flies so prevalent.   Now, that’s a ridiculous case.  But it’s true – if you kill off the predators with the prey, the prey will out number the predators.

But on a completely other note – there’s women in this book.  and this women blow my mind.  They exude the strong solid quite grounded woman that I COMPLETELY fail to see very much in Christianity.   There are the soft plush women that make great mothers and great christians.  But i don’t see the solid grounded women that can stand in any wind and make great christians.  I can think of 1.  (i thought of 2 but then was reminded of the odd patriarchy that enforced a severe courting ritual with their daughters for the second one.)  This is the cool woman that just exudes confidence, joy, peace and approachability.  Someone that’s not a control freak but is utterly in control of everything around them.  Someone with drive, with ideas, with passions but has the peace about her that her existence doesn’t depend on these ideas.  Someone that is competent and strong, who can do any task that a man can do – and she does it silently, unconsciously, and beautifully.   No one draws attention to it, its as if you don’t even notice it as odd, it just happens.   This is the old woman with the long beautiful grey hair.  it’s not but that’s what I think.

I want to be her.

where are the christian women role models who are like Barbra Kingsolver, Joan Gussow, and the characters in Prodigal Summer?  Are we meant to become the soft squishy women that will open their arms to all the orphans and love them?  or can we be the solid confident women that stand in the face of injustice and fight for better, even if it’s silently.

quite the bologne brain over here. Haven’t updated like forever. But I would like to state for the record, since spring wanted to show a preview of what it would be like in a few weeks (months) I have been biking to work all week. all 3 days of it. it’s supposed to be 44 tomorrow and 34 friday, rainy and cloudy respectively. So we’ll see if i bike friday. But i’m SUPER pumped for this to become a regular thing. seriously, biking is fun. Once you get over yourself and any stupid or slow mistakes you make, it’s great!!

Also, i considered buying a specific house, i haven’t decided – i will let time decide – but it was beautiful. 2,500 sq. ft. selling for a STEAL. The interior had leaded glass parlor doors, a fireplace, some tin ceiling, ornate heat grates, most of the original doors and trim, two stairways (albeit one was missing) no walls – just studs, a few broken windows and some hardwood floor. This house was gutted, completely. It had been a HUD house previous to the current owner, resale value seems iffy, and it’s quite a gem. HUGE garage in the back, used to be an old barn, beautiful windows on the sides, two floors.

I really enjoy the historical elements of this 1890’s house. It got me thinking outside of convention and reading books on alternative building materials, who says a kitchen is cupboards and counters? what about interior walls, seriously? I started moving beyond the norm and going into the weird. It was fun. So i’m still researching all this stuff, and learning about cool things, reading some fun books (Gutted is a GREAT book, hilarious) annnnnnnnnnd i’ve been spending time at the central library, the one in the city o’ Rochester. sooooo much better than dumb suburban libraries. *cheers* i now know why they’re fun!!

that’s all for a few more months.

So,

I’m not sure if i wrote about it the second time.  I made a different recipe of granola for my second go.  It worked well.  We didn’t have powered milk, and so it didn’t get as chunky as the recipe led me to believe.  It was called Chunky Granola after all.    So tonight, I made another batch.  We ate through the burned batch and the first go at chunky this morning, so I needed to fill our buckets.

Chunky Granola works.  Some how the time for cooking doesn’t work so hot though.  here’s what i found.  I was nervous and experimenting to make it get chunky.  So we actually remembered to purchase powdered milk.  I made 2 batches simultaneously.  Other’s like to call this doubling the recipe.    Either way, i added a little more honey, cooked them at the same time, and actually cooked them for 15 minutes, and then had to put dinner in the oven.  So i took them out, let them cool in my room (so people wouldn’t snack on it) and then threw it back into the oven like 2 hours later for 15 more minutes.  It’s still in the process of cooling, but it looks a lot more chunky and able to hold together.  *snaps to powdered milk*  it’s pretty darn sweet though, which isn’t bad.  I realized after i started pulling the ingredients together, that I should have measured out the liquids separately in two bowls.  because when you’re doubling a recipe, bare with me it’ll make sense.  When you’re doubling a recipe you’re mixing everything together.  but when you’re making two batches, and you’re working with oil and honey, it’s difficult to separate that evening into the two different batches.  So next time i learn.  I also tried roasting the cashews and walnuts more than last time, but i forgot cause i was cooking dinner, and burned the hell out of them.  they sizzled in the compost.  I’m also going to try using real oats instead of quick oat, if we ever get any.
On another note – the city repossessed some houses from the tax foreclosure auction.  And there’s one near by with a vacant (and unbuildable) lot next door.  After reading (i’m almost done) This Organic Life by Joan Dye Gussow, i want to make a farm in the vacant lot and live in the house.  There’s some book that Far (ant hill) mentioned and it’s about this urban house that is pretty much as far off the grid as you can get.  I’d like to try that.
I realized there’s a line between being conscious and frugal – and depriving yourself of  the basic necessities of comfortable living.  like heat.    our house is not well insulated and we keep the heat low – but it works.  I’m not too cold, i believe every single one of my family would die here.    it’s all relative when I say i’m cold. 

the other thing i’ll just touch, and add to the post later – I’ve biked… well first

I’ve moved out of my parents house.  I finally live in the city!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and second is that i’ve biked to work 3 times!!  i didn’t after the first two because I had no fenders on my bike and it was wet, and i didn’t get my lights in the mail at that point.  Once i put my fenders on (last thursday) and biked to work on friday… then the temperature actually dropped to winter temperatures and has been super icey and cold out.  So i haven’t biked since.  I suppose it makes sense.  But it’s a step.

So much to talk about, so little memory.

So, as i mentioned previously – i got really cool books for christmas.
I’ve currently cooked 2 recipies from the more-with-less cook book. I started reading the related book -Living More with Less, and then picked up the This Organic Life book. I’m almost done with that.

What made me think of anything is that i just made granola for the first time! but i burned portions of it, I think it was too close to the bottom of the oven. And last monday i cooked the Tomato Quiche with the scattered help of Far with the crusts. It was good. (heather, you should try it. I’m really excited we both have the same cook book!!) It was really cool. The one thing i don’t understand, when making granola, is that the store bought stuff (even the organic stuff from the Abundance Co-op) is really really clumpy and stuff. Mine was really fine “grained” if you will. Adam said maybe it’s because i used honey instead of brown sugar (which we’ve seemed to loose) or the manor in which i was “stirring often” broke up the chunks. I dunno. I made the crunchy granola… didn’t bind together like i’d like, but i’m going to try the “chunky” granola and see if i’m anywhere near successful.

Reading Living more with less was really good. I started it – then i got distracted. But it’s really really compelling about how we’re living in the world and how we could learn from the world community. It’s quite a social-type book. It focuses on a very gentle interaction with the world around us, a conscious, slow and steady awareness and almost “critical” eye to the world around you to make the best and least impacting decisions…. i haven’t actually read it in a week, but it’s really good.

The book that Has been rocking my world is This Organic Life. amazing book, extremely well written. I recommend this to EVERYONE. if i had to pick people to hang out with, it would be Joan Dye Gussow and Barbara Kingsolver. They seem to be amazing grounded women that want to do something for the world around them. Reading about Joan’s garden, and the experiences and people she’s met with it is inspiring (horrible word – actually almost vague in a sense) but it’s compelling and makes me want to take up gardening. and by gardening i mean farming on a small scale. I’ve become much more conscious over the past week about what vegetables I’m eating, what people are requesting for meals, or bringing home and the fact that some of these fruits and vegetables are super out of season, and have been shipped half way across the country, if not the world. We used avocados tonight for dinner – I made guacamole for the first time, and since we were tripling the moosewood recipe, i just threw spices into it – Cayenne pepper, chili pepper, and cumin. tee hee – But avocados? I don’t know their availability. I actually just googled it – the seasonal availability of vegetables are very incomplete tables that leave out a bunch of vegetables. But i googled just avocado and came up with some florida growing chart that says they only don’t grow like april and may, and they only grow in the south eastern county right near the Keys. Frankly, i don’t like that i’m getting avocados from Florida anyways, and secondly 3 of them were rotted, so i’m wary on the seasonal availability they list. But either way… as I was saying – the other thing was the boys picked up some strawberries at the Public Market. But you’ve got to have a lot of discretion about what you’re seeing as “local and in season” at the P. Market. Because some people are just selling extra stock from the local grocery stores which sell out of season strawberries from Florida.

The thing that this book has really gotten me interested in and craving almost (oddly enough) is growing a lot of veggies in our own garden this summer (terrified and baulking at the amount of work) and then Storing a lot of this stuff for the winter. That’s the one thing that doesn’t really happen here is the storing. So we can freeze and can tomatoes and use them until we run out, and then ce la vie. Ya know? Like use vegetables when their seasons are, and if you don’t think far enough into the future you’ll be sol. We could have used some version of tomatoes tonight for our little taco/burrito/tostado dinner. And even if we don’t grow everything in our own garden, if we’re just conscious at the public market to buy only local stuff, and get the in season veggies, then we can can and store that stuff. And it’ll be helping out our local farmers instead of the other people. just seems like something really beneficial to all involved.

i’ll make that it for now.

I just wanted to write the books i received for christmas.  I’m pumped to read them.

This Organic Life: the confessions of a suburban homemaker
Living more with less
More with Less (cookbook)
The Lost city (i think that’s what it’s called, i ‘ll check when i get home – not my parents home anymore)
The Eastern Tree Guide
and… Building Construction Illustrated.

I look forward to reading these and learning so much more!!