"Where's the van???"

I wonder how long it's going to take us to get used to seeing the small, economy-sized, biodiesel-loving Golf outside instead of the gas-guzzling mommie van. (Which served us well, for as long as we needed it, until we realized we didn't actually need it at all!)

Snow Boots Made for Walking - and Talking

Today I am grateful for snow boots. They've been in the back of the closet, still in the box, since I bought them on sale at the end of last season... I had forgotten all about them until our Pacific Northwest snow "events" began in November. (We're having wind, snow, ice, and more wind - and in New York they're lying on the beach. But there's no such thing as global warming, no sirree.)

In the day-to-day sense, I'm glad to have warm, dry feet, and thick soles that don't slip on ice. I can walk the Giant Dog without being too afraid of falling. In a more global way, my boots provide an avenue to touch base with my adolescent son, who is sometimes fairly hard to reach.

I am so lucky that he still wants to talk to me about important things. Even on days when he's been snarly and impossible and I want to steer clear of him, he'll perk up around dinner time and say, "Are we going on our walk tonight?" and I find myself pulling on the boots.

Last night he and I walked around the lake just as the real snow was starting. The flakes were so fluffy and dry, they looked like cartoon snowflakes. Our neighborhood quickly became a fairyland. Nobody was out except for A. and me -- and the Giant Dog, who is made for snow and was ecstatic. We tromped around our usual route, making the only tracks in the fresh snow, and talked of this and that. It's our main connection as mom and teenager, and a routine I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. I am glad, though, to have dry feet while it's happening.

So, thanks for snow boots and a reason to walk in them.

Taking a Golf Swing

As a family, we have grown increasingly concerned about carbon emissions. Last year we took a big step to reduce our use of fossil fuels by moving out of the suburbs and back into town. We chose a neighborhood where we can walk to almost all the daily errands, with our pharmacy, cleaners, vet, coffee shops, library, park, and small restaurants only minutes from our door. We're flanked by two bus lines that connect us to almost any neighborhood we need to get to. Our elder son, who is 16 and "should" be driving, actually prefers the bus.

But there are always times we need to drive: our neighborhood's former grocery store closed, and the next closest one is just a bit foo far to walk with several bags of groceries. (A folksy little neighborhood store is being built, but nobody knows when it will be finished.) The kids' pediatrician is five miles away and not on a convenient bus line. (And I always need to get there in a hurry, it seems.) It does pour bullfrogs here in the winter and some days I'm less noble than others. And so forth... I felt I was still putting too many miles on our aging mini-van. We put our heads together and decided to replace my car with a biodiesel car.

We had visited the Green Car Company last summer (thinking we might splurge on a Smart Car, the cutest thing we've ever seen on the road), and were impressed with the owners' commitment to the planet and their down-to-earth way of selling cars. So, who better to consult about a biodiesel car? Last night we traded the mommy van for a 2003 VW Golf.

When I went out the door this morning, my first thought was "Where's my van!?!" No green behemoth at the curb. Instead, just a cute little blue car, ready to take us to church without melting any arctic ice.

Gratitude list for today: Getting a great trade-in deal. Being fairly close to a biodiesel fueling station. The fact that my family is all of the same mind on this issue. Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." (Watch it if you haven't already.)

Thursday was.... well... full.

Ok, first: what I'm grateful for. I read this article that said you'll be happier if you cultivate a grateful heart -- so even if you don't feel it at first, to practice thinking about things you're grateful for each day. So here goes:

1. It only took me an hour to get the computers back online this morning after the router mysteriously went to sleep overnight.
2. I got all the way caught up on today's projects by the end of the day, after starting out way behind (see #1 for reason why)
3. It didn't rain (much) today.
4. It was choir day. Which always makes me feel better even when it's hard.

Thursdays are complicated though. It's a truncated day -- I have a standing appointment that eats into the afternoon and it seems it's always just at the time when someone is waiting for me to e-mail them a piece of finished writing. Hurrying just makes me tense & unable to finish sentences clearly. And for sure, if I try to squeeze out an extra 15 minutes (which I did today), the traffic is backed up and moving at a snail's pace. So here's gratitude thing number 5:

I did take an extra 15 minutes, and other than the freeway entrance being clogged up, we sailed across the bridges and got where we were going with 3 minutes to spare. For Seattle, where the traffic gets more congested by the day, that's saying something.

A whole new year

It takes me a few days to dip my toes in the pond of a big new scary year. I don't want to fall into the humdrum group of new year's resolutioners, with the "going to lose 25 pounds" or "going to cook a healthy dinner from scratch every day" entries in my journal. Yet I do feel a certain lift in my spirits contemplating a blank calendar, starting a new diary, and yes, cooking two healthy meals from scratch all in a row.

It could just be that after days of torrential rain storms, the sun came out today.