Putting Your Mileage Where Your Mouth Is

I made the scandalous claim two posts ago that my car gets 12 miles to the gallon in the city, and 17 on the highway — a claim based on my unrecorded observations of how often I have to fill up.  If I’m going to tell you all how rotten my car is at being eco-friendly, I might as well have proof of some kind.

That’s where Fuelly comes in.  It’s a service that helps you track your car’s mileage and fuel intake.  And by “helps you track,” I mean, “it’s no different than if you were to write down how much fuel you put in each time you filled up your car, and then wrote down the odometer reading.”  Except, of course, that it’s online.  Online makes everything better.

I just signed up for Fuelly — not only to figure out how much gas my car guzzles, but to help me keep track of when it needs maintenance; gas economy is a good indicator of problems like too little air in your tires, or dirty oil.  I also signed up because I want to feel even better about riding my bike, and having definite proof that my car is a clunker is a good way of doing that.

So?  What about you?  Do you keep track of your car’s vital stats?  How do you feel good about your alternate modes of transportation?  Do share!

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©2009 at Simple Savvy, the simple living blog where we’ll see if I can remember to write down the odometer reading and amount of fuel I fill up with.  That’s why I carry a notebook.  And on a side note, Fuelly hasn’t given me anything to write about them.  I’d tell you if they did!  Image courtesy of mag3737.

Simple Saturday: This is Where I Live

I realize this is a day late two days late and a dollar short, but here is a picture of the town that I live now, taken from the top of a very tall building.  This picture makes me want to breathe deep.

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©2009 at Simple Savvy, the simple living blog where I live here and I’m happy about it.

The Share the Road “Solution”

Today, in Things That Annoy Me That Wouldn’t Have Done So Two Weeks Ago:

That’s a Share the Road sign, right next to a road with very little shoulder for bikes to ride on.  On my way to work yesterday, I passed a sign like this on a road with an even narrower shoulder than this one here.

I wouldn’t have noticed this two weeks ago; I didn’t have a bike two weeks ago.  But now that I’ve been riding my bike around town, I’ve noticed that I don’t live in a very bike-friendly area.  Sure, the town puts up these signs, but they’re more like a band-aid than a solution.  Reminding cars to share the road with bikes is only half the battle.  Giving bikes space to ride — now there’s an excellent idea.  Especially since recent evidence suggests you’re safer in a bike lane than anywhere else, like on the shoulder or on the sidewalk.

See?  Doesn’t this look nice?

I would ride on that.

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©2009 at Simple Savvy, the simple living blog where I hope you’ll forgive the influx of biking posts lately.  I anticipate quite a few more in the future.  First image courtesy of BikePortland.org.  Second image courtesy of Cycle Chic of Copenhagen.

A Biking Fool

You know how most cars these days look like this:

With smooth lines and sleek styling and lots of aerodynamics?  Yeah, my car doesn’t look like that.  My car looks like this:

It’s old.  It’s clunky.  It gets 12 miles to the gallon in the city, and 17 on the highway.  It’s in great shape, which is why I’m driving it, and why I’ll probably continue driving it until it dies.

Unfortunately, the low gas mileage means it’s a beast to drive in and out of town.  Which is exactly what I’ve been doing, even though I live a half mile off Main Street.  I’ve been hauling this car around town, doing minor errands, wasting gas, polluting the environment.  Walking isn’t always feasible; for example, the store would close before I can get there, I’m buying something too big to walk home with, or I don’t have enough time to make the round trip by foot.

The problem, too, is that city driving is harder on a car than highway driving.  City driving means more starts and stops to wear on the brakes, more gunk getting into the engine oil, more likely something’s going to wear out or break.  And I’d like to keep the car running as nice as possible, as long as possible — that’s green too.

That’s why I bought one of these:

I rode it home from the bike shop, and it took approximately 1/8 of the time it takes to walk, and probably the same amount of time it takes to laboriously back my giant honkin’ car out of the driveway.  Hurray!  I’ve been outfitting myself with the gear that I need to ride it to the thrift store and up and down Main Street — namely a helmet and bike lock.  I already have a patch kit and multi-tool.  I’m waiting on a bike rack or basket until I figure out how much I’ll use it for bigger things.  Would you like to see it?

Here it is in all its glory.  It’s so light that I can carry it up and down the seventeen stairs it takes to get to my front door.  I figured spending some extra money on a bike right now would save me on the car’s upkeep expenses.

I know, I know: who buys a bike right before winter in New England?  Me, of course.  I’ll ride it as much as possible, especially now that I’ve read the excellent Girls and Bicycles blog.  She rides her bike through winter in Canada — in skirts and high heels!  How’s that for inspiration?

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©2009 at Simple Savvy, the simple living blog where the bike shop guys now know me by name — though I’m not quite savvy in the bike store.

Keeping it Contained

At any given moment, I’m working on three or more crafts, with even more in the planning stages.  Usually, they’re simple projects like mending clothes or knitting hats or making greeting cards.  Sometimes, they’re more complicated, like altering a friend’s wedding dress, for example, or creating my own little black dress.

What this means is that I have a lot of craft supplies. There’s my knitting basket, a bin full of fabric, a smaller bin full of sewing notions, a sewing supplies box, my sewing machine, an expandable file of scrapbooking bits and pieces, three small drawers of miscellaneous things like glue sticks, glue guns, stamps, origami paper, etc., and a small bookcase filled with odds and ends like school supplies that I’m not using at this moment.

And comparitively, that’s not even a lot.  There are people out there who have entire rooms devoted to the purpose of crafting.  Ah, the luxury.

One way I keep it all in check is by having a set space for things, and not allowing myself to let it get out of control.  I don’t mean piling my bins into a spare corner of the room, however, or setting aside a room to house my growing collection of supplies.  No, I’m talking about putting your Stuff in a box or a bin, and when the box or bin gets full, stopping.

Take my knitting basket: when we moved, I donated an entire garbage bag full of yarn to the senior center.  It was full of hand-me-down skeins of yarn in colors that I wouldn’t use and fibers I didn’t care for.  Then, when I got the urge to knit again, I used up the few skeins I kept, and purchased a few more with projects in mind.  And I haven’t let myself buy anything new since.

The key is realizing that a cluttered basket of yarn means I can’t find what I’m looking for, so I forget what I have already and buy more of the same thing.  This strategy also applies to my fabric tub, which was so full that the top wouldn’t snap down.  I cleaned it out, donated quite a bunch, and organized the rest.  Now there’s room to spare, but I don’t have projects in mind, so I’m not going to fill that up any time soon.

What do you think?  Do you craft in any way, shape, or form?  I tell you, if I had a garage, you can be sure it would be a wood shop à la The New Yankee workshop — and no, that’s for me, not Mr. Savvy.  Now how to keep all those power tools contained….

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©2009 at Simple Savvy, the simple living blog where yes, that is the basket from my twenty pounds of tomatoes, thanks for noticing.

The Versatile Cookie Jar

Ladies and gentlemen, I am brilliant.  I baked cookies last week, ran out of gallon-sized plastic bags (finally!), and decided to store my cookies in one of the mason jars I have lying around.  That’s the brilliant part.  Wait, what was that?  You also know someone who stores things in mason jars?  Brilliant!  I wish I’d thought of it first.

Yes, the humble mason jar has started to feature prominently in my kitchen, and not just as a cookie jar.  I have taken to storing dried beans in the pantry, leftovers in the fridge, and applesauce in the freezer, all in these fabulous mason jars.

The reason why mason jars work so well as cookie jars is that you can see how many cookies you have left, so you never forget about them.  That’s why that big jar only has crumbs in it — I kept walking by and noticing the cookies.  And then eating them.  Thankfully, Lily doesn’t know how to open jars, or she surely would have gobbled all the puppy treats in the second jar by now.

In fact, that’s why mason jars work so well for storage: they’re clear, so in an instant you can see what you have and what you need.  They’re not too expensive either, especially if you have a relative who cans or if you can find some off Freecycle.  The lids are replaceable and interchangeable.  They look neat (and dare I say pretty?) when they’re full — neat enough to keep on the kitchen counter, anyway.  And to top everything off, they’re glass, which means they don’t leach chemicals into your food.

Still not convinced?  Check out this article on 50 great uses for mason jars.  I love the idea of baking cake in a jar and then sealing it.  Yum!  Here’s another article about mason jars’ versatility.  And this post wouldn’t be complete without some gratuitous mason jar photos.  Let’s call them inspiration….

Tequila Por Mi Amante, courtesy of Alan(ator)

Pet Treat Jar, courtesy of Emily Kirk

marblejar, courtesy of Daryl Marquardt

Making a Sun Jar – 13 – Jars are Done!, courtesy of Mrs. Gemstone

Mason Jar Sewing Kit_x, courtesy of debcll

storage in a jar, courtesy of jek in the box

glass yarn, courtesy of Vilseskogen

Wide Mason-Filtered Lizard, courtesy of Cycrolu

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©2009 at Simple Savvy, the simple living blog where my mason jar picture is not half as pretty as the rest of these photos, but I don’t care because the cookies were good.  Images courtesy of their owners, to which I have linked beneath each photo (except that first one, which is mine).

Simple Saturday: The Three Bears

 

I Stumbled across these images earlier this week — the first one in particular — and decided to save them to show you.  They have a kind of a simple beauty, and look as though they could be illustrations in a kid’s book.  I feel as though I should write a story to go with them.

It’s worth checking out the rest of the gallery.  There are many, many more bear illustrations, and what looks like some mixed media art.

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©2009 at Simple Savvy, the simple living blog where I’ve always been impressed by people who could create art from nothing; I always needed something to copy.  Images courtesy of Wexford Girl.

The Trouble With Big Box Stores

Last night as Mr. Savvy and I made an ice cream run, I snapped a picture of this sign in the parking lot of my local big box supermarket.  This sign epitomizes everything that’s wrong with big box stores.  It poses as a helpful public service announcement, but gives its true nature away: “Help keep your community clean,” it says.  Not ours.

And this is because big box stores really aren’t a part of the community.  They are designed to take away from the feeling of community; that’s why you need a car to shop there; that’s why they have only one giant entrance instead of an entrance on every side; that’s why they sacrifice customer service for volume of goods.  Who has time for all that pesky conversation and walking?  Less interaction between people, you see, means more Stuff sold.

Even knowing this about big box stores, I know I won’t stop shopping at them.  I avoid certain stores like Wal-Mart, but I can’t avoid them all; my bank account won’t allow it.  That’s how they get us.  That’s why they fill the top ten slots on the Top 100 Retailers list (PDF) — we need cheap things.

It’s probably because we need to keep up our cars, since we have to drive everywhere.  Driving everywhere raises taxes so we can keep the roads maintained.  Higher taxes mean people move out of places that require a higher cost of living, like cities, and into the suburbs.  And since we’re in the suburbs, we need cars so we can actually get to the places that sell the things we need.  It’s another one of those vicious cycles.

Even in death, big box stores hurt the community.  The article Big Box of Trouble: Dealing with the Coming Plague of Empty Superstores details the problems of having empty shells all over the country.

Ever the optimist, I look to what we can do: stop buying so much Stuff.  Buy more from your local small businesses, or if that’s not possible, take your dollars online and shop at places like Etsy, where you can get handmade pieces from skilled artisans.  But really, it’s the Stuff that will get you every time.  The JibJab movie below gets it exactly right when they say, “Your everyday low prices have a price; they aren’t free.”

Big Box Mart

(This link points to a short stop-motion/partially animated music video where a caucasian male sings about shopping at “Big Box Mart.”  He details working in a foreign factory where they mass produce USA globes, sings in his car in a massive Big Box Mart parking lot along with hundreds of other shoppers, and goes through aisles piled high with stuff.  He talks about his “needs,” buying a lawn gnome at the same time, and tries to put an entire clothing rack in his shopping cart.  He passes through the line of cash registers with a cart towering with merchandise, then brings it home and fills his house up to the point where he can’t close the door anymore and the roof is comning off.  Another person in the house is smooshed up against the window because of the weight of his stuff.  After this scene, we go to a factory where hundreds of other employees, all dressed in yellow construction hats, are all packed in one room.  At the front of the room is a dais, backed by an American flag, where several people dressed in suits explain that the factory is outsourcing its work to “the slums of East Beijing.”  Management streamlines the company’s organizational chart by linking “Management” with “Cheap Foreign Labor,” and cutting all the other facets of the chart off, literally, with a chainsaw.  The next scene shows the narrator joining the back of a long line at the unemployment office.  Finally, we end the movie by showing the narrator working at Big Box Mart, sweeping floors and scrubbing toilets.  He walks out to the parking lot where hundreds of other Big Box Mart employees are singing, and we realize they they used to be Big Box Mart customers.  The final part of the movie shows the narrator poking out of a darkened screen, asking “Paper or plastic?”)

To the tune of Oh, Susannah

[gong]
Oh, it starts with sweatshop labor in a foreign factory,
And gets back on a vessel and shipped over the sea.
It’s loaded onto trailers and it’s spread across the map,
Big Box-Mart is the place I go to buy all of my crap.

Oh Big Box-Mart, what do you have for me?
‘Cause our shopping carts are empty and we’re on a shopping spree

I come to the Big Box-Mart cause I do have lots of needs,
And they sell crap the cheapest with their discounts guaranteed.
When I’m walking through the aisles it’s like I’m hypnotized.
With a wallet full of credit cards, I never leave deprived.

Oh Big Box-Mart, thank you for serving me.
But my house is full of crap now and it used to be empty.

The next day at the factory, the news was very grim.
My job was being outsourced to the slums of East Beijing.
Management was streamlining the company org chart.
We gotta make crap cheap enough to sell to Big Box-Mart!

Oh Big Box-Mart, look what you’ve done to me he’s gotta start all over now at the age of 53.

I still go to Big Box-Mart. Yes, I’m there most all there most all the time.
These days you’ll likely find me sweeping aisle number 9.
My dreams of our retirement have gone up in a blaze,
and I’ll be scrubbing toilets till they stick me in the grave.

Oh Big Box-Mart, what have you sold to me?
We used to be your customers, now were your employees

Oh Big Box-Mart, my paycheck reminds me
Your everyday low prices have a price:
They aren’t free.

Paper or plastic?

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©2009 at Simple Savvy, the simple living blog where that sign will serve as a reminder of what it costs every time I buy my groceries.

The First Repair

• Wanted: Lily
• Aliases: Lily Bo Billy, Lils, Little Billy Puppy, The Billy Belly, My Little Lilliputian
• Description: Cool redhead with red and white spots, Yoda ears
• Last seen: napping in the sunshine in the bedroom
• Her crime: chewing the plug off the end of the box fan’s cord

It was ten o’clock and time for bed when I discovered that a certain puppy had chewed the plug off the cord of the box fan.  Scoff if you’d like, but in this house the fan is vital to a good night’s sleep, keeping the air moving and drowning out the noise from the cats scratching in the litterbox.

A year ago, I would have thrown the fan out.  Reattach a plug — are you kidding?  I couldn’t repair small electronic devices.  It would have pained me to toss the fan because I just bought it two months ago when we first moved in, in an effort to keep the house cool without an air conditioner.  We had a different fan, but someone dropped and broke it during the moving process (and by “someone,” I mean “me.”  I’m a klutz).

Please excuse the fan’s grungy appearance; it had been sitting on the porch waiting for goodness-knows-what for tw0 months.  That is, until I realized it had a cord with a plug.  And at ten o’clock at night, frankensteining two cords together sounded much more appealing than a restless night’s sleep without the soothing hum of my fan.

I consider myself a handy person to have around in a pinch (having worked as a carpenter and all), but electronics generally defeat me.  Still, there was no time for delay.  I screwed up my courage and set to work stripping and cutting and twisting and taping.  Mr. Savvy supervised.  He’s good like that.  He also made sure I didn’t fry myself.

The ten minutes were touch and go, what with the interfering puppy kisses and kitty sniffs, but I managed.  We waited with bated breath as I plugged the fan in to a surge protector (just in case) and flipped the switch.

Victory!  A fan that works, just in time for bed.  Do you see that patch there, in the bottom left corner?  That was all me.  It was my first successful small electronic repair, not counting the time I couldn’t figure out why the printer wasn’t working until I plugged the cord back in.  Yes, I really know that little about electronics.  Here’s a super easy, super quick tutorial for you:

Take the ends of the cords you want to splice together and give them a cut to make sure they’re even and pretty.  Strip a half inch of the tubing from the copper fibers inside, taking care not to let the inner fibers touch each other — that’s why they had plastic tubes around them.  A utility knife helps with this, or wire strippers if you have them.  Even scissors will do in a pinch.  Twist the fibers from one side of one cord onto the fibers from one side of the other cord.  Wrap that in electrical tape.  Repeat with the remaining fibers.  Tape over the whole thing.  Find a surge protector, plug your electronic toy in, and turn it on.  Rejoice when house doesn’t burn down.

So this means that if I can save a box fan from the landfill, you can too!  Get out your pliers and electrical tape and get to work fixing that pile of broken stuff in the back of your closet.  Bonus points if you revamp your original 1980s Walkman.

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©2009 at Simple Savvy, the simple living blog where I managed to work the avocado green carpet from the office into this post — twice!  Did you catch it?

Simple Saturday: A Nostalgic Song

Velvet Elvis by Stir (live)

About ten years ago, one of my brothers worked at a radio station.  One day, he brought home a milk crate full of sample CDs that the station would never play.  Something about the album Stir: Holy Dogs caught my eye, and I kept it.  It’s the CD I grabbed, and this song, Velvet Elvis, was my favorite song of the disc.  If you can’t hear the music, the lyrics are below.

I washed with water and stared at him over again
My silly faces were changing from pale to red
And how did I get here? Now I can’t turn my head
Sometimes we hear what’s softly spoken yet still seem so afraid
And when we’re healing all that’s broken
We turn to you and say I think you’re right where you belong

I touched my hand upon Elvis and I can’t complain
I touched, only felt on his canvas and I’ll do it again
Why are we even holding on so long?
And we still touch you barely breathing, you seem to have had it made
We’re feeling fairly open but who am I to say?
I think you’re right where you belong

I’m staring over and over and over again
And I’m wondering if I’d ever been here and when
Hey, Ali also won our hearts long ago
But honestly I, too, move so slowly yet seem to make the grade
And when I’m feeling rather lonely I turn to you and say
I think you’re right where you belong

Hey, hello, are you my only friend?
I’m wondering when I’ll see your face again
Hey, hello, are you my only friend?
So now I’m wondering if I’ll see your face again
Hey, hello, are you my only friend?

I’d love to hang with you someday (12x)