Saturday, January 30, 2010

A mid-winter check in

I recently posted about the mid-winter warmth we've been having in Vermont. All over town and even in my backyard I can see actually grass. Real grass. Not covered in snow. Or at least I could until two days ago. It was as though the sky finally looked at the ground and realized it was looking a little too much like spring and promptly dumped a few inches of snow on us. I really enjoyed the use of the word squall that happened on several occasions at work. At one point we looked outside and saw nothing but white. NOTHING BUT WHITE. OK, OK, I know this is Vermont, but it's not the arctic, this kind of stuff doesn't happen very often.

And now is as good a time as any to check in with those changes I told myself I'd be making in my life.

1. Step up my commitment to the environment. I'm doing a pretty good job of this. I've made a few changes recently that are small, but significant. One of those changes does not include driving less. It's endlessly annoying that I have two jobs and usually work at two locations everyday. This kind of kills any chance of carpooling, because I would need to orchestrate something between three different people who don't share my schedule. However, come spring I plan to bike more. Right now it's not feasible. Not because of the cold, but due to the danger of ice and snow banks in what would be the shoulder of a highway. No thanks.

But here's something fun! I'm going to try and include a fun environmental... something (who knows) at the bottom of my non-book review posts. Starting today.

2. Become a for real Vermont resident. I am officially a Vermont voter! And I have a PO Box! And I applied for health insurance. I don't have a Vermont ID yet, but that's because I don't have time to even think about driving to Bennington for such a trivial thing.

3. Get even more organized. Yeah... about that. I haven't done this.

4. Check!

5. Read more. There isn't enough time to read all of the books on my book list!!! But I'm trying.

6. Make new friends. Um. Well. I think I'm kind of trying. I mean, I've gone out to social events I would normally skip out on, but I also go to the movies alone every week and never even try to have company. Socializing is so much work! I just want to have friends without having to go through the stress of making them. (yes, I said stress. This might explain why change is so difficult for me)

7. Continue my efforts to eat whole, home-made, unprocessed food. I haven't had a single Soy Chai Latte since I wrote that change! I have had several bagels though. Clearly I need to go out and get me some rice cakes, because I'm all out and I'm substituting bagels. Still no blender. Gonna go make a new freecycle post about this.

So... yeah! I'd say I'm chugging along. But I'm gonna go chug along down to the kitchen and make me some rice flour pancakes.

A green idea: I get paid weekly at my internet job. Gordon leaves our paychecks in an envelope by our time sheets. There are 52 weeks in a year. That's 52 envelopes a year! I buy a box of 50 envelopes and it lasts me forever. I don't want my paychecks costing the earth a box of paper envelopes a year. So on Fridays I put my packcheck into my backpack and hand the envelope back to Gordon. He reuses it next week. My little envelope change inspired one of my coworkers as well, so that's a little over two boxes of envelopes a year we're saving for pretty much no effort whatsoever. Woo!

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