Domestic

Low-Car Dieting Pt. I

Yes, despite the lack of my bio/picture on this site, I am participating in the Low Car Diet sponsored by Zipcar. I am one of 29 people in Portland who were chosen to take on the challenge of giving up a personal vehicle for 30 days and share our experiences with the community.

Long story short I signed up for the free swag.

In order to go "low car" I needed a "Portland Car" or bike. Sweet ride, yes?

 

Second to the sexy bike, I'd have to say that the best part so far has been the opportunity to buy this Timbuk2 bag online, colors and details chosen by me. Am I reducing my carbon footprint? Yes. Am I increasing my consumerism? Yes!

But let's face it, this bag is far cuter than a tank full of gas.

Road Warriors

On Monday, Sonia handed her car keys to the city. She's doing the Zipcar-sponsored "Low Car Diet" for the next 28 days, which means she's supposed to bike, walk, take transit, or use a Zipcar for all of her travel. She gets all kinds of goodies, like $100 to use on Zipcar and free bus tickets, in exchange for participating.

She can technically bum a ride off of me or another friend, but I'm playing hardball, and not driving the car either. Like at all, whether she's in need of a ride or not. Which means when I had to get from NE Portland--we live near NE 15th and Ainsworth--to SE 82nd for a work thing today, I biked. There was a bus route that's fairly convenient, but I found biking was faster. (And last night, I did the same, headed from our house to a bar in SE Portland for a Project Runway viewing party, a 45 minute bike ride away. Even though the car was sitting right there, and Sonia was at the Wonder Ballroom for the evening.)

I also need to go downtown today, and I had a coffee date this morning. Then there's after work drinks with Sonia's co-workers, then back home. I busted out a Google Map and adjusted the route lines to match mine, and found that by the end of the day, I'll have biked 25.8 miles. Whew!

I'll leave it to Sonia to describe her first week car-free.

-Amy

When it's hot, bake granola

I think all the berry picking has gone to our heads. After a week of harvesting, freezing, jamming and canning, we're fully into stock-up mode. And thrifty self-sufficient mode. So we ignored the thermometer, fired up the oven, and threw ourselves into another kitchen project: Making granola. Cue hippie jokes.

Seriously, though, granola is hells expensive. Instead, we raided the bulk oat and nut bins, and made granola to our own tastes. Which means lots of brown sugar in mine, and healthy things like sunflower seeds, flax, and currants in Sonia's.

Sonia's bowl:

Then we added honey and oil, and baked:

And each batch got its own glass jar, to make it purdy:

Yay, granola!

What else have we been up to? Climbing onto the garage's roof to pick cherries, plotting to harvest our walnuts, visiting Salem (where baby Jaxon serenaded us on a baby piano, and we had pancakes and bacon with his mom and dad), dogsitting, and tending the garden. The zucchinis are just about to explode, and tomatoes aren't far behind. I thought the peas were done for the year, but saw a few new blossoms when I went to rip them out, so they're staying in for a few weeks.

Also, Sonia got a bike! Photos forthcoming. Finally, we went to a ice cream social! Portland's rad in the summertime. (Not so rad: A massive bug almost flew into my mouth on the bike ride home tonight. Luckily I had stopped singing just a second before. He hit my lip instead, hard. Crisis averted.)

-Amy

Hello, Summer!

What a weekend. The Portland area enjoyed record high temperatures on Saturday, followed by an almost-as-hot Sunday, capped off with distant thunderstorms on Sunday night.

Okay, enjoyed isn't quite the right word. Endured is more like it. But we had fun while sweating buckets!

First up on Saturday morning was hitting the Portland Farmer's Market for our week's produce (and breakfast!). Then, on to Catherine and Casey's for the annual Sauvie Island trek for strawberries and a bday celebration for Casey. Sonia and I picked 20 pounds of strawberries, then we all hit the beach for a delicious lunch by grillmaster Catherine.

Back at home, I got busy processing those berries. The Pugets are more tart, and I made seven little jars of freezer jam, sweetened with just agave nectar. Today, I made lots more cooked jam. Then we've got two sheet pans crammed full of Hoods, freezing downstairs. The rest we're gobbling up fresh.

Somewhere in there, we also helped Laura fix up her bike (she's now got a rear rack and lights!), Zipcar-ed Jen's mattress and futon to her cute new pad, had breakfast at Albina Press, slow cooked a pork roast with navy beans and ate it with fresh bread, and watched a few episodes of Weeds. Oh, and I got really sunburnt. But it's already fading to tan.

Finally, this evening—as I was bringing the strawberry tops back to the compost heap—I noticed this in our backyard:

Big deal, right? A gnarly old tree? Yeah, well guess what it's full of, and guess what I plan to do next weekend?

Cherries! And I'm going to pick 'em, just as soon as I figure out how to get up there.

Fresh!

Check out the freshness happening at the Urban Homestead:

Peas from the Garden:

Fresh!

Also, my new shoes came in the mail:

Supa' Fresh!

-Sonia

San Diego in the House!

Got back from Minnesota yesterday and Amy promptly tidied up the entire house in preparation for the eight week visit from our Politicorp Fellow. Her name is Laura, she arrived last night and I haven't actually met her. (I got back from from my second job very late last night and was up and out to my day job before I got a chance to say Hi.)

All I know is that she was involved in grass roots Obama campaigning, is from San Diego and goes to Brown University. So clearly she is wicked smart and hells motivated. We look forward to hearing about her political activism adventures here in Portland. (Just don't tell her I voted for Hillary.)

Off to Minnesota

We're leaving Sunday, for an unexpected trip to Minnesota. We had planned to visit this November, for Thanksgiving (Sonia's never seen—of felt the 'wind chill' of—Minnesota in the winter. Instead, we're extending what would have been a quick trip for a funeral into a week-long stay, so we can catch up with the family and friends that we haven't seen in two years.

Getting to Minnesota, however, is going to be a bit of a nightmare. For reasons unknown, flying out of PDX is expensive. It's a helluva lot cheaper for us to drive to Seattle and fly from there. But that tacks on an extra three hours of travel time each way. Remind me to stock the car with good CDs.

Also, in a fit of crazy, I've decided that it'll be easier to make myself a funeral appropriate dress than to shop for one. I picked up this easy vintage pattern last night (Vogue's 2267), and have already whipped together a muslin rough draft to make sure it fits well. Thankfully, it does—and tonight, I'll get to work on the black version. (Just the dress, not the jacket.)

-amy

My New Hobby

This is what Sonia and I did last night:

(Except Sonia is a far more attractive taping assistant, and I did not make that face as she taped me up. I don't think. I did do that with my arms, though. Also, we are not 60.)

After she wrapped me in four layers of fiberglass reinforced brown paper packing tape, we let my paper mache shell dry for a bit, then cut me out of it. Now, I have a dress form. Like this, only perfectly tailored to fit me—so not quite as svelte as this one.

Next step: Make a dress. I'm off the knitting lately, and onto the sewing. You can blame Shawna (actually, Shawna's grandmother) for that one. I wound up the proud owner of her old serger, which makes sewing clothes a snap. If all goes well, I'll be making a (pinker) rendition of this dress shortly:

-Amy

First Harvest

Remember that plot of dirt I installed a month or two ago? I pulled our first real veggie out of it tonight!

It's the most beautiful radish I've ever seen. The lettuce isn't far behind, and the little baby zucchini plants have tripled in size overnight (no shock there). Today's 90 degree weather certainly didn't hurt.

Happy Birthday, Posey!

She's two, obviously.