Shifting Into a New Gear

If you're keeping tabs, you may have noticed that it's been over a year since I have posted any new content here. The reason? After living very contently without a car for seven months, certain circumstances in my life forced me to purchase one. (I know!)

Though I have done my best to set up my life to be able to live car-free, there are some things that one just does not have control over. One of those things is the Seattle Public School District. Unfortunately, last year, my son did not get accepted into the school that would have been conveniently located equidistant between my house and his father's and easily accessible by bus or bike, and he ended up going to kindergarten in an inconvenient (to me) neighborhood.

I gave it the old college try for the first month of school. Since taking a Metro bus was out of the question (due to the one-hour travel time, each way) and Car2Go is never readily available outside my door whenever I need one, I relied on renting Zipcars every time I had to drop him off or pick him up from school. At $10 a pop, about five times per week, this quickly added up to $200 per month, just for school transportation. Add that to our other, nonschool transportation costs, and that just about equaled a monthly car-loan payment.

Since we had to ride our bikes to get to the closest Zipcar (not to mention having to lock my bike up, exposed to the elements), when the winter rains started the last week of October, I realized that I had no choice but to bite the bullet. It felt like a total impulse buy (and maybe it was!), but I have not once had buyer's remorse: I found a car online that Thursday, took it for a spin and purchased it on Friday, and drove it off the lot on Saturday--Happy Halloween!

But now the question arose: What the hell do I do with my car-free blog? You all might think I'm a sellout. A bad environmentalist. Or maybe even a hypocrite. Before you start judging me too harshly, let me tell you what type of car I purchased: It's a smart car, of course! As in, the same tiny, two-seater, made-by-Mercedes cars that you see cruising around Seattle with the Car2Go logo (minus the logo, and a totally different color). It suits our school-transportation needs perfectly, and is practical both economically and environmentally. I was lucky enough to find a used one with very low mileage, which greatly upped the "green" factor for me. (I would have gotten the electric version, but for some backwards reason, they are not available in "progressive" Washington state. I'll save that topic for another time.)

I still wanted to keep my blog going, but I wasn't sure how to reconcile the seeming hypocracy of not practicing what I'm preaching. In addition, the busyness of kindergarten and a new full-time work schedule kept me from finding the time or energy that I needed to shift my blog into a new gear. It took me a whole year, but, now that the first-year-of-school dust has settled and I've gotten used to the new work regimen, I've got it figured out:

Even though I am a car owner now, it is still a part of my car-free journey--I am still committed to driving as little as possible and to using and promoting alternative transportation. I've even found a way to use my car to help others maintain their car-free lifestyles, by renting it out on the peer-to-peer car-sharing site, Turo (formerly Relay Rides). And since the journey is really about being more eco-conscious, I will be broadening the scope of my blog to promote general green living, especially focusing on reducing consumerism and packaging.

So, stay tuned to find out about how I ditched toothpaste packaging; what prompted my DIY underwear; whether the "no-poo movement" is right for you; and other inspirational insights and encouraging advice for more eco-friendly, package-free, minimalist living.

And, of course, I will still be promoting anything and everything related to alternative transportation!

Let the journey continue!