These boots were made for walkin'...

So my ancient Saturn is now parked, perhaps permanently, in our driveway. It won't pass smog. And considering it's 15 years old and has something like 200,000 miles on it...we aren't going to put any moola into it. For now we are a one car family--my choice. We could afford another car, but Kevin is working so many hours to bust us out of debt and build up our savings. I'd rather put the $300 or so in payments and insurance and maintence toward the bills.

I'm seriously concerned about the plight of the enviornment right now, especially Global Warming and Peak Oil. (If you know anything about me, know that I have this tendancy to hyperfocus. Right now, I'm especially pleasant to live with because I'm focused on the End-of-the-World-as-We-Know-it. Specifically, the end of cheap oil and the effects of the over-consumption that got us there.) Okay. So I'm feeling okay about having one car. I'd feel much better if that one car was some sort of a hybrid or something, instead of a mommy-mobile van that gets 20 miles to the gallon.

I started to write here "the only problem is...", but I changed my mind. It isn't really a problem. It's a challenge. Kevin is working two jobs right now, so Wednesday through Saturday I have no car at all. In an emergency, I could have one, but I'd have to get up at 3 a.m. and pick Kevin up from work and well...I like to sleep.

We live in the city center-ish area of town. Not on the outskirts. Directly across the street from my house is a shopping mall, across the street from that is a grocery store, catty corner is a good bookstore. The city bus picks up ten steps from my front door. Nick's psychiatrist's office is less than a mile away (we're walking there on the 8th.) There is a major hospital across the street from the psychiatrist's office.

When Adrienne and Nick were babies and I was first divorced from their dad I didn't have a car for five years. I walked everywhere. We used to go out on Saturday's and walk the neighborhood looking for good garage sales. We walked to the grocery store with one of those granny pushcarts. We took the bus to McDonald's and a movie with my best friend and her girls every Friday.

I think it's significant to mention that I weighed roughly 100 pounds less then than I do now. I gained about 50 pounds in the two years after I got a car.

It is beyond time for me to get off my ass and move some. And that doesn't mean the gym.