Need some reading material? These are my recommendations for January 17th, 2012 through February 1st, 2012: To Increase Sustainable Consumption, Show People What’s In It For Them | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation – I think you're on the wrong track, Fast Company. We need to reduce consump

“I signed up for a 1,000 points per day challenge on Just Dance,” I announced at the Weight Watchers meeting today. That’s about 4-5 songs per day, although you don’t actually have to dance every day. “Does that fit into your lifestyle?” the leader asked. Happily, I was able to say “

Need some reading material? These are my recommendations for January 4th, 2012 through January 14th, 2012: Group hopes dormant Ore. volcano will generate energy | kgw.com Portland – Possible source of geothermal energy…or possible source of earthquakes? I guess we'll see! Five packaged foods you never

Need some reading material? These are my recommendations for October 16th, 2011 through January 4th, 2012: BikePortland.org » Blog Archive » Exploring Alameda, California by bike – Nice report of some REALLY nice bike facilities in Alameda, including bikeway access to a middle school. Shareable: Policies for

Sometimes, in all of my spare time, I read and write about books. I’ve been hearing many people in the book world say that we need to support authors by buying new books, because they don’t get a cut of used book sales. Is this really right or fair? As a person concerned about sustainable [...]

I haven’t written about Future Economy for a while, but as I follow the Occupy movement, I do keep thinking about it. I do still believe that our economy needs fundamental changes; that an economy based on growth and consumerism is not sustainable. But what could take the place of our current economy? I saw [...]

Need some reading material? These are my recommendations for September 26th, 2011 through October 12th, 2011: Riding the crimson tide: bicycling when you have your period | Grist – Elly Blue mentions the unmentionable. I find what happy women get right – Instead of trying to balance life, why not try tiltin

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m challenging myself to eat me no more that two times per week for two weeks. Well, the next day, my wonderful husband brought home a pizza for lunch. With meat. And I had some pizza for lunch and then again for breakfast today. So I’ve already blown [...]

Yes, I’ve been busy. As a parent AND school employee, September is madness. And the first week of the month is usually the Week of Meetings Every Night, so the beginning of October is gone, too. But that’s not entirely why I haven’t been posting much. It’s also because some of the things I normally [

We just had a delicious, spicy, homemade pad thai for dinner. The combination of chicken, rice noodles, sauce and fresh veggies was so good that I gobbled a second serving as well. And my mouth and brain wanted more, but my tummy is so full I can hardly move. Eating good food feels sooooo good. [...]

Need some reading material? These are my recommendations for September 9th, 2011 through September 24th, 2011: do stuff! » Ten minute no-sew recycled t-shirt bag! – I totally want to try this! In Portland, Transition Movement preparing for a world after peak oil | OregonLive.com – Do you have a Transit

According to AdvertisingAge, sales of disposable diapers were down 9% for the 52 weeks ending August 7, 2011. Meanwhile, the number of babies age two and under fell by only 3%, and sales of diaper rash creams increased by 2.8%. AdvertisingAge reasons that this means that parents are letting babies sit in dirty diapers longe

Need some reading material? These are my recommendations for August 23rd, 2011 through August 30th, 2011: Cut back on food waste with these five tips | The Wenatchee World – Yeah. I just had to clean some stuff out of the fridge. Crews set to break ground on St. Helens recycling plant – "A $10 [...]

Sunday, August 14 was the Providence Bridge Pedal, and yes, I did ride! I did the six-bridge ride, which was 13 miles. This one is billed as the family ride, so there were lots of small children on bikes, as well as family rigs with Xtracycles, bakfietsen, tag-along bikes, tandems, trailers, etc. But there were [...]

Need some reading material? These are my recommendations for August 9th, 2011 through August 18th, 2011: How to encourage low-car commuting – PortlandAfoot – Tactics used by Regence, a major medical insurance provider. The end of the road for motormania – opinion – 16 August 2011 – New Scientis

Need some reading material? These are my recommendations for August 7th, 2011 through August 9th, 2011: BikePortland.org » Blog Archive » Shop launches ‘The Ambassadors’; a team for urban riders – The ambassadors will offer road assistance to cyclists and pledge to set a law-abiding, courteous ex

Some Twitter friends were recently discussing this language, found on many dairy product labels: No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBST-treated and non-rBST-treated cows. A couple of people misread this as meaning that the milk in question DID contain milk derived from rBST-treated cows. How

Every few months…or maybe weeks…the issue of bicycle licensing comes up. Some people think bicyclists should have licenses, and that they should have to pay a fee to license their bikes just like auto drivers do. Here’s one line of reasoning that I read today, in an opinion post on the OregonLive website:

I posted this picture of my tomato plants back on June 25th. The rows were nice and neat, and you could barely see the tomato plants inside their cages.   Now they’re a tomato jungle! I can’t get through the center path, and the vines are commingling.   There are plenty of both blossoms and [...]

Need some reading material? These are my recommendations for July 21st, 2011 through August 4th, 2011: Horn of Africa Famine: How to Help – Yahoo! News – Please read, and donate if you can. Green consumerism still uses a lot of resources — Transition Voice – Ouch. Yes, I resemble this, too. Maybe it&

Need some reading material? These are my recommendations for July 14th, 2011 through July 19th, 2011: Shareable: Rich Little Poor Girl – "I am a happy poor person. There are many things I have had to give up and get adjusted to, going from a comfortably middle-class, corporate-suburban existence to living a lifest

Saturday, I went to the farmers’ market and got a half flat of strawberries and a half flat of blueberries for JAM! I’ve already made the strawberry jam, as well as some blueberry pancakes. You can get exact recipes and instructions for making and preserving jam in lots of places. My favorite is PickYourOwn.org.

Need some reading material? These are my recommendations for June 27th, 2011 through July 5th, 2011: BikePortland.org Family bike camp trip to Stub Stewart State Park – Awesome pics of a family bike camping trip. Bicycle-powered cart gives Portland’s homeless a chance to check out a good book | OregonLive.c

Portland is a city of bridges — 10 bridges across the Willamette River and two over the Columbia River. If you follow that link, you’ll see that I didn’t count two more — they’re railroad bridges, and I can’t cross them by car or bike! As far as I can recall, I haven’t crossed any [

Google+ is all the rage today — it’s a new social networking service launched by Google, currently available by invitation only. Basically, you put all of your Google contacts into circles like Friends, Family, Business, etc., and then you can follow things people choose to share. Sound familiar? Like, Facebook?

Need some reading material? These are my recommendations for June 9th, 2011 through June 27th, 2011: 100 Days of Real Food – Just discovered this! A family in North Carolina pledges to eat only real food (no processed junk) for 100 days. They did this a while ago, and have pretty much stuck to it. [...]

I’m starting to realize that growing a garden and subscribing to a CSA might be redundant. Fortunately, so far most of our crops are not overlapping! We are probably going to have an overabundance of peas soon, but we’ll see. We like stir-fry and raw peas (I’ve been snacking all day), so that might be [...

  We got our first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) box this past Thursday! It’s exciting, because we’ve never belonged to a real CSA before. We’ve gotten produce from the farmers’ market, and from a couple of different food-buying clubs, but never through a CSA. Our first box included garl

My post on Seven Bicycling Tips for Beginners has been syndicated on BlogHer.com! If that’s where you came from, welcome! You may also enjoy visiting my Family Biking page. If you’re a regular here, I’d love to have you visit and/or comment on the post over on BlogHer.com. Thanks for coming by!

Need some reading material? These are my recommendations for June 7th, 2011 through June 8th, 2011: Americans Are Working To Feed Their Cars, Not Their Families : TreeHugger – "The average homeowner is not working to feed and house their families; they are working to feed and house their cars." Cardboard Bike