We put on our walking shoes

Today, on OneWebDay, I did something extraordinarily local and not at all related to the web: Today, on this beautiful, crisp fall day, I walked my sweetie to work.

A week ago, Dave’s transfer kicked in and with it, the end of forty bucks a month in the gas tank and thirty minute commutes across town. Now it’s ten minutes by foot through our favorite neighborhood in all of Portland. A great excuse for more exercise and a further reduction of that thing everyone’s been talking about: our “carbon footprint.”

It’s not just all fads and catch-phrases, not in these parts. (Certainly not for us old timer Oregonians who were all over the Bottle Bill from day one.) For us, it’s a necessity. With our tiny house and our tiny budget, simplicity and conservation are survival tactics. Not that we’re always good at it. Sometimes we’re terrible. We have bad habits to break, years of learning to unlearn, and we’re not even remotely perfect. (And no, we’re not going to be giving up Dr. Who in order to reduce our electric bill by a few more pennies. The line does have to be drawn somewhere!)

On the other hand, we are all about finding slightly less miserable ways to cut our utility bills and ideally save the environment a little along with our bank account.

Sometimes, when we write for the web, what gets lost in the shuffle is what’s closest to home. We talk about the great food to be had halfway across the world and forget about our favorite little joint right up the street. We scope out the latest books on Amazon and forget about the indie bookseller a half mile away. When I think about living a simple life, I think about living a “local” life. True, it’s not always the frugal choice, but there’s a balance to be had somewhere in there, and if it’s possible for us to support the small business owner up the street without breaking the budget, we’ll do it. And, oh is it nice to make that shopping trip without gassing up or getting mired in rush hour traffic!

Over on Belly Timber, for OneWebDay, I challenged myself with a list of nine things. Starting this blog was number four on the list. I may not get through all nine, but this one is the one that matters to me most. I’m excited to share it all: our crazy, money-saving projects, our urban homesteading disasters and triumphs, and our beautiful, eclectic neighborhood. All of it, within walking distance.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 22nd, 2007 at 9:52 pm and is filed under WalkingMeta. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.