Ha!

Jeff is a sustainability hero.  I've just spent the last few days in Idaho, learning all about sustainable wheat farming, part of a pilot that General Mills is doing.  My new job is all about telling General Mills sustainability story.  It's pretty cool that we have one to tell, too.

I love being able to tell people we have one car. 

I love telling people we live so close to places we can bike to.

I love the money we save on a second car payment, gas, insurance, maintenance. 

The more I learn about the issues facing the planet (growing populations demanding increased food production, which will require farmers to get higher yields from the land), the more it just makes sense to live more sustainably.

Furthermore, I've been reading a lot on living simply.  Eliminating clutter from your home, reducing the number of things we buy, limiting the number of commitments we make, can all help us have a happier life.  I think this simple living is actually sustainable living. 

Personally, I don't think there is a better way to live and am making a priority to change my lifestyle to be more sustainable, simple.

So about that new bike...

So, Commuting . . .

I alluded in my last post to writing about riding my bike to work.

Since last fall, I've been riding my bike to work regularly.  In fact, apart from driving into work yesterday, I haven't driven since sometime in January (and then only sporadically). 

Here's some background.  I initially bought my bike in late summer of 2009 and found out that I really enjoyed riding.  I guess it contributed to a lifestyle change, since I started doing regular rides of 20 or 30 miles and started participating in longer supported rides.  Between riding, exercise in general, and watching calorie intake, I was able to lose roughly 30 pounds, give or take.

Then, last summer (after I had already dabbled in commuting), Bridget and I were driving to Door County and discussing what we should replace her vehicle with (we'd already started test driving cars), since her lease was up in November.  I remember the epiphany we both had in realizing that we didn't need to replace it at all. 

Anyway, yesterday's drive into work gave me the occassion to compare commuting by bike with commuting by car.

My ride (roughly 7.5 miles) takes me 25 to 30 minutes on the bike.  (To compare, my drive yesterday (no traffic since I left at about 9:45), took about 20 minutes, inclusive of the walk from the parking ramp to my office.)  My ride gives me a chance to get a good (twice) daily workout and helps me get rid of any stress that has built up throughout the work day.  It is wholly immune to traffic. 

I am also lucky to work for a company that is supportive of bike commuting and in a building that has all the features a commuter would want.  At my request, my company provides a $20/month bike commuter reimbursement.  Although that's not a lot of money (and although it pales in comparison to their reimbursement for parking a car), it does add up.  It paid for my new helmet this year.  The building has "bike boxes" that are lockable and available for $40/year.  It also has a workout facility on the skyway level where I can shower.  A normal day for me includes riding to and from work as well as having a mid-day workout.

Then there's the infrastructure.  About half of my commute is on well-maintained trails, most of which have lanes for cyclists in addition to a lane for pedestrians.  Most of the road riding in my commute is in bike lanes, and I've found that drivers in St. Paul and Minneapolis tend to be very aware of cyclists.  I've had very few problems with drivers.

That all adds up to a no-brainer, at least in my mind, about whether it makes sense to commute to work.

Now if I can just convince Bridget that I need a new bike . . .

Long Time . . .

So I guess it's been a little while since I used this blog.  There were huge weeds and cobwebs when I signed back in.  I think that's a bad sign.

Anyway, small recap (on the off-chance that a reader doesn't already know what's going on in our lives): We had another baby (Maggie, born 9/30/2010), moved both girls upstairs so we could have our office back (which has worked well), recently renovated our kitchen, and Bridget recently took a new job at General Mills.

I also started riding my bike to work (even in the winter) and we started a dining club with a couple friends. 

While I'll still plan on writing about the kids and so forth, I also want to use this blog to talk about my experiences commuting on my bike and our monthly dining club experiences.

So, last night we had our second dinner with our group.  (The first outing was to Meritage, a restaurant serving French cuisine in downtown St. Paul.  It was good.  I can now check off escargot and oysters off my list.)  Last night's pick was Senor Wong.  Senor Wong mixes Spanish and Asian dishes.  In other words, they serve Spasian food. 

We ordered drinks first, of course.  They have a variety of cocktails.  We tried a lot of them.  I was getting over a cold and didn't taste any of the drinks (or the food for that matter) but most of the drinks were tasty.  There was some discussion about "pearls" in one of the drinks and then discussion about whether Tapioca was Asian since it has "pearls" in it.  Honestly, that conversation went right over my (stuffed up) head.

We ordered a few appetizers, too: miso tots, won tons, and beef tataki.  The beef and the tots were our favorites. 

Senor Wong had a deal on a three course meal for $20 (soup, flautas, and flan cake).  I tried that.  The soup must have been spicy because it burned my throat (again, couldn't taste it but hoped it'd clear my sinuses).  The flautas were on a bed of cilantro rice and came with guacamole, and I could kind of taste them. 

We also tried some of the tacos (carnitas, barbacoa).  The carnitas didn't hold up to the amazing carnitas at Boca Chica, but that's the gold standard.  They weren't bad. 

Bridget and Cristine ordered the crazy noodles.  I think the noodles were only sufficiently crazy after being doused with spicy sauce.

All in all, this was a good place.  I am sure it would have tasted good had I been able to taste anything.  We're thinking next stop should be Trevail.

9 Month Update

I wanted to share a quick update on Maggie. She is fantastic. Her 9 month appointment was perfectly uneventful. She was 18 pounds and seems to be developing normally. She's starting to feed herself, rolls all over the house and I know she's going to be crawling very soon. She is just a sweetie and loves to be everywhere her sister is. 

Tomorrow is our follow-up appointment with the neonatologists at the U of M. This appointment was set up the day we left the NICU in early November. Hard to believe the day has arrived. I believe the doctors will be checking to make sure Maggie is developing properly. I think she is doing just great, but it will be nice to have confirmation.

Maggie is just amazing. She is so sweet. She loves to talk, watch American Idol, and play with her sister Cece. The nice weather has allowed us to go out on walks, which she also seems to enjoy.

Cece makes sure Maggie gets her tummy time in. In fact, she rolls her sister over and says "tubby time Maggie." And Maggie doesn't seem to mind.

I'll be sure to update our journal after tomorrow's appointment.

  

Thank You!

I want to take a moment to thank all of our friends and family for their love and support during our wild and crazy journey with Maggie. We certainly could not have made it through without you all. Thank you for the meals, the gifts, the babysitting, the dog walking, the house cleaning, etc. We cannot thank you enough.

Maggie is doing really well. This week she has started to coo and "talk" more. She gets the biggest kick out of our ceiling fan in the living room. She smiles at it all of the time. I like to think that she's smiling at her guardian angel, who must be quite entertaining.

I can't wait for all of the snow to disappear so we can go out on walks and see more of the world together.

Happy New Year!

A new year and a happy healthy baby is what we have. Maggie went to the clinic today for a weight check and she is now a whopping 8 lbs 10 oz. She has grown more 2 pounds in the last month! Jeff and I were so happy, given our eventful December with Maggie's hernia surgery.

Maggie's incision has healed nicely and she is eating great and sleeping great. She's starting to show us her adorable smile and is so interactive. She likes to hang out and play with her sister, look at her mobile, stare at our faces and everything. I feel like we've waited so long for these moments to come. I'm going to cherish every moment I can in the next few weeks before I have to go back to work.