Car sharing - how it's working out

It's now mid-August and Tom and I have been sharing a car since May, ever since our son arrived home from college and confiscated our other car. For the most part, it has been surprisingly painless. Of course, a lot of this has to do with the fact that this is summer. Our usual schedule has Tom biking in to Pleasant Ridge every morning (about 40 minutes) to catch the bus downtown. I join him (with the car) after exercise, and we throw the bike in the back of the car for the ride home. So we technically do take a car downtown and back each day, but if you think about it, to keep me on my morning exercise schedule, we would have had to use both cars.

We have a history of being chintzy with cars.....Decades ago we bought a little Civic that our kids used through high school until it was ready for the junk pile, and none of them had cars in college. Part of our history, you should know, also involves living for 3 years in Tokyo, which got us used to public transportation and the most ancient form of transport possible, walking. I tried biking there, but there were way too many people.

So anyway, now that Tom is retired and our schedule is a bit more flexible, we are back to figuring out a way to get around that requires the least amount of expense and carbon output. We have been adapting to the biking lifestyle more and more for the past few years, but this is the first year that we have been on a more scheduled life, with a 9-5 summer at the Green Garage. And so far we're not missing the second car. Now, I'd like to see how this is going to work when winter sets in. As I recall, though, last winter the second car spent quite a bit of time parked in the garage. We're on more of a schedule this year, so we'll have to see.

But for now, today I take the car and Tom may fight the raindrops. Tomorrow Tom will take the car and I, as we are in wedding mode, will bike up a couple of miles for a pedicure, bike back, and then Maureen will pick me up to get to Berkley for a dress fitting. If anything, car sharing is great for family coordination and cooperation!

Let the feasting begin

This is the best time of the year for vegetable gardeners - the stuff is coming in! Tonight we had fresh beans and cherry tomatoes with our dinner. We're picking every day. We moved our vegetable garden close to the house this year, and I'm loving it. It's only a few steps out the door to retrieve something good for dinner.

I've learned another lesson this year. For most of the growing season, I have been discouraged by a succession of problems - deer eating our broccoli, the peas browning up on the vine, our basil deciding it didn't want to be planted with our sage (tempermental). Our tomato plants were also pretty tiny for a long time. A few weeks ago, however, I was excited to see lettuce coming in (yes! in July). And then the beans took over for the peas. And now the tomato plants, still a bit spindly, are beginning to produce. So, as with so many things in life, patience is the rule. It will all come in time.