Things Worth Remembering The three habits that lead to success are: Patience, Application, and Vision.
It is always better to be underestimated.
There are three things that are better than riches: Health, Freedom, and Honor.
Think swiftly, speak softly, act wisely.
All from: The Book of Celtic Wisdom
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“You must do what you feel is right, of course.” ―Obi-Wan Kenobi to Luke Skywalker, Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back
We’ve wanted to do this since we moved in, a decade ago, but found ourselves constantly with other draws on our disposable income. OK, maybe not essential draws but what seemed like important purchases at the time (travel to Ireland, England, The Netherlands, California, British Columbia, and a car that doesn’t rain on the inside when you’re driving in inclement weather - you get the picture.) Well, we’ve taken the plunge. A year ago in October, we got estimates on making the house more energy efficient. Then I cringed in horror. And cried a little. And maybe died just a little on the inside. We had already replaced the front and back doors, which were so bad the fanlight windows on top were, literally, falling out but knew we had to take it up a notch.
Our house was built in 1949. Did you know that here in the great, snowy north, until the 1960s, houses were not built with insulation in the walls? That’s right: nothing, nada, zip, zilch, zero. Basically we have clapboards on the outside and plaster on the inside, with 6 inches of breeze blowing in between. No wonder our place quickly becomes an icicle when the power goes out! We’ve chosen to remove all the current siding and have insulation blown into each and every little spot possible. After that, the house will be wrapped with 1/4″ closed cell foam board before new siding is put up. I feel warmer already. Our attic insulation depth is “a 7 out of 10″ according to the contractor we’ve chosen to use, so it only needs a little help.
Our windows are even worse, if that’s possible: the 1949 originals - huge and very drafty with single panes of glass and loose-fitting storms. I think they’re an R-value of about negative 13. We’ve been putting plastic up in the winter to keep some of the heat inside, which has the added bonus of keeping your shirt from waving in the breeze as you pass on a cold, blustery day, but it has to come down in the spring, summer and fall to let the breeze in and so we don’t have to run the air conditioner as often. Therefore, new windows are going to go in at the same time as the insulation. They’re also going to insulate that recess back behind the edges and sills of the window frames. That’s why we’re biting the bullet and having everything done all at one time, so that everything will be as sealed as possible.
In the end, it’s going to cost us a boatload of money (almost as much as my first car, a new mid-sized sedan – that’s still in my garage 13 years later) but it’s worth it. Say it with me. It’s worth it. Repetition will, hopefully, make the gasping sound lessen as I write the final check. We’ll probably even be able to get a smaller furnace when the time comes to replace the current one (according to the furnace guy). So we’ve saved and saved and saved and cashed in an investment and saved some more. I have to write the first of the two checks tomorrow night. Barring any holdups, it should all be done by the beginning of September. For the record, I’m glad it’s getting done, but I sure can think of more exciting things to spend so much money on – like travel.
“Why do I sense we’ve picked up another pathetic life-form?” ―Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace
After Padawan Learner left for lunch and a movie with his grandma today, I biked over to the super-mega-regional-chain grocery store to pick up the things I needed for the week’s recipes. Although I’ve got a boatload of veggies in the fridge, many of which I’ve never cooked with before, I still needed to buy some staples that I’d run out of and some things to round out the recipes.
After locking up my bike, I headed into the store and grabbed one of those half-carts that I love so much. Throwing my helmet into the top basket, I headed back to the can return area with a few beer bottles and my (cat sitter) niece’s 2 liter soda bottles. After dropping them off, I began cruising the store.
After a few aisles, the following conversation took place:
A kindly older woman looked at my helmet and asked in a very concerned voice, “Honey, did you ride your bike here?” (I really, honestly do love it when older people call me Honey. It’s so cute.)
Smiling my best and friendliest, biking is for everyone smile, I replied, “Yes, ma’am I did.”
“Well, you’re going to need to put some of that back then,” pointing into my mini-cart, “because there isn’t any way you’re going to get it all home on your bike.”
“Oh, it’ll be alright. I’ve got baskets on the back of my bike to carry stuff in.”
“Still, there just no way,” she said, shaking her head at silly ol’ me.
A few aisles over, another woman said roughly the same thing. Tsk, tsk, tsk-ing, as she looked at my growing pile. And another woman in the dairy section said the same thing, with agreement from a man who looked over to see what the situation was.
Getting into the checkout lane, the cashier began ringing up my order and I asked her to please bag my stuff in the bags I’d brought (one of which is an insulated bag so my Dove dark chocolate butter doesn’t melt). For the record, doing this appears to drive cashiers batty.
Pulling my helmet out of the way as I unloaded the mini-cart, the cashier did a double take, stopped scanning, and said, “Girrl, did you ride your bike here?”
“Yes, I did. It’s only a couple of miles from my house and my bike has baskets on the back for the groceries.” I was getting into a groove saying that.
“Well, you ain’t gonna be riding your bike home today. You’ve got too much stuff for doing that.”
“It’ll be OK. I’ll rearrange the bags a little once I’m outside. I’m sure it’ll all fit.”
“Um huh.” And with that, she dismissed me as a hopeless case and continued scanning my groceries.
“Seriously, I’ve got an extra backpack for the stuff that I can’t get into the baskets.”
At this point, the people behind me in line, including the guy from earlier who I’m pretty sure followed me into the checkout lane just to see the show, began to voice their agreement with the cashier. “Uh uh.” “No way.” “Girrl, you’re plum crazy to think all that’s gonna fit.”
Well, by this point I was determined to get home with all my groceries in just two bags and a backpack, on my bike, if it meant that I’d end up eating half my groceries out in the parking lot! “Oh, I just love the taste of peanut oil on a warm summer day!” I am a determined woman. Perhaps also a bit pigheaded, but certainly determined.
“I have got to see this!” a voice behind me said and wouldn’t you know it, a little group of people followed me out to my bike and watched me pack all my stuff up - in two bags and a backpack, thankyouverymuch. While I was shifting things around, they asked me a few questions about my bike and why I ride it to the grocery store. “Don’t you have a car?” (Yes, but I’m not driving it this summer. I like to ride my bike whenever I can.) “Do you think that gas is just too expensive now?” (Not really, I’ve lived other places where gas is much more expensive. I like the exercise.) ”Did you have to get a special kind of bike?” (No, it’s a normal, everyday bike. The style is called a hybrid.) ”Did your bike come with those baskets?” (No, I bought them online but you can order them from the bike shops around here. They’re around $25, less than a tank of gas.) “What if it’s too hot or raining outside to ride?” (I take the bus, wear a rain jacket or get a little damp.)
As I rode away, my little group actually cheered me on for being able to get everything packed away. I even heard the guy say, “Screw $4 a gallon gas. I’m getting a bike!” My first convert.
Here’s the bags packed:
And the bags unloaded:
What was included in the bags:
- four bags chocolate pieces (ostensibly for Dad Windu)
- peanut oil
- 2 bottles olive oil
- bag cashews
- pound butter
- package tofu (don’t tell Dad Windu)
- large container yogurt
- 3 small containers yogurt
- parchment paper
- bread
- shampoo
- 2 boxes cereal
- canned artichoke hearts
- soy sauce
- large onion
- 2 heads garlic
- 3 boxes of chicken broth
- 2 large cans whole tomatoes
- bag of onions
PS – I completely stole the idea of pictures and a list from aLex over at Hank and Me. I hope she will forgive me.
Luke : “Listen, I can’t get involved. I’ve got work to do. It’s not that I like the Empire; I hate it. But there’s nothing I can do about it right now… It’s all such a long way from here.”
Obi-Wan : “That’s your uncle talking.”
Star Wars IV: A New Hope
Dad Windu, the Padawan Learner and I went to our city’s community meeting last night to help direct the path of our city. Padawan Learner was a bit skeptical about going; the word boring was, perhaps, mentioned a few times. Ultimately, though, he enjoyed it after the two BigWig speeches were over. It was a working meeting, with the 300 or so people who showed up breaking into 6 groups that focused on different topics relating to making the city more appealing to residents and tourists, environmentally sustainable and cleaning up pollution.
We focused on the transportation segment, not surprisingly. For the first 30 minutes, our group discussed the desperate need our city has for bike paths, of which the city’s transportation engineer has historically been opposed for “liability” reasons. Additional issues of ways to increased tourism and a rather interesting idea for new bus shelters were also brought up. We voted on what we thought the most pressing concerns were and then moved on to a question put to us from the city for the next 30 minutes.
“How can we make the city more walkable?” Pages of ideas were generated. Some of the more popular ideas were: sidewalks where they are currently lacking; mid-street pedestrian islands for wide roads; the ability to manually increase the pause between reds to allow slower pedestrians to get all the way across; pedestrian bridges to for high traffic intersections and across highways; allowing plantings in the city owned right-of-ways (especially between sidewalks and roads); actual enforcement of zoning requirements (such as sidewalk maintenance by property owners) and start-up tax breaks for new businesses in the city’s neighborhood business districts.
Padawan Learner, as we drove home, said that he found the process interesting and especially liked having an equal vote on the ideas. Several people in our group commented on how good it was to see him involved in the process and speaking up with his ideas. A good start to a lifetime of community involvement? I can only hope.
“You want to go home and rethink your life.” Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars V: Revenge of the Sith
Growing up, the term “joiner” was a serious put-down in my group of non-conformists, who were so independent minded that we all, ultimately, ended up looking like each other in our non-conformity: black clothes, stark hair colors and styles, unnaturally pale skin with dark lipstick and heavy mascara… You get the picture. I still use the term when I joke with the Padawan Learner and Dad Windu, “You’re such a joiner.”
I read something today, however, that has changed my opinion of this word. I think Bill McKibben gives a powerful argument for becoming a bit more of a joiner: a neighborhood joiner, a community joiner, a stop-and-talk-for-a-few-minutes joiner. Where Have All the Joiners Gone? A declaration of dependence.
What’s your take on being more inter-dependent? Does it just about make your skin crawl, does the “borrowing a cup of sugar” idea sound nice so long as the neighbor kids stay out of your yard, or is this the type of thing that you long for deep down inside?
“Anakin, the most difficult trial a Jedi must face is to look inside oneself. Often we see things we don’t like. But these aspects are not set in stone. It is our decisions that shape our destinies.” Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones
Every now and then, I like to make myself think about what we’re really doing on a day-to-day basis because no matter what our stated philosophies might be, it’s what we actually do that makes us what we truly are. So…what positive acts have the three of us made so far this Memorial Day weekend?
- We finished installing the clothes line in the backyard and I put my first load of whites out to dry in the breeze. I was immediately in my own childhood backyard. What a simply wonderful visual reminder of a normal, happy chore from days gone by (and my arms got a workout too, carrying a basketful of wet clothes up the stairs and out into the backyard).
- We hit the farmer’s market for a flat of flower plugs for the front yard. I’m slowly taking over the grass area and replacing it with flower boxes and boarders. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get rid of that most ridiculous of all things, a water-sucking and drought unfriendly grass lawn, but I’m sure going to try.
- We bought several oh-so-yummy bunches of locally grown asparagus for our scrambled eggs and as a side dish with dinner this week. I got the best smile from the little boy selling it when I said, “I’ll take the rest of what you’ve got here.” It was great watching him and his brother working together.
- Dad Windu replaced the kitchen faucet and sprayer because the old faucet leaked from the body when you turned it on, it had just started to leak slightly when it was turned off and the sprayer was melted shut from a close encounters with a scorchingly hot frying pan a couple of years back. I won’t say who did it, but it wasn’t the Padawan Learner or Dad Windu. It was someone else. Someone who shall remain nameless.
- Dad Windu rode his bike over to the hardware store to get some necessary fittings for the new faucet. Yeah for faucets that don’t leak.
- We weeded and weeded and weeded until we thought we couldn’t weed anymore. We weeded some more.
- Dad Windu and I rode our bikes to get a few supplies from the supermarket, in a stiff wind that made the ride back a real workout. It’s pretty hilly around here, even without all of aLex’s bridges, and you know the wind is seriously bad when you have to pedal going down a hill. (Happy note: There were two other bikes at the supermarket’s bike stand on the nasty, busy road.)
- I used up some scraps of fabric hiding out in my closet to make a couple of needle cozies for my double pointed and circular knitting needles since my current method of storage and retrieval, which included primarily of tossing them all in a big bag and having to dump the whole thing out whenever I wanted to use a specific pair, was annoying to Dad Windu.
- I mowed the elderly neighbor lady’s front lawn because she’s in the hospital and her live-in son hadn’t done it for the past couple of weeks. Annoyed neighbors were threatening to report her to the housing codes department (city mows the yard and charges you $75 for the inconvenience), which is the last thing she needs right now. I used our horrid, old gas-powered mower, which is an ecological nightmare, but it was still the right thing to do.
- Padawan Learner rode his bike a mile away to his buddy’s house to see his buddy’s new puppy, even though he’s not a dog-lover.
- I walked down to the library with Padawan Learner and retrieved our books from the hold shelf.
What negative decisions have we made this holiday weekend in regards to living lightly?
- We drove over to a big box home improvements store for a new faucet because one local place was closed for the whole weekend and the other place’s selection’s selection is lousy (and they were also closed). We could have bought the faucet after the weekend at the good selection local place, but that would risk a loss of home repair momentum. A very contagious malady around here.
- We hopped in the car, again, to go to the farmer’s market because we waited too long to get there via the bus-walk route. We were punished by the consequences of the absolute pain of finding a space in the remarkably small parking lot and by the very rude lady who parked her SUV in the middle of the one-way exit lane, blocking all traffic behind her, as she went to retrieve her purchase.
- We grabbed dinner from a multi-national, everything shipped here because we don’t know the meaning of the phrase grown locally, fast food place since we focused on planting too long and didn’t have the time or energy to get dinner ready.
- Dad Windu and his beer snob buddy drove to two watering holes (the first, a preferred and locally producing one was closed) for the chance to drink and chat without wives & kids. At least they car-pooled.
- Instead of playing a boardgame, going for a walk or bike ride down to the park or another more sociable activity, we watched movies together both Saturday and Sunday nights.
- We drove to the doughnut shop on Sunday morning .again. for our turn to grab a dozen, to be enjoyed with our Sunday Morning Doughnut Buddies. Laziness on the doughnut retrieval, pure laziness.
How about you? What’s best and worst on your list?
“I don’t know who you are or where you’ve come from, but from now on you’ll do as I say, okay?” – Princess Leia, Star Wars IV: A New Hope
My son is a fan of all things George Lucas, with the Star Wars series being his favorite. He’s been watching the films, reading the books and learning about the “history” of the characters and a certain galaxy from long ago and far, far away since he was just a little guy. For the record, if you haven’t seen R2-D2: Beneath the Dome, than you just don’t know Star Wars. Who knew that such a strong, brave droid could experience so much angst….
Because of his obsession interest, there are many little quotes from the movies that frequently get bandied about in our house. Many. Frequently. One of the most common is after someone makes a demand for assistance (and forgetting to use the more polite, requesting, method) says, “Help me …” someone else will inevitably cut the request off with “Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.” Giggles will ensue and the request is repeated more appropriately. This eventually turned into Obi-Mom Kenobi being used instead when I was the recipient of the request and the expression stuck.
Perhaps you would like to know, since you’re still reading this, a little about me, Obi-Mom Kenobi, the person who is putting all this together. So here goes. First, my family is a little… different… from the majority of families in the United States. Not bad different, but we’re not really a mainstream family in a lot ways although we probably look like it at first glance.
- We don’t send our boy, my Padawan Learner, to school. That’s right, we’re a homeschooling family. Yes, that’s right. I know it can be very scare to hear that if you’re new to the concept. I am the primary person handling the teaching around here, but his dad, who is very like Mace Windu in wisdom and determination and will hereforth be called Dad Windu, has got a fair bit of teaching and sharing to do as well – in his own way.
- We try to live as lightly on this planet as we can (without turning our lives completely upside down). We evaluate decisions based on how they’ll effect the planet, how the local community will be involved and how the Earth will be treated in the production, delivery and disposal of our things. We’re not environmental saints, but we don’t ignore the fact that we’re the single biggest consumer nation in the world either. What we do, nationally and individually, is felt around the world.
- Dad Windu earns a decent wage but doesn’t make a ton of money. Instead, we life simply. I cook from scratch. We wear our clothes until they just can’t go any longer. My Padawan Learner and I walk, ride our bikes or use the bus to get around and Mace Windu carpools a couple of times a week with another guy from work that lives in the area so that we can get by with only one car. We live in a small, older house that we’re constantly making more and more ecologically sound – high efficiency appliances, pulling the plug on electronics when we’re not using them, reading together in the same room so that we don’t have lights on in three different rooms, etc. We borrow books from the library instead of buying – even used books take up space, requiring more bookshelves and, eventually, more “space” to store them in. Doing these things ensures that we don’t “miss” that second income that so many consider essential in today’s economy.
- We spend more but get less, and we don’t mind a bit. Huh? For example, we have an expensive set of pans that will last us the rest of our lives. I take extra good care of them because I know that’s the only way to make them last (virtually) forever. They did cost a fair bit upfront but whenever my mother, mother-in-law and Dad Windu would ask if there was anything I would really like for my birthday, Christmas and our anniversary, I requested a “share” towards the cost of a basic set of really wonderful pots and pans. I rest easy in this purchase, despite buying the pans being brand, spanking new, knowing that they were made here in the USA of materials mined in the USA and that I had wrung every last little bit out of the cheap set of pans that we’d gotten as a wedding gift.
- We barely buy anything at the grocery store. Instead, we get as much of our food from local farms as we can. Once a month, I order meats, cheese, eggs, locally milled flour and other basics from a food co-op. We’re also members of a Community Supported Agriculture farm (CSA) that, for a flat fee, ensures us a weekly share of locally, grown organic veggies during the growing months. We get all kinds of locally grown fruits at the weekly farmer’s market each Saturday, too. Between those three things, we’ve found a great (and cost-effective) way to ensure that we’re eating our recommended daily allotment of fruits and veggies, lean protein and plenty of fiber.
- We are a-theists, as in not-theists (Theist: belief in the existence of a god or gods). We’re not religion haters nor do we hate or ridicule people who are religious. We just don’t believe that there’s any proof of a “divine being or beings” or any special “members-only” truth to be found in in any of the world’s many, many religions. Nope, not even in the Jedi faith.
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