May is National Bike Month! Oh bikes, how I love thee. Let me count the reasons….. 10. Bikes are quiet. You’ll never get woken up at midnight, because your teenage neighbor’s revving his bike engine. And imagine if they replaced that freeway next to your house with a seven-lane bike path. 9. You can cart…
It seems like everyone’s brooding chicks these days. Three of my friends are building coops, and I hear hens clucking and squawking all over the neighborhood. We inherited a stately hen chateau when we bought our house last February … and we couldn’t think of a reason not to take the plunge this spring and…
In honor of TV turn-off week, I moved the TV to the closet on Monday morning. I like the room so much better without it, and I love that we can’t just mindlessly switch it on. I think we might have found a new home-base for it. My real challenge wasn’t dumping the TV though,…
A review of: Living Outside the Box: TV-Free Families Share Their Secrets by Barbara Brock Published by Eastern Washington University Press, 2007 The statistics about television-watching in America should concern everyone: The TV is on for 6 hours and 47 minutes a day in the average house. The average person watches more than 4 hours…
I have an uncomfortable relationship with technology. I’m conflicted about most of it – the car, the TV, the electric razor, even the “labor-saving” devices that populate our home. Oh, I use them. Sometimes I even have my washer, dryer, dishwasher, bread machine, and vacuum cleaner all going at the same time. But I have…
We arrive late to our parenting group, slip in the side door, and hurry to the last two seats in the circle. I set eight-month-old Ezra on the floor. He happily chews on a jar lid, as I nod at a few of the other parents. I imagine my husband or I handed Ezra the…