Pothole

“I got the key to the highway, and I'm billed out and bound to go I'm gonna leave here runnin', cause walkin' is much too slow” ~ Eric Clapton

I was cruising down the road Saturday morning maintaining a respectable speed, and listening to music on my iPod that would make my son, who was arriving any moment for spring break proud. My little Jetta diesel was humming along when it hit a pothole and started to shake. In that split second, I remembered not to slam on the brakes and lose control. Slowly, I drifted over to the side of the road to inspect the damage. The right front tire was obliterated.

Next, I did the least gender-bending thing I could think of and called my husband. So much for all those women's studies classes in the ‘70’s…sexism reigns when there's a flat tire. He was about 20 minutes away at the hardware store – his Saturday morning home away from home.

After about a half an hour, a very pleasant police officer pulled over and surveyed the damages. I explained that my guy was tool ogling and would be by shortly. The nice cop and I discussed how to deal with the broken highway. He said he’s seen a sharp rise in pothole vs. car incidents these last few weeks. He had no idea when the highway department would get around to making the repairs on all the potholes. After a short discussion about our mutual love of rockin' to Clapton while driving, he bid me farewell and said he would check back in about an hour - just in case my knight in shining armor forgot about me. Ha, cute cop.

As it turned out, I did have a bit more time to think about the pothole situation.

If the highway department fails to deal with the craters before they eat up tires and rims, we might need to find a swifter, slightly more subversive alternative. I had written a post over on Planet Green that might be the key to the highway…Go Bomb Something With Yarn - Knitting Over The Edge.

Credit: Flickr - Pothold Project via CMYBacon

DIY Eco-Gifts for The Handyperson On Your Holiday List

I am starting this post with the definition of "handy." Why? Because I posted over on Care2 about the semantics of gender words and "handy" was one of the hot words. Here's the definition: Handy - Skillful in using one's hands; manually adroit.

For those of you who are scratching your head and totally ready to ditch the whole post if I don't give you the meaning of "adroit," here it is:

Adroit - skillful or dexterous

OK, vocabulary lesson over. What can I say? Once a teacher, always a teacher.

We know that people who love to work with their hands have their fair share of aches and pains. Rejuvenating gifts like heat applications, lip balm and moisture cream are the perfect soothing gifts for all the "handy" people on your list.

DIY Heating Pad and Hand Moisturizer

Using an old pair of pants, a sewing machine and rice, Cathe Holden of Just Something I Made created this heating pad with pockets to tuck a book or reading glasses in. Here's her tutorial. Add a DIY holiday tag with heating instructions and include some DIY moisturizing hand cream and  a DIY lip balm and your gift is complete!

Note about the cartoon: This drawing was used with permission from New Yorker Cartoonist, Danny Shanahan. Danny's a good friend of mine and when my "handy" husband, Ted built a deck to surround our wood-fired hot tub, Danny gave us this cartoon. Danny and I also worked on a humor book together called, Some Delights of the Hudson Valley (I've got a short story included in the collection). Wow, this would make a fine non-DIY gift, don't you think?

Photo: Cathe Holden

DIY Gifts For The Gym Rat On Your Holiday List

We all tend to overindulge during the holidays. Did you know that most people pack on a lasting few pounds? My scale is already creeping up. Here's the official skinny on holiday weight gain and people of a certain age: "Most people don't ever lose the pound of weight they put on during the holidays, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. Since the average weight gain during adulthood is about one to two pounds a year, that means much of midlife weight gain can be explained by holiday eating."

OK, enough of that nonsense. Let's find a fun way to keep the weight off. I like to encourage my workout enthusiasts to get a wintery workout - to embrace the crisp air and fresh snow by hitting the slopes, going ice-skating or just taking a walk in the woods.

When I was growing up my dad built an ice rink in our backyard each year. One of my fondest memories is of my hockey-player dad all bundled up on snowy evenings heading for the backdoor. He would announce that he was going out to "water the rink". Here is a post called, The Home Ice Advantage: Make An Eco-Skating Rink that I wrote about my experience of building an ice rink for my kids (you can catch a glimpse of them skating on the rink in the post).

The full holiday gift guide for the Gym Rat includes all the reasons to work out, how many calories you can burn off doing winter sports, how to make your own gym clothes (no, you can't always wear your pj's)
, and how to create your own gym equipment. Check it all out here.

The cartoon is used with permission from New Yorker cartoonist, Liza Donnelly. It's from her funny new book, When Do They Serve the Wine.

Say “I Do” Sustainably: A-Z Eco-Wedding Guide

My nephew just got married (shown here with his beautiful bride and sisters). My sister-in-law called when he got engaged and in a mother of the groom frenzy, viagra buy asked me to send her everything I knew about creating a more sustainable wedding. Green weddings are not the norm, price and the statistics show that our planet pays a mighty price for wedding extravagance: “There are 2.5 million weddings a year in the United States, with an average of more than 150 guests each.  When you add up all of the stuff that goes into weddings - single-use bleached white dresses, chemically-treated imported flowers, toxic makeup and skin care products, mined gem-based jewelry, individual packets of rice...CLICK HERE FOR MORE

Slow Love Shows Us The Purpose of Life Can Be Just That

Soon after I wrote about the “reinvention generation, treat ” I received a review copy of Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, hospital Put on My Pajamas & Found Happiness by Dominique Browning. This book totally captivated me. It was written by an author that I’ve followed ever since she took the editorial helm at the now deceased House and Garden magazine. I looked forward to Browning’s reflective editorial letters each month. I kept a file of those pages because they touched me in so many unexpected ways – the writing style was graceful and casual, the tone of the editorials had an eclectic mix of something you didn’t read about when entering a shelter magazine. The topics she chose touched a chord that glimpsed the purpose of living fully (even if you couldn’t live in one of those magnificently staged House and Garden homes). She discussed her emotional angst about her children growing up and the difficulty of adjusting to an empty nest (she didn’t like not having a choice about it), the end of a fine dinner party (peace and quiet), renovation nightmares (Why do we keep doing it?) and her environmental activism (she writes a column for the Environmental Defense Fund). Actually, now that I think about it, and reread those letters, Browning’s musings read like a blog conversation waiting to be commented on. She describes her personally tumultuous situations so eloquently, and with humor. When House and Garden folded in 2007 without warning, her purpose-driven life came to a deafening halt...CLICK HERE FOR MORE

Here is an interview with Dominique that I did for Planet Green.