4onaQuarter

Wow, I guess I wasn’t kidding about being a mama bear because I’ve seriously been in hibernation mode over the last few weeks!  We had a very merry (and bikey!) Christmas and enjoyed a full two-week vacation together.  Santa made Vivi her very own little fixie-styled balance bike and mama got a new bike, too!  Yay – can’t wait to get some pictures up once Red Rider is back from her check-up.

I spent a great deal of time over the break thinking about this challenge.  Though we are only two months in, it’s becoming fairly obvious that we’ve already answered the question we set out to ask: can a family of four in Orlando live on only 4,000 car miles.  Based on our experiences thus far, I think I can pretty confidently say: absolutely.  I think we are a good example of a typical family in the sense that our lives are busy and require a great deal of getting around: we both work full-time, we are active volunteers, kids at two schools, extracurricular activities, etc.  In spite of all this, we’ve been surprised how often we can bike and are discovering new bike possibilities nearly every week. (more…)

The more I try to get around Orlando by bicycle, the less simple riding a bike becomes.  I’ve enjoyed a great deal of freedom riding my bike–you have to love anything that makes you go “wheeeeeeee!” down a hill on a regular basis.  However, riding has also brought about a great deal of awareness.  It seems that so much, down to how and where you ride, becomes political.  (more…)

I’m happy to report that I have survived the first month of this challenge–yay!  Unfortunately, I still have a lot of room for improvement.  We put a total of 449 miles on the car in the first month; if we keep driving at this rate, we’ll be looking at 5,388 for the year–well above even the 25% goal. (more…)

Alright–I’m going to mix things up a bit.  In a new twist on the Friday the 13th norm, I’m actually going to STOP freaking out.  I’ve spent most of this week kvetching and I’m ready to move on now (I’m sure this is wonderful news to my hubby).

I went out for a nice walk with Viv today and was sort of processing a SWOT analysis in my head.  Yes, my brain does strange things when under stress.  Since it would clearly be a bit too much geekery to actually write out a SWOT, I’ll just list some of my thoughts: (more…)