Posts tagged as:

local community

In Praise of Car-Light Families

by Angela 01.20.2010

Occasionally, we worry that people get the wrong idea about us. I know that some readers out there probably think that we are environmental extremists, going to absurd lengths for our carfree cause. But to be honest, we’re fairly lazy people. Well, lazy might be taking things too far, but as parents of a three-and-a-half-year-old [...]

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These are the people in your neighborhood

by Dorea 11.22.2009

It was a beautiful New England fall day yesterday. Lots of folks were out and about in our neighborhood, and by the end of the day, I was reflecting on the riches living locally has brought to our life. We started the day at shabbat services, a 20 minute walk from our place, where we [...]

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Cloth Diapers, Take Two

by Dorea 07.21.2009

Sometimes really great things happen in the world of babies between your first and second kid. In our case, two wonderful things happened in the world of cloth diapers. 1) One-size pocket diapers were invented. We received several BumGenius 3.0 one-size pocket diapers as a gift, and we LOVE them (Thank you friends! You know [...]

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Surviving carfree babyhood

by Dorea 02.19.2009

We recently got an interesting comment from Charlotte of Chic Cyclist, on the thread about how we gave up our car. Charlotte writes: “some vestigial teenager in me clings to the ‘option’ of having a car somewhere, just in case. I’m going to have to read about how you handled the early months of H’s [...]

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Making Choices: Frugality, the Environment, or Social Justice

by Angela 01.30.2009

I stumbled into the carfree lifestyle because I’m a cheapskate. I’m allergic to spending money, and cars drink up a lot of money. I get to feel overly proud of not owning a car because I’m being environmentally responsible. Living without a car brings two of my core values together. But those values are often [...]

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Finding the Perfect School

by Angela 01.02.2009

Recently, Dorea and I have been worrying about school. We live a little more than a quarter-mile from the Peabody school and plan to send H there in a few years when she starts kindergarten (yes, I know — we worry way too much). We know a number of families in the area who have [...]

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Unforseen perks, and a small logistical problem

by Dorea 09.10.2008

Last night a close friend of ours was celebrating his birthday. Now, this might not seem like a big deal, except for that this group of friends contains several families with very young kids, and the birthday boy really wanted an adults-only party, so there were many logistics involved. We managed to rustle up a [...]

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Surprising Benefits from Being Car Free

by Angela 07.21.2008

One surprising benefit of being car free has been the reduction of choice in our lives. This might seem counter intuitive in a world in which more choices are assumed to make us happier. But making choices takes a lot of time and energy. If we hadn’t been restricted geographically, we would have felt obliged [...]

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Becoming Car-Free with a Kid

by Dorea 07.18.2008

Before our daughter was born in Summer 2006, we were already avid bike commuters and users of public transit. We chose our Somerville (Massachusetts) neighborhood because it was an easy walking distance from groceries and work for Angela, and a manageable bike ride for Dorea. When we started planning for a child we decided that [...]

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