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Tonight the fam tried out the Flexcar for the first time, reserving it for a 6 hour excursion out to Hood River city to climb aboard the Mt. Hood Railway train “Polar Express” themed ride. (Flexcar was fab, btw). Lil’ E started off the ride a bit bewildered- the Polar Express is one of his all time favorite movies to watch and he’s very familiar with tunes and music in movies, so when we boarded to the movie’s soundtrack he was trying to piece it all together for awhile. Eventually the Styrofoam cup of hot chocolate and the molasses cookie was enough of a sugar high to make him go a little bananas (he even tried to eat the table a bit at one point.) The ride was neat, you listen to music, have a little snack, and hear the cd version of the Polar Express book read aloud. At the end you get to the “north pole” where the train picks up Santa and he comes around to each table. EACH TABLE, each child, out of sooo many on 3 cars of this train. So, instead of the scheduled 6:30pm end time, the train went back and forth on the tracks (and every one knows how motion sensitive I am, right?) until Santa could make it to all the kids, which didn’t happen until 7:15pm. Suffice to say, the second half of the evening was dragged on more than necessary. They did have some caroler’s come sing to us while we waited for Santa, and they were even kind enough to honor Lil’ E’s unorthodox request of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” (see video below).
As far as how Lil’ E liked St. Nick, I’ll just let you watch the video for yourself!
Enjoy!
Bewildered Lil’ E
Twinkle Twinkle, by request
Santa experience…
Once I sat down in Santa’s lap with him, it was all good
Unlike LAST YEAR, this year’s tree cutting experience was slightly more traditional. We had a blast out at Helvetia Farms, not 20 minutes away, cutting down our beautiful 6′ Noble Fir. So purty!
Ok, so yesterday our pastor Rick told us about this movie that just came out from the same guy who did “Supersize Me”. It’s called What Would Jesus Buy? (seriously, watch the trailer) and its a spoof with a tele-evangelist character named Reverend Billy and his church, The Church of Stop Shopping. He and his Stop Shopping Choir are out to warn the world of the coming Shopocolipse, by doing things like exorcizing a WalMart sign, singing special Christmas carols in malls with lyrics replaced by Stop Shopping messages, and praying that the boy who plays video games come to see the difference between the virtual world and reality.
This is not a “christian” movie or anything, and yet this guy can see that there is some obvious idiocy with buying butt loads of presents for a holiday that is about celebrating the birth of Jesus, who was perhaps even anti-materialistic, a Man who gave gifts of sacrifice and service and used his resources to help the least of these. This year we’ve decided we are not buying more than one or two gifts for each other and are sending family and friends cards, letters, and a cd of family photos to be “near them” during Christmas. It’s more than “Jesus is the Reason” and corny conservative church cliche’s- its about spending less money on material things, giving to the needy, and spending more time in worship and contemplation.
Again, I don’t want to sound cheesy here, but perhaps if you get a chance to check out this movie (I know its only in select theaters) or just spend some time this year considering why the hell we spend so much on gifts at Christmastime, we can start to make a difference in the way Americans celebrate this time of year.
Ok, I’ll leave you with song lyrics from the movie, which are just too funny:
Beatitudes of Buylessness
Blessed are the Consumers, for you shall be free from Living By Products…..
Blessed are you who stumble out of branded Main Streets, for you shall find lovers not downloaded and oceans not rising.
Blessed is the ordinary citizen who holds onto a patch of public commons, for you are the New World.
Blessed is the artist who is not corporate sponsored for you shall give birth to warm fronts of emotion and breakthroughs of Peace.
Blessed are you who confuse “Consumerism” with “Freedom,” for you shall be delighted to discover the difference.
Blessed are the advertisers and commercial celebrities, for you are waiting for the remarkable restfulness of honesty.
Blessed are city neighborhoods that people have flown from in fear, for your children shall return to illuminate the dark economy.
Blessed are the workers in the supermalls, for the town your employers’ killed shall come back to life!
Blessed is the breadwinner with out-sourced dreams who sits in the SUV stuck in a Christmas from Hell, this year a gift will set you free
Blessed are the young women in sweatshops, for the things you make will fly you like magic evening gowns to the City of Light
Blessed are you who disturb the customers, for you might be loving your neighbor.
As every one knows, this is my favorite time of year. I hold onto the idea that there is magic and sacred meanings to the season, regardless of all the hype. After a lovely little Thanksgiving meal with Hubby and Lil’ E, we woke up Friday morning with the intent to go see the downtown Macy’s After-Thanksgiving Parade. Intentions, intentions.
Instead we awoke to Lil’ E standing outside our bedroom door calling out, “Mama. Open the door, please, mama. I went ca-kee in my bed.”
Luckily, it was not the smelly brown mess I envisioned upon hearing the word “ca-kee”, but rather lots and lots of pee-pee. Poor baby had drank way too much sparkling apple cider- I should have seen this coming. So we took the time to strip his bed and get it in the wash, while I cleaned him up in the tub. When we finally made it downtown, we could see Santa’s sleigh from the MAX line window, jumped off at the next stop and ran up to the sidelines just in time to put Lil’ E on Hubby’s shoulders to see Santa. Whew!
From there we headed into the mall, where Santa was arriving to have children up on his lap. Since we didn’t want to wait in line and we don’t have money to pay for the pictures anyway, we just pointed him out to Lil’ E while we strolled around. We did get to see some Victorian Carolers, who upon request from Lil’ E sang “Jingle Bells” to him. They were not so obliging when he called out “ABC’s!” for the start of a subsequent song set.
But we didn’t shop on Black Friday, being that we: A. are doing this Advent thing with our church and B. have very few local folks to purchase for anyway. So we walked around, had lunch at the Greek Cusina, and watched Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (Lil’ E did great!)
We were really just stalling until 5:30 when the annual Christmas tree lighting would take place just outside at Pioneer Square. But because they started with a local radio DJ thanking all the sponsors of the event in what seemed like several every known languages based on the time it took to do so, we ended up leaving before they even lit the dang tree, much to the gratitude of my absolutely frozen pinky toes, (it was about, oh, 35 degrees or so.) So I don’t have any great shots of that, but another blogger did really well with photos of the tree lighting- so check it out if you want to see a bit about what you (and I!) missed, lol.
Afterwards, I caught up with Misty at Fox Tower and defrosted to a showing of I’m Not There, which was excellent, and probably would’ve been more so if I had known anything more about Bob Dylan than the fact that he wrote/sang, “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “How Does it Feel?”. I’m now asking for some sort of major Bob Dylan greatest hits compilation for Christmas, lol. Misty put some of his quotes on her blog, so I’m guessing she was moved too.
Well, that’s it ladies and gents. And we’ve got a bus to catch to get to church this mornin’ so that will have to be my parting farewell.
Today was a real eye opener for me, not that anything incredibly new happened, but it was just sort of filled with little ways to reduce, reuse, recycle and limit your carbon footprint and all that and it happened so effortlessly that I am left wondering why in the world didn’t we do this sooner?
Let me explain:
Today we had to run a few errands at lunch time- our first errands via bicycles. A normal trip out to Freddy Myer’s on Broadway takes us by car about 10 minutes with traffic lights and parking. By bike? 15 minutes, tops. I couldn’t believe how quickly we were there, and how easy it is to pull Lil’ E behind me on a trailer- I could hardly tell I was pulling the extra weight in comparison to having him up on a seat. One of the things we needed from Freddy’s was rain boots for Ethan, because we’re going with the church to Sauvie Island Pumpkin Patch tonight and it might be muddy. We found some for 14.99, though he liked a different one with a dinosaur face on it but they did not have it in his size.
After we got several bags full of things stuffed in the bike trailer (there sure is a lot of room in that thing!), we stopped to split a grilled veggie burrito at Cha Cha Cha’s for 4.00. Next door is Bella Stella Resale, where I knew she’s had a good selection of random used rainboots and coats in the past. So I popped in and low and behold- the dinosaur boots were there, in his size, slightly used, for $6.99. (Needless to say we’ll be returning the other ones!)
Upon returning home in again what felt like record time, we were greeted by a box full of produce from Organics to You, our first weekly order of home delivered organic produce and grocery items. Here is what came in this week’s “small” bin for $30:
4 Gala Apples - *LOCAL, farm direct*
4 Fuji Apples - *LOCAL, farm direct
3 Bartlett Pears - *LOCAL, farm direct*
3-4 Bananas
1 Cauliflower - *LOCAL*
1-2 Leeks - *LOCAL, farm direct*
1 Kale - *LOCAL, farm direct*
1 bunch Carrots - *LOCAL, farm direct*
1 bunch Parsley - *LOCAL, farm direct*
1 bunch Green Onions - *LOCAL, farm direct*
1 bunch Celery - *LOCAL, farm direct*
1-2 Onions - *LOCAL, farm direct*
1-2 Delicatta Squash - *LOCAL, farm direct*
2-3 baby Bok Choy - *LOCAL*
Everything was in great shape, fresh, not over or under ripe at all. I was delighted to see things I don’t normally pick out, like Bok Choy and Delicatta Squash, as well as some yummy favorites like Cauliflower and lots of apples. We have so much that I will have to go down to the one person bin for next week, or skip a week.
I must say, being on the bike for the errands kinda took the “errands” part of it out of the trip. Unlike a car, there is fresh air, scenery, you take back roads and kinda just enjoy yourself. Lil’ E took a nap, Hubby and I got some exercise. No wonder people do this in Europe all the time. What is America thinking???
Anyway! It was also VERY NICE to stop at the bank and deposit the sale of the car today. Whoopie!
Final thought? Carpooling is not only green, its also sweet. Our friend Eric offered to tote us to Sauvieland tonight, thanks Eric!
With the rainy season upon us, its not always easy to bus it to the farmer’s market these days. With the sale of our car impending, and no bike trailer to carry groceries, getting produce and grocery items will be a bit difficult, to say the least. But I’m really apprehensive about the trailer, for irrational fears of having the most precious thing to my heart trailing around behind my bike on the side of a busy road. Anyway, I typically bring $40 to the Portland Farmer’s Market each week. I look for the best deals (which aren’t always organic but at least local) and then I spend a little at the grocery store for items not produce related. The market runs every Saturday from May - December.
All of these complications lead me to look into the home delivery service, as I often see various vans outside the doors of houses in our neighborhood, dropping off groceries and bins of food.
Several full-fledged grocery stores, such as New Seasons Market, offer this service for a fee, and many local farms offer “drop off” sites for a seasonal membership (Sauvie Island Organics, for example, rounds off to about $25 a week, from my math, which is pretty good, but you have to pay $805 for the 8 months of service, and you still have to go to the drop off sites on the right days.)
What I want is something without a fee, that tells me what I’m getting each week, and that provides more than just produce. Oh yes, and if you could just leave it on the door, thanks. Is that too much to ask?
Apparently not! Organics to You offers home delivery of fresh organic produce from several farm locations, and all you have to do is schedule for the size bin you want (one person, small family, large family, etc) including extras such as “Juicer Bin”, “Kids Bin” etc. To top it off, they offer an ever expanding selection of high demand grocery items, such as bread, milk, butter, yogurt, cheese, eggs, coffee, - even Chai! (Meats are coming soon!) You see the price (and, by the way, the brand) for what you’re checking off and it all adds up to one sum which you can either pay in advance with your credit card or leave cash under your door mat! The prices, compared to non-discounted items at, say, Wild Oats (prices I am most familiar with) are by and large comparable, if not cheaper, (although for the time being, I do have Hubby’s 20% discount) PLUS you are not paying for gas OR the time/chore of getting your groceries each week.
Pro’s: esp without a Hubby discount: no travel and very little time invested (takes two minutes to fill your order). Price is reasonable, and best of all, it makes it very easy to stay within your grocery budget, as most of us would do if we actually saw the total adding up AS WE WERE SHOPPING!
Con’s: If you are not concerned about organics AND you are not a big produce eater, then obviously its cheaper to go to your local grocery chain.
Below was this week’s bin for a “small family”, which costs $30. I think its MORE than enough for us and I might go down to the one person bin every other week, and with the savings buy some grocery items such as my milk, bread and eggs.
SMALL BIN
Hello, For the week of October 22nd. ENJOY!
1 Pomegranate
4 Gala Apples - *LOCAL, farm direct*
3 Bartlett Pears - *LOCAL, farm direct*
2-3 StarKrimson Pears - *LOCAL, farm direct
3-4 Bananas
1 bunch French breakfast Radish - *LOCAL*
1-2 Onions - *LOCAL, farm direct*
2lb. Red Potatoes - *LOCAL, farm direct*
6oz. Crimini Mushrooms - *LOCAL, farm direct*
1/2lb. Green Beans - *LOCAL, farm direct*
1 Lettuce - Some *LOCAL*-’last of the local lettuce’
1 bunch Chard/Kale - *LOCAL, farm direct*
1 bunch Broccoli - *Local*
1-2 winter Squash-(Gold Nugget) - *LOCAL, farm direct*
*LOCAL* = locally from supplier
*LOCAL, farm direct* = Locally direct from farmer
I’d like to add that even the website for this organization is impressive to me- with recipes, community pages, so on. I will get my first delivery next week, and I’ll let you all know how it measures up!
Wind finds the northwest gap, fall comes.
Today, under gray cloud-scud over gray
Wind-flicker of forest, in perfect formation, wild geese
Head for a land of warm water, the boom, the lead pellet.
Some crumple in air, fall. Some stagger, recover control,
Then take the last glide for a far glint of water. None
Knows what has happened. Now, today, watching
How tirelessly V upon V arrows the season’s logic,
Do I know my own story? At least, they know
When the hour comes for the great wing-beat. Sky-strider,
Star-strider- they rise, and the imperial utterance,
Which cries out for distance, quivers in the wheeling sky.
That much they know, and their nature know
The path of pathlessness, with all the joy
Of destiny fulfilling its own name.
I have known time and distance, but not why I am here.
Path of logic, path of folly, all
The same–and I stand, my face lifted now skyward,
Hearing the high beat, my arms outstretched in the tingling
Process of transformation, and soon tough legs,
With folded feet, trail in the sounding vacuum of passage,
And my heart is impacted with a fierce impulse
To unwordable utterance –
Toward sunset, at a great height.
My son loves this book from the library, but has got it in his head that any tree with lots of leaves under it is “Fall leaves Fall”, lol.
The autumn equinox just passed (almost unnoticed, sadly!) and as I pointed out in my post yesterday, fall is upon us. I’m enthralled with this season right now because I never had much of a Fall growing up. I can very distinctly remember the one fall I spent NOT in Florida as a child, when I spent 4 months with my mother in central Louisiana at the age of 8. There was a harvest or street festival we went to, the air was chilly, and she remarked at how gorgeous the bright yellow trees were in the fall.
Florida trees do not turn yellow. They are primarily one of two types: on the coast, its the quintessential Palm Tree, and inland (Lakeland), its the great big mossy oaks. They give you lots of leaves, albeit dry brown ones that kill your grass. And there are days so hot in a Florida September that you can fry an egg on the sidewalk. There are CHRISTMAS DAYS so hot in Florida that you can lay out on a lawn chair in your bikini and get a tan. A small handful of you might think that’s totally cool, but trust me, 23 years of it and I’m done. Where’s my Bing Crosby and my White Christmas, darn it? (Rainy christmas, ie. Portland, is a step in the right direction, lol).
Anyhoo, despite the gazillion things going on today, Misty and I managed to trek over to People’s Coop Harvest Festival. It was awesome! Below are some pics. (BTW, this is a great idea, People’s! What a wonderful help for those going sans automobile! More grocers should offer such service!)
Apple Press:
Mmmmm….. free tasting…
More?
Pumpkin carving contest!
Say Cheese, Misty!
Ok, this is not the Harvest Festival, this is from our family day on Sunday… Despite what this look might tell you, Lil’ E WAS happy about his bunny balloon hat… no, really, he was, promise.
