29 January 2008

updates

Things have been busy around here, and I haven't been interested in blogging lately, for no particular reason, but I thought I should post a brief update to let you all know we're still alive. Because I'm not feeling up to writing real paragraphs and stuff (mentally, that is), I will do this list-style, because I'm fond of lists.

1. I'll start with the bad news. Our car was hit, in the parking lot right in front of our house, a few nights ago. Our bumper is smashed and mysteriously, none of the neighbors seems to know anything. So later this week we have to take it in to get fixed and get a rental car for a day or so. The boys were excited because we had to report it as a hit-and-run, and a police officer came to our house!! Thrilling.

2. Other bad parking lot news: in the last couple of weeks, we know of one car that was broken into and another which had its windows smashed by a group of unruly fellows. The window smashing actually bothered me less, because from all appearances that was a personal attack, not random, but still, we're becoming less enchanted with the neighborhood. To put it mildly.

3. In good news, we took the kids bowling for the first time this weekend. We went with some friends of our who had some coupons, and of course I didn't take any pictures, why would I do that, but believe me, it was adorable. Evan and our friends' daughter got to use a ramp that's normally reserved for people in wheelchairs -- you just set your ball on top and push it down. This, along with bumpers on the kids' lane, meant that the two littler kids beat the two older kids who actually had to roll the ball down the lane themselves. We heard just a little complaining about the injustice of one being expected to actually bowl at a bowling alley. (And by "a little" I mean "constant".) But I think they all had fun anyway.

4. Big lifestyle changes are afoot: we are transitioning to a mostly vegetarian diet. We've been heading that way slowly for some time, but I really accelerated it last week. Maybe I'll write a whole post on this sometime, but I'm feeling more and more strongly, for environmental reasons, that we need to stop supporting the corporate farm industry. This also means more local and organic foods, too. Everyone so far is dealing with the change pretty well -- we were never big meat eaters to begin with -- so hopefully this will be a good change for us in the long run. Maybe when Greg gets a real job and we have more money, we'll buy organic, local meats too. But for now, lentils and beans and tofu are cheaper than most meats anyway.

5. I think that's all. Nothing terribly exciting, but I felt like I was being neglectful of the blog, so there we are.

4 comments:

Jessica said...

So sorry to hear about your car! That sucks!

I'm hoping you'll post some of your vegetarian main dish recipes. We would like to eat more vegetarian, but need help breaking out of our current dinner rut.

kim said...

Sorry to hear about your car.

Molly bowled for the first time earlier this month at a birthday party - I'd never seen the ramps before either, but they're awesome. Between those and the bumpers, she was a fabulous bowler and actually got a spare at one point.

Good luck with the move toward vegetarianism. I consider our family to be semi-vegetarian, in that we eat far, far less meat than the average American diet. (I read the other day that most Americans consume about 1/2 lb of meat each day.) I know I've shared some recipes with you before, but if you need any new ideas with lentils or beans, just let me know. And don't forget the whole grains, which are an excellent source of protein as well.

kim said...

p.s. Did you see this article?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html?em&ex=1201755600&en=5dfe202cdd898fe6&ei=5087%0A

Anonymous said...

i'm sorry to hear about your car, don't you just hate that! where i used to live (city centre), junkies would regularly break into cars for stupid little stuff like cds or a pair of sneakers. this neighbourhood is a bit calmer (so far, our car was "only" broken into once but was nothing was taken.. probably because there was nothing there to take).