Other Forms of Transportation

About a year ago we lived in Broad Ripple, which is wonderful community. It's just a little pricey and we couldn't afford to buy a house there. There is a great trail there called the Monon Trail. We loved to ride bikes and I ran and walked on it. We were also conveniently located to pretty much everything around. We walked or road bikes to the library, mall (if you could call Glendale Mall a mall), Goodwill, Post Office, McDonald's, etc. We would also pull the kids in a wagon and walk down to the grocery. Not only did it save on gas, which was terribly expensive at the time, it was great for the environment and for our bodies.

When my husband could, he would ride his bike to work. It took him about an hour to get there on bike and 15 -20 minutes when driving. So, he had to really plan ahead. Now that we live in Fishers his work is only 3 miles away. January of this year our car decided to die. We really discussed it and chose to only have one car and not replace it. My husband took the initiative and has biking ever since. There's been very few times he's used the car or I've taken him. Mostly when it's pouring down the rain or one day when we had a foot of snow. He's extremely dedicated. He keeps a log online to see how much carbon he's keeping out of the air by doing this. And now he's working on improving his time to see how fast he can get there and back.

We bike everywhere we can. There is one major road separating us from everything else and I wish more than anything that there were a crosswalk to get across. It still worries me when we have the kids with us and we have to cross 37. But, we just have to be super careful. But, the kids love riding in the trailer. They like visiting all the parks around, the local Farmer's Market, the library, and many, many, other places. And they're getting out in the fresh air and not sitting at home in front of the television.

Here's a few helpful links:

Find a Goodwill near you:

http://locator.goodwill.org/?gclid=COmRiq6i4poCFRIeDQodXA5sBw

You can keep track of your mileage here:

http://worldcommute.com/

If you live in Indy you can find alot of useful info here including your local Farmer's Markets:

http://green.indy.com/

My hubby's blog:

http://www.fisherscommuter.blogspot.com/

The Way Trash Should Be

Before we had children we lived in Dubuque, IA for a little while. While living there I realized how trash pickup should be.

We were given a recycle bin for free and could sit it at the curb on the same day as trash pickup day. We could recycle plastic, glass, paper, and cardboard all at the end of our driveway. We could put an unlimited amount of recylables out. We could even request extra bins if need be.

We were only allowed to sit out one bag of garbage a week. We had to pay $1 for each additional bag. It was a great concept. I can't believe other communities haven't figured out this simple plan. It promoted recycling and discouraged putting everything into the landfill.

We now aren't allowed to recycle at our curb where we live here in Fishers. There aren't enough people in our neighborhood that use the same company for them to pick it up. So, I collect all these recyclables in our garage and when they start overflowing my husband or I will drive them to the recycling place which is about 5 miles away. Although we may have to burn fuel to get there I don't feel so bad when I fill my trunk to the brim with all this stuff that isn't going to the landfill.

Introduction

Let me introduce myself. I'm Susanne. I've been married for almost 10 years now. We live in Fishers, IN and we have two kids. Our daughter is 4 and our son is almost 1 1/2. We've always recycled our paper, plastic, glass, and cardboard, but we decided a few years ago to take it a step further. Here's our journey to becoming "green".