the biking barista

While watching my weekly episode of CBS Sunday Morning this week, Mia Birk (Portland's first bicycle coordinator) challenged the viewers to exchange one of their car trips for a bike trip.

Well- Ms Birk, challenge gladly excepted. I feel really good when I do "green" things and I have recently become quite a fan of stepping outside my comfort zone....so today I biked to and from work. 1 hour 14 min there and 58 minutes back. I'll admit its something I would have a hard time doing EVERY day, but it was definitely do-able, and after burning 1,032 calories.....I might do it more. Madison is a very bike friendly city so I had a leg up there, and since I wear my hair in a ponytail at the coffee shop...a clean change of clothes and some deodorant were all I needed. Give it a try and see what you think.

(I thought a picture from our trip to Amsterdam last year would be perfect for this post. Now they know how to bike !)

Opera in the Park

Puccini's Madama Butterfly, Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, and Gounod's Faust were the stars of this weekends Opera in the Park in Madison's Garner Park. I have been wanting to go to this annual event for the last few years and was very excited we made it happen this summer. It was a perfect night. Wine always seems to taste a little better al fresco, so my wine glass picnic tray made its ignaugural use. Very handy...and good for holding ice cream too.

Window walk

Look at these beauties. A neighbor of ours is doing a lot of exterior work and today on Abby's morning walk, we found all of these windows piled up on the curb. Not 10 minutes later I was loading them into my truck. Oh I love starting the morning with a good find. I am in the process of transforning some 8 paned windows I rescued last year and they are turning out very cool, so i am thrilled to have more canvases to experiment with.

blackberrys

Nate surprised me the other day at the coffee shop and thought we could take a short drive when my shift was over. I have been dying to be his barista, so I was more than happy to make him his extra shot mocha with whip. The best he has ever had he says...no bias there of course.

So a half hour later we hit the county roads of Wisconsin with the windows down and the Ipod on play. It is amazing how by just going a few miles outside your environment can refresh and inspire you. We came across a wonderful farmstand and couldn't resist the first sweet corn of the season, a juicy cantalope and the prettiest blackberries I had ever seen. Maybe it was rich aubergine color, the intricacy of all little individual seeds or even the hue of the aqua container they came in, but even at $4.50, we had to add them to the cart. They were as sweet as they looked. As we returned to the city, popping our blackberries like candy, I was reminded of how wonderful it is to be able to escape, for even a short moment, and appreciate the world around us.

quote for thought

When there is no wind...row

I came across this Latin proverb today and it made me smile inside. Funny how things present themselves to you when you are ready to hear them.

Image compliments of SuperHappyNYC

Green is the new bronze

I hate wasting stuff. Hate it. So on a recent purge of my bathroom drawer I was surprised to find, way down at the very bottom, four 95% used powder bronzers. I liked them all...heck, I used all but 5%, but for one reason or another I bought a new one before the previous one ran out and now these perfectly good rements were going in the trash. Hey, not so fast. By dumping them all into one re-purposed plastic container and mushing them up a bit, I now have enough to last me thru the summer. Brilliant. That means one less trip to the store, one less package to recycle, and one less thing to spend my money on. Now that is an easy green tip.

Try extending the life of one thing in your house this week by re-using or re-purposing it. You'll feel like an Eco-Hero !

dinosaur park

On a recent trip out west, we made an early morning pitstop at dinosaur park in Rapid City South Dakota. I am always willing to give a new tourist trap a shot, and this one did not disappoint. Set a top a hill in the middle of town, this small park established in 1936 is the home to five "Sinclair-ish" looking concrete creatures. Posed against such a magical background that morning, these happy guys were just begging to be photographed.

chair-a-palooza

Who knew I had collected so many chairs ! After cleaning out the garage this weekend I was faced with the harsh reality of really how many potential projects I had collecting dust in there... 11 to be exact. Most are from the curbs in my neighborhood, but a few are hand-me-downs. At the time, I felt they all had potential, so I rescued them from their landfill fate with grand plans of turning them into fabulous finds. Seeing them all again in the light of day has re-inspired me to take a little action and start at least one of them on its creative journey. Hmmm which one to choose first.