Six Months!

"I don't care if you have a car or not. All I care about is that I don't."

Photo attribution here

It has now been a solid six months since we moved to Portland. Time flies when you're having fun! We love it here so much that we have seriously wondered why not everybody lives in the Northwest :) There are no bugs. Tons of stuff to do. Tons of stuff growing everywhere. Beautiful weather. Little to no snow in the winter. Friendly people. No sales tax. Delicious doughnuts. And I know the naysayers all chime in, "Just wait until winter, you'll hate it." Maybe we will. We are equipped with our UV lamp at home and plenty of vitamin D for the rainy stretches. I, for one, am not worried about it. Plus if things get really dark and gloomy we have a trip to Hawaii to look forward to in January. (Thanks to Ben's work. It's their 20th anniversary or something and they are paying for all employees + spouses to spend five days in paradise. Yes, please.)

Anyhoo, I thought I would write a follow-up to our last post about being carless. When we moved here we left our ticking time bomb in Phoenix and decided to try living without a car for awhile. At first it was out of necessity, then it became an experiment, and now we just plain love it. I LOVE NOT HAVING A CAR! If one-year-ago-me heard now-me say that, well, it just would have been unbelievable.

I'll tell you the best thing about not having a car. It's that I have so much less to worry about. I don't worry about my car getting scratched or dented in the parking lot. I don't worry about the sand in my kids shoes and pockets getting all over my clean seats. I don't worry when the next big repair is coming. I don't have to save $1,000 or so for said repair. I have one less item in which to cram clutter and junk. I have one less item to constantly maintain. I don't worry about getting in a car accident. I don't worry about running over a child on our street. I'm not constantly checking my speed or making sure I make a full stop so that I avoid a ticket. I don't have to park the dang thing when we go places. How annoying is it to park? Seriously. These are all things that I didn't realize were stressing me out until they were gone. And now it feels so liberating.

Also, it has proven to be cheaper to go without a car by a long shot. In my previous post I said that in 2011 and 2012 we spent on average $250-$300 per month on our car. This included gas, maintenance, cleaning, insurance, and repairs. We never had a car payment so that figure was simply the monthly cost of maintaining a working vehicle. Since bagging our car and relying on public transit, bicycles, and our own two legs to get around we have spent $50-$60 each month. I'd say that's some pretty good savings.

And guess what? We love it. I love riding the bus with the kiddos and being able to hold them and play with them while we go instead of shouting at them from the front seat. I love getting my exercise for the day as we get from Point A to Point B. I love taking silly pictures of them while we wait at our bus stop. Yes, sometimes it is inconvenient, especially when we just miss the bus and have to wait for a long time for the next one. And sometimes it takes us forever to get home after being out all day and that makes us tired and cranky. And lots of times we are out. all. day. Because if it takes an hour to get somewhere, you better believe we are staying there for awhile.

This transition has forced me to slow down quite a bit. When I had a car I crammed in so many activities and stops that were "on the way". Now I don't really do errands. How is that possible, you ask? Ben does all the bank runs because there is a bank right by his office. We pick up groceries about every two weeks when we borrow a friend's car. Sometimes I don't even do that and we order groceries online from Safeway and have them delivered to our door. We do mostly online shopping now for any goods we purchase. And when we do have to do an "errand" we make a day of it. A couple of weeks ago I had to pick up some items from a store about six miles away. Instead of just running there and then coming straight home, I biked there with the kids, we ate lunch at a park, and then we park-hopped on the way home and played at every park with swings, because that's what Tommy wanted to do. It was fun! Without running errands all the time we have a lot more time to play together. Turns out, a lot of the errands I used to believe were essential really weren't.

The one thing I do miss is going through the drive-thru at the bank and getting suckers for the kids. That was always fun. Oh well.

We don't feel limited by being carless at all. We get out as much or more than most of the families we know. We are constantly exploring this gorgeous city, going to new parks, walking around downtown, visiting the museum, the zoo, the forest, the library, the gym, the farmer's market...whatever. Yes, there are some things that are simply out of our reach. If it's more than about six miles away and a bus doesn't easily go there, it's not worth the effort. But I honestly can't think of a time when I really wanted to do something, but couldn't because of transportation.

We have rented cars a couple of times to go to Seattle and the Oregon Coast. Yes, it's kind of a pain to rent a car, but the upside is that we don't have to clean it when we give it back. It's like how grandma handles watching the kids!

Another thing people are worried about is our safety on the bus. They'll say something like, "I bet you run into a lot of interesting people," or, "I could never ride TriMet with all the crazies." You know what? Most people who use public transportation are just normal people getting from one place to another. We have met a lot of really kind people, people who help me get the stroller on and off the bus, or people who just swoon at the sight of Lily's platinum-colored curly hair. Mostly people just mind their own business and we mind ours. Sometimes we have run into mentally ill or drunk people, but we don't pay them any mind. In the entire six months we have been here, there is only one time I felt even remotely uncomfortable by somebody riding the bus. (The whole bus felt uncomfortable, it wasn't directed specifically at us.) And you know what we did? We sat at the front and stayed away from the offending person. Simple. I want my children to grow up without being afraid of people who are different. Yes, we live in Portland so we see some people who are very different, but underneath whatever they may appear to be, they are just a person with the same hopes and fears that I have.

And sometimes it's really fun to ride the bus with the guy who dresses like an aerobics instructor from the 80's or the lady who dresses in red from head-to-toe. (I'm not kidding, red hat, red jewelry, red shoes, red outfit. All different shades of red, mind you.) And yeah, one time Lily threw up on the bus and that wasn't all that fun. And there was a really awkward time when my stroller wouldn't fold down so I had to carry it onto the bus and it rolled everywhere. And sometimes we miss our stop and we have to walk a little extra. But it's all part of the experience and we love it and we always laugh about it instead of getting frustrated.

I want to add that neither myself nor Ben are moral snobs about this issue. Yes, we love living without a car and we plan to do it for the foreseeable future. But we don't profess to know that it is what everyone should do. It works for us right now, for where we live, for the ages of our kids, and for the goals and dreams we have for our life. We like to live simply without much "stuff". We love having open Saturdays where we can do whatever we want as a family without running around in the car all day. We love our lifestyle. But we don't think it's right for everyone. It would probably be very wrong for a lot of people. Often when we tell people that we don't have a car they automatically get defensive about why they could never give their car up. I think this response is hilarious, actually. I don't care if you have a car or not. All I care about is that I don't. So please don't think that we look down on anyone who drives a car. 'Cuz that would be silly.

Also, if you do have a car, please put a bird on it.

Camping!

This summer we finally tackled a family camping trip. This was the first time we had taken either of the kids camping. Even though we basically got no sleep, it was a fun time and a great experience and something I am sure we will be repeating in the near future!

We drove up to Fort Stevens. Ben thought it would be fun to see where the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean meet. Our campground was nestled in the woods about 10-15 minutes drive from either beach.

While Ben and I set up camp the kids stayed busy digging in the dirt. There is no end to fun when you have a bucket and shovel and access to all the dirt you could imagine.

The highlight of the trip for both kids were the s'mores. They had never eaten s'mores before or sat by a campfire. Their messy faces speak for how much they enjoyed this particular portion of the trip.

This was also the first night Lily spent outside of her crib or pack 'n' play. She went crazy with power! When it was time to go to bed Tommy was exhausted and begged Lily to be quiet so he could fall asleep. Lily, however, ran around the tent jumping on each of us and laughing. I finally got her to sleep by holding her down between Ben and me. Once she was out she slept fine, though I wish I could say the same for myself!

In the morning we packed up camp first thing, cooked some oatmeal, and went for a tired exploration trip. We walked along the banks of the Columbia only to find a bunch of dead jellyfish that had washed up all over the beach. We let the kids play in the sand a little bit, but we were worried about the jellyfish. It wasn't exactly a relaxing beach trip. On our way out we stopped to look at the Pacific Ocean, which was gorgeous. We were all exhausted so we headed home pretty quickly, but it was a great first experience camping as a family!

Our Urban Adventure

Yesterday I packed the kids up for a real-life urban adventure. There is a park downtown in the Pearl District called The Fields Neighborhood Park that I wanted to check out. It just opened a couple of months ago. With a blatant disregard for naptime we headed out on what Tommy called our TriMet Adventure since we had to take a bus, the MAX, and then the streetcar to get there. Have I mentioned that I love not having a car? Really.

The park was pretty awesome. It's situated right by the Willamette River, which affords a gorgeous view of the Fremont Bridge. The actual playground equipment was a little bit too old for the likes of my kiddos, but there was a fun giant sandbox that they played in for over an hour. Someone (more likely many someones) donated a bunch of sand toys for all the kiddos to play with. It was pretty awesome. We also saw tons of dogs, which the kids love. People in Portland have a thing for dogs. (For those who are interested there is actually a dog gym right next to the dog park, just in case your canine doesn't want to get his paws muddy.)

After we played and ate lunch at The Fields we decided to venture about for a bit. We moseyed (I spell-checked that, don't worry) through Tanner Springs Park looking for small fish and a turtle some girl said she saw there. Then we started walking down the street to wait for the streetcar to take us back home. As we walked we heard the sound of rushing water and screaming children and I knew we'd be lucky to make it home before dinnertime.

We stumbled upon Jamison Square, which was way cooler in real life than it is on the Internet. I urged my kiddos to go play even though we didn't have swimming suits or even a change of clothes. Tommy jumped right in, explored the whole fountain, and then found some other boys to pal around with. Lily was a little more cautious, wading in only to her ankles for awhile. Once she got comfortable, though, that little girl was literally rolling through the water, lapping it up like a dog as she crawled. I told one of Ben's coworkers that we had visited Jamison Square and the only thing she said about was, "Oh, yeah! That fountain's always full of...um...children."

Three parks in one day isn't too bad! We played until nearly 4:00 and then decided we should probably start our hour-long trek home. The kids could have stayed there all day. I stripped Lily down to her diaper (luckily I had a dry one of those or that would have been a disaster) and figured nobody would be too offended by a baby wearing only a diaper and pink jelly shoes in public. Tommy took his shirt off and ventured home Huck-Finn-style. Next time you see a mom with two half-naked children, just assume they had a really awesome unplanned adventure rather than judge her as an unfit parent :)

That was our whole day. It was one of those carefree, take-it-all-in, be-totally-present, forget-all-the-rules kinds of days. I need those once in awhile to stay sane. Also, my kids are cute and I love them. And I LOVE Portland. What a cool place to live.