SheldonTimes

Becoming a one-car family may not seem like much to write about.  But it represents an intentional transition to a life style that is relatively rare for a two-income family. When our very-used 1987 Volvo died in the spring of 2007, we decided not to replace it but stay with Paul’s 2002 Ford Focus as the sole family car. There have been work-related changes for us beginning in 2009, but here is how things were at that time. We live in the Philadelphia suburbs.

The last experimental batch of tea cooler was heavy on the lemon and weak on the tea for Paul's taste, so I dropped the sugar to 1-1/2 cups, the lemon juice to 3/4 cup and increased the tea bags to six for the gallon. It was an improvement, but still a bit heavy on the lemon. That was still a little too lemony. We decided to drop the lemon to only 1/4 cup for the next batch, expecting it to be too weak, in which case, I could add lemon juice a tablespoon at a time until I hit the proportion of lemon Paul likes.

One of Paul's staples is Swiss Farm's tea cooler, and he's kept a gallon or two in the fridge for years. We haven't kept records, so don't know how much he actually consumes, but it's at least a gallon per week, and possibly two, especially in the summer. At $2.69 a gallon, tea cooler is hardly a luxury item, but there are some other concerns. First, allthough we try to reuse, we've found no way to reuse the 50 to 100 plastic jugs that we pick up along with the tea cooler each year, so they must be recycled. Second, the quality of the product is debatable.

A friend wrote to me that her brother-in-law (Matt) in Ohio has started up his own coffee roasting company, and she asked if I would be interested in purchasing some. She included this note from Matt:

Dear Friends and Family,

Haverford Township begins single-stream recycling with the new year. Details are on the Township website. All plastics #1 through #7 are accepted; Earth911 has a list of which plastics are of which type.

Thursday is recycling day in our neighborhood. The only exception in 2009 is Thanksgiving Day. There's no recycling that week, but regular trash pick up will be on Monday.

I took my first baby steps as a Freecyclist by responding to an offer of a sewing machine in a cabinet. Before I was ten, I learned to sew on an old Pfaff, in a cabinet, but my own machine is a portable. I've had it for years and have always regretted not having a cabinet. My biggest peeve with a portable is that the machine is raised up on the table, and you have to support the fabric by hand while simultaneously feeding it through the machine.