W

W is for Williston. :)

W is for Wal Mart. : (

W is for wait. : - \

W is for what. ????

W is for wind. : ()

W is for WoW. !! : ) !!

According to an article published by USA Today, Wal-Mart will announce Monday plans to almost double the number of its stores that use solar power to generate energy, with a next-generation solar technology! Click here to read the entire article and to learn what other green initiatives, such as installing wind turbines on top of parking lot lights, are being taken by the retailer giant and a few other big corporations.

I applaud the initiatives to purse sustainable actions. But I also think about the fact that they are looking into the company's ability to make big profits before painting one wall green. Nothing against making money, just remembering that when one has a lot, there are lots who have none (or very little). I do not buy that but I am glad that the environment is being considered at last (or should I said at least?).

802

When you see these three numbers, you know.

8 0 2.

Yes! You feel pretty much the same as when you read, hear the name, or connect with someone from, the most beautiful state in the country, the state I live in, the state we much love:

V E R M O N T!

By Glenn Russell for the Free Press, with his permission

If you think of 802 as a significant number, one that triggers good old - and current - memories, and one that you would love to see printed even on your clothes, check the website of UVM grads, designers and founders of TophDaddy Designs.

These two young ladies, Becky and Melissa, have created an cool company and a great line of clothing inspired by the idea of area codes as numbers that automatically make you think about a place. Or maybe about the many phone conversations you made to someone special over there.

Their designs are about connecting and going to the basics of picking up the phone or conversing face to face with people, stopping spontaneously someone on the street and asking why she or he is wearing an 802 shirt. Or a 212, or a 671 one, depending on what is wearing whoever you stop on the street. The whole world does not live in Vermont, Mariana.

When I interviewed these women for a business story printed today in the Burlington Free Press, they inspired me, they comforted me with the idea that no matter where you are or where you go, you can always connect with someone who has shared something in common with you.

I did not ask them if they buy organic, fair-traded cotton or if they manufacture their tees locally because the story was not about that, but the concept behind their company really made me want to spend my money on their products. I would totally buy that.

Courtesy of TophDaddy

Eat Local

did you check this week the Eat Local Week blog?

If not, do so!

There are fun stories on how individuals and families are trying to eat 100 percent local for one week and ideas on what to buy and how to prepare a local meal!

here: http://www.eatlocalvt.com/

And here some photos of the food festival in Shelburne!

Place

“We all want places to have identity and meaning built in. Vermont has a really strong sense of place. The landscape is such a presence. Life and work is oriented toward the landscape. It’s hugely unusual. You start to think Vermont is normal, and then you’re out there, and things are different. Really different.”

by Vermont author Rowan Jacobsen, as quoted in today's Burlington Free Press story by Sally Pollack "A Taste of Terroir." Click here to read the entire note.

So much to tell

There was so much I wanted to tell you about.

I wanted to tell you about my adventures Saturday trying to have a safety check performed in my bike before I start taking my daughter to her school, 1.3 miles away from home, twice a week. Remember I mentioned this idea when I wrote about how i did NOT buy my bike? Oh boy, what an ordeal!

I wanted to tell you about the radio show I've heard on my way to the garden this weekend on how happiness has to do more with the way we spend our money and not so much with how much of it we have. Interesting theory.

I also wanted to tell you about the story I published Sunday on the Williston resident who built himself a solar-powered pool heater and was swimming during Labor Day, the day the summer

was unofficially supposed to end.

I wanted to tell you as well about the story I published today on the ninth annual Vermont Small Farms Food Festival which took place yesterday in Shelburne Orchards. It was all about local, nutritious and simple food and fun, two essential ingredients of an uncomplicated life. I even have some unedited photos to show you.

I also wanted to give you the heads up on what I am working on this week: stories on the Eat Local Week, the new UVM store on Church Street and the new line of clothes featuring our state area code - 802- as art. Pretty cool stuff!

But I will remain somehow silent for just a few days. You'll understand later why, so come back to read if you want to know.

In the meantime, see some of the photos from Matt Wood's swimming pool heater. If you are a do-it-yourself, handy person, don't miss the story in the Green Mountain Edition of Sunday's Free Press (link above). You can contact him with questions, too.

'i do NOT buy' list - to be updated

• gold jewelry
• famous, expensive brands (except if it's second hand or if there's no other option)
• in big, chain stores (except when can't find small, local, reasonably-priced alternative or when out of town visitors drag me there)
• electronic gadgets
• in big supermarkets (except when we run out of milk late at night)
• clothes to exercise (I use old clothes or hand-me downs)
• most politicians speeches

This list will be updated. Now I need to hear from you. What's on your 'i do NOT buy list'?

P.s: The fact that I do NOT buy these things does not mean you do or should do the same. First rule of a simple life: don't judge others.

simple encounters

Today I was thinking I need to tell you about Williston. This is quite a town and it isn't actually that SIMPLE to explain. Depending on where you are from, you will have a different concept of Williston.

• If you are from out of this country you might not think anything except where the heck is that. Ok, Williston is a town in Vermont, a state of the United States of America, about 35 minutes away from the Canadian border. North baby north.
• If you are from this country, you might think Williston is just one one more rural and bucolic Vermont town. You are right, in part.
• If you are from Vermont, you might think Williston is the town of the big boxes and chain stores. You are right, in part, too.
• If you are from Williston you should know the truth: Williston is that rural and picturesque Vermont town AND the commercial hub people know so well. Indeed, Williston has about 80 percent of its land categorized as rural and about 20 percent categorized as commercial/industrial.

Williston is where I've lived for the past three years. This morning, as I drove home after covering a story for the newspaper and getting veggies from the garden, I decided to stop in one of my favorite spots in town to take photos for you, for this blog. I wanted to get a nice shot of the white steeple of the Williston Federated Church, which in the summer is all surrounded by green. And it was then that I had one of those simple encounters that make you think about the complex things.

I was coming down Oak Hill Road as if returning from Lake Iroquois to the village and I stopped the car on the side of the intersection with South St. It's a pretty hight point and the views of the Green Mountains in the back and the Interstate to the southeast are amazing. See:

Suddenly, I've heard a bike approaching so I quickly moved to the side realizing I was kind of in the middle of the street. "Hey girl," the biker said slowing down. It was Amy! You know those persons you don't befriend directly but you know through other friends? Well, that's Amy for me. I always bump into her in different times and places, God only knows why. She's so cool.

I couldn't believe my eyes. Last time I've seen Amy, a few months ago in a park, she was very pregnant and there she was today, her perfectly back-in-shape and healthy being on her bike hitting the roads of Williston (she lives in Essex). First thing we talked about was of course her baby, who was 8 weeks old, she said, and then continued talking about the two babies our friends in common had over the summer. I told her I had not been in touch with them since before they had their babies because I was waiting to tell them some sad news. My dad had passed away in between the births of the babies of our friends.

I explained to Amy that my dad passing had been very special for me, not only because we got closer during the last 6 months of his life but also because he died on the day of my birthday, July 7. Her eyes got suddenly big. That was the day her boy had born. I got the chills. I knew then why we keep on bumping into each other.

Amy is a devoted believer and she belongs to a church. I am one of those 'undecided voters,' as I believe in God but not that much in churches or organized religion. But we both agreed that her baby and my dad crossed paths and that they were part of a perfect equilibrium. All of a sudden I felt it was time to tell my friends the news. Life and death are happenings of an instant and parts of an eternity that we are unable to comprehend but of which somehow, through simple encounters, we feel some piece.

Here is Amy, continuing her bike ride after our brief encounter

of how i did NOT buy my bike

Last night I went to bed way too excited about this blog and of course I woke up circa 5 a.m. That was the end of my night. I have so many cool ideas during the dark hours of the night but for some reason unknown to me, they do not come down so clear when I sit in the computer in the morning. Who will ever read this? That is certainly a big question, too. Worst case scenario is that nobody reads. At least writing is cheaper than going to the therapist. And simpler.

So, one thing I wanted to tell you is about the bike i did NOT buy. Here it's:

This is my bike. It does not have a name yet, any ideas? I found my bike on the street, more specifically, on one of the lawns of our condominium (I forgot to mention: We live in a condo close to Taft Corners).

My bike appeared about a year ago. It was September - I think - when I spotted it on the lawn, just lying there, abandoned. I was walking with my son on the bike path, back from school. It was not alone. She - I think this bike is a girl, look at those curves - was abandoned with a friend, another bike a little smaller than her. When I saw them I thought some local kids were riding in the area and they had left their bikes there for a moment. Maybe they went inside to get a glass of water? Maybe they went playing with something else before riding back home?

The next morning, in our walk to school, I saw the two bikes in the very same spot. That's strange, I thought. Why in the world would someone leave a bike out there the whole night? To my surprise, it was not a whole night. At least a whole week passed by with the two poor little bikes there, nobody caring for their wheels, pedals, seats and other important parts.

Where I come from, this would have never happened. Two reasons:

1 - Nobody would abandoned precious means of transportation on the street

2 - The first person to spot them would have taken them away

But here we are, in Williston, Vermont, United States of America, far away from my beloved Buenos Aires. And those two bikes were calling my name! On Sunday, I gave up. I told my sister in law - an eager biker, back then commuting everyday from Williston to Burlington - about the bikes and she said the obvious: Let's go get them.

We did, as you can see. But I was hard to convince that I was getting two - not only one - new bikes - new for me - that easily. So I began an investigation to return those bikes to the irresponsible owner/s who left them there. I not only wanted to honor my journalism career but I also wanted to make sure I was not stealing property!

This is what I did, in this order:

1 - I called Skirack in Burlington, both bikes had stickers as if they were rented or bought there, to see if they had misplaced two bikes. Nothing.

2 - I put an ad in the local newspaper, The Williston Observer, to see if someone would call to get them back. Nothing.

3 - I talked to my neighbor, a Williston police officer, and asked him what was the right thing to do in this case. He said I should probably take them to the police department and leave them there as abandoned property, but nothing was going to be done with them. He said I would

certainly not get in trouble to keep them. After all, the bikes were left on my property.

So, finally, I decided to keep the bigger bike and donate the smaller one. I thought it was a fair decision. I called Bike Recycle Vermont and my sister in law carried it to Burlington to drop it there. BRV usually asks you for a $10 donation when you take a bike so that it can be repaired it and sold to people who need it, but they said it was in such great condition that they could not ask for a single dollar. Yes, that was one of the bikes abandoned in my lawn.

After a while I began to think it was all intentional. There is someone out there who knew someone in here would take those bikes. Interestingly, they lawn they chose was just across the street from the bike path on the way out of the elementary school. Who ever you were, thank you. After all, if it was meant as a gift, that's how it was taken. I love my bike and I recently had a well-respected friend visiting who said: "I have the same bike!"

One last thing: my neighbor Megan just gave me this great seat (close up below) that I attached to my bike. Another free gift thanks to the community! I plan to take my daughter to preschool in my bike for as a long as the weather allows. We'll see how it goes. I'll tell you more about it later.

simple beginning

This is the very first post of a very new blog. Oh yes, I know, there's way too many cool blogs out there but I couldn't help it. Writing became a need as strong as eating the morning breakfast.

I am creating this blog to share my every day adventures in trying to live a simpler, yet more rewarding, life. I have been writing a blog in Spanish - Charla Simple - for about two years and since then I felt I owed something to my English-speaking side. If you are there, reading, thank you. It's a pleasure to have you on board. I am not sure what can you expect of this blog, but I'll let you know as soon as I figure it out.

What do I mean by a simpler life? Is my life complicated? In a way it is and yours might be as well. Here the not-so-recent discovery: We are deeply inserted in a very materialist society driven by the most powerful, market-driven economy of the world. Welcome to America! We are surrounded by and we depend on things all the time during our lifetime, since day one until the very last breath. No recess.

And you guessed my friend, it's a lot of work. We have no remedy but to know, name, organize, clean, buy, sell, like, understand, save, put on, take off, play with, ride on, build - and the list goes on for ever- these above-mentioned things.

And wait, there's more. We also have to deal with the non-tangible stuff: Emotions, pains, politics, relationships, spirituality, love, sex, education and the many other big questions/issues inherent to being a human being.

It's way too much. Something's gotta give, like the good old comedy would indicate. And I have not even started with the sustainability speech. Oh boy. I better leave that one for the second post. Let's keep this first one simple, so you come back.