This page lists the most common questions about our family and the blog. The titles are hotlinked to the original post, so just click on the underlined links for the full answer.
Why are you car free?
There are a number of reasons that we went car free in August of 2010 but the catalyst was our auto insurance carrier. I've blogged about other reasons and pulled the rest of the answer together in the this link.
Why is the title of the blog Almost Care Free in Ann Arbor?
When we started the blog, we didn't have any cars but we soon discovered that cars have their useful place. We've rented a car, reserved a Zipcar, and called a cab. So we had a contest to rename the blog and a reader in Seattle came up with the winning title. She received a box of homebaked oatmeal bars. We now think of our car usage like an airplane or train trip. When you are planning a family vacation to some far away destination, most of us don't run out and buy a train or plane, we make reservations. We are treating cars the same way - when we need to be somewhere out of the ordinary, we plan ahead and make arrangements for a car. What the means for us is that we don't have the burden of maintaining a car between the times that we use it.
What did you do with your cars? (coming soon)
How do you get groceries home?
We have three kids living at home (and one away at college) so we still need a fair quantity of groceries during the week. We have experimented with a variety of ways but the one we use the most is a bike with a trailer. By bus by bike with trailer by bike in the snow the the new trailer story, a large, heavy load
What kind of camera do you use?
I bought a tiny little Canon powershot in October 2010 that takes great auto shots and doesn't weight a thing. It doesn't take the most amazing photos but does fit in my back pocket so I'm more motivated to have it with me when I'm out and about.
What if one of your kids gets sick in the middle of the night?
Even with four kids, I've never had to deal with this scenario before (knock on some wood quick) and we've not blogged about such a concern but we have talked about this at home. And the answer is that we would call an ambulance for life-threatening situations, day or night. Or call a cab if we needed a quick ride to a 24-hour emergency office. We would never make any long-term decisions that would negatively compromise the kids health.
Why is there so much other stuff on the blog that is not related to being car free?
I love food! Food is way more interesting to me than yammering on about walking to work or what other people are doing about environmental concerns. I think of the blog as my personal musings about food, kids, life in general and being environmentally responsible.
Why are there so many recent lamb posts?
We buy our Thanksgiving turkey, eggs, lamb, and pork from small, local producers. We also don't have a large chest freezer, which means we can only have one lamb or half a pig at a time. You might notice the rotation as we switch from one animal to the next. Here's how we got the lamb home.
I'm noticing more Weight Watchers stuff, what gives?
My goal was to not bore everybody to tears with my weight gain/loss issues so I started another page (see tab on the header bar) where I can go on and on about Weight Watchers stuff. But since I calculated the points on my recipes, I thought I would just post them for those out there who also follow the program.
Astrid
