Sugar Free Challenge - Day 3

Doing well now with the challenge, but the evening of the first day was ROUGH. Kyle and I walked to Whole Foods to partake in the bar extravaganza because all their food ingredients are labeled so well. I could barely finish my meal because all I wanted was something sweet. I had the shakes like a crack addict. When we got home, I made myself some raspberries with yogurt and honey.

Day 2 - Breakfast - eggs with prosciutto and parmesan.
Lunch - fruit smoothie and potato chips
Dinner - homemade hamburgers with garlic, onion and colby cheese with cottage cheese and an antipasto salad.
Snack - grapes

Day 3 - Breakfast - gluten free banana / blueberry pancakes with peanut butter & honey, bacon
Lunch - pear, orange, pistachios
Dinner - seared tuna and broccoli

Sugar Free Challenge

In talking with my Mom about what her and my Dad could do to adjust their diet (because they're not really doing anything wrong), I challenged her to go sugar free for one week.

Then yesterday I realized that I needed to take the same challenge. So starting today, both Kyle and I will be reading labels and staying away from sugar from one week.

The hardest part will be abstaining from coffee (because I add sugar and soy milk) and after lunch and dinner when I crave sugar.

Today's Breakfast - plain yogurt, banana, strawberries, grapes, gluten-free granola, honey, and dried cranberries (as I type this I realize that there might be sugar in the cranberries so I just ran to check the label and sure enough, evaporated can juice - SHIT!), and green tea

This is going to be hard.

Livable Streets Alliance Street Talk

LivableStreets Alliance to host Street Talk by Marius Navazo on What we can learn from Spain: urban mobility planning in Barcelona.

When: Thursday, June 25, 7 - 9 pm
Where: 100 Sidney Street, Central Square, Cambridge

*This event is free and open to the public. donation suggested beer/sodas provided compliments of Harpoon Brewery and delivered thanks to Metro Pedal Power!* What are the results of impementing better transit networks, traffic calming zones, and a bike sharing program? Are these measures always environmentally-friendly? Are they enough to create better places to live and enjoy? Learn about the development of urban mobility plans in Greater Barcelona and Catalonia, Spain. See what the Catalan Government is encouraging municipalities to do.

Marius Navazo is a geographer who has been working for the last 10 years in town and regional planning, focused on transportation and its impacts to improve cities from a social and environmental perspective. He has been working at the Catalan Government for the last 4 years, and now he is a freelancer working for different municipalities in the Barcelona area.
For more information, click here.

Livable Streets Alliance Street Talk

LivableStreets Alliance to host Street Talk by Noah Budnick on The Changing Streets of NYC: an inside view.

When: Thursday, May 28, 7 - 9 pm
Where: 100 Sidney Street, Central Square, Cambridge

*This event is free and open to the public. donation suggested beer/sodas provided compliments of Harpoon Brewery!* Learn about the political and physical changes that have come to NYC in the past few years. From the campaign for congestion pricing to European-style bike lanes, civic groups and City Hall are embracing green transportation like never before. Transportation Alternatives helped usher in this sea change and now they are working harder than ever to help educate the public and build support to cement the mind shift that’s taking place. Noah will show photos of NYC’s most notable improvements and events, and tell the behind the scenes story that made them happen.

Noah Budnick develops political and media strategies for Transportation Alternatives' work to win biking and walking improvements, to reclaim public space for pedestrians, bicyclists and mass transit, to reform government transportation and street safety policy to discourage driving, and win more funding for biking and walking projects in New York City.
For more information, click here.

Making Our Nest

The combination of our new living situation and a recent article in Dwell article called "At Home in the Zone" about practicing sustainability like you preach inspired me to start blogging again. This post is going to show pictures of our new place along with what sustainability means in our lives.

I am copying Dwell's article format where they break down a households' zones and give tips on how people can be more sustainable.
Location has so much to do with sustainability. Whether you can walk or bike to grab your basic necessities affects your carbon footprint dramatically. Additionally, do you WANT to walk or ride your bike in your neighborhood. Walkscore.com gives a good indication of how easy it will be to buy groceries, visit the library or park, go hang out at a coffee shop all by foot. There are 2 faults with this website, though. Fault 1 - The website uses google maps to calculate a walkscore so any business or other registered with google will appear...even if the info is outdated. Fault 2 - there is an emotional factor that is pretty impossible to calculate and that is the general feeling of a neighborhood. For example, our condo in Madison on Willy Street has a walk score of 89 out of 100 and is located in a fantastic community where you want to walk or ride your bike. Our first house here in Boston in Southie had a walk score of 88 and a terrible sense of community. There was trash and dog shit on the sidewalks, lack of trees, shady people walking around, Kyle was jumped by high school age kids and badly beaten up, and our bikes were stolen from right under our noses. Totally different than Willy Street even though the score only differed by 1 point. Lastly, our new place in Cambridge has a walk score of 80 and is pretty par with our place in Madison. The dog park, fresh pond, that I will reference later, is a huge plus!
Last month, Livable Streets Alliance held a Street Talk on Urban Health where Russ Lopez talked about how our built environment shapes ourselves like proximity to necessities like grocery stores effects a person's health. He brought up the conflict between environmentalists and urbanists. Here I thought they could be the same? Apparently environmentalists don't like cities because they're dirty. Russ disagrees with teaching inner city children to respect their environment because, really, what is their environmental impact? They take mass transportation, don't consume much... This is the only thing that I very much disagreed with Russ on. If children were taught to respect their environment and community, maybe there would be less trash on the streets and sidewalks. After living in Southie and experiencing a community first hand that does not respect the environment nor their community, I wanted to run for the suburbs. I was so sick of city living that I was willing to compromise our car free life. If I, who am a pretty staunch urbanist, want to flee for the burbs, how does a normal person feel about living in the city with communities like this? Inner city communities don't have to be gentrified to feel great; neighbors just need to respect one another and their living space.
Transportation, part of location, has a direct effect on your lifestyle. We will not live anywhere where a car is a necessity. We have a motorcycle and 5 bikes. To get to work, Kyle takes 1 of 3 buses that regularly run by our place and then he takes a free shuttle from Genzyme corporate headquarters out to the Framingham burbs where he works. When the weather is nice, he commutes via motorcycle. I do all the errands and go to the gym on my bike. We are members of Zipcar for the times when you REALLY need a car like escaping the city for the weekend or a trip to IKEA.
Parks, Cambridge's Fresh Pond is literally out our back door. We exit the loft, open a fence door to a walk down abandoned railroad tracks (that I think will soon be a bike path), and 200 ft. to fresh pond. The dogs can leave and return from the loft leash-less if we like. Fresh Pond is a large reservoir that is surrounded by a golf course and limestone path with periodic doggie bag / trash stations. There are no fences and the whole park is considered off-leash. There's even a side pond / dock / wading pool for dogs. Too bad both our dogs are not water loving. The best part is that it's a shared space between bicyclists, walkers, runners and dog walkers. Everyone is so happy to be there. I've run around the pond and it's a 2 mile loop. Animal Planet was there a couple weeks ago shooting a special so look out for that. I can't wait to take the stroller and baby to the park and do the walking loop every day.
Memorial Drive along the river, is closed to cars on Sundays and it's super close by. Here's a video about it:

Grocery Stores, a large chain store with organics and a pretty big micro/craft beer selection is a 5 minute walk across the parking lot from us. Plus, we're lucky to live across the Fresh Pond from the largest Whole Foods in Boston. The bike path connects us there.






Inside the Loft
Space and Design, only 750 sq. ft. so we had to sell 3/4 of what we owned before on craigslist and ebay. Now we have no clutter and nothing that we don't need or use on a regular basis...except for some scrapbooks, memorabilia, comic books, and coin collections. The unit has 16 ft ceilings, bamboo and rough pine floors, clean, white walls, and the outside wall is one large brick/warehouse window.
Furnishings, not only did we have to sell items on craigslist, but we had to replace a few. I found a west elm sofa, crate & barrel chair/ottoman, and west elm media stand all used on craigslist. We needed a few new storage items to help us get organized (container store and IKEA are great for this), plus I wanted a new duvet and rug. We hung all of Kyle's guitars on the walls as well as my bike. Our other three bikes are kept in a special bike storage shed outside.
Baby is coming, so how is a baby fitting into this small space equation? I have our back storage space by the bathroom equiped with baby personal care. The washer/dryer is also next to the bathroom to make washing the diapers easy. The shelves in our living room are filled with boxes for toys and other accessories. We're going to find a pack-n-play for the living room to double as a changing station and crib. Otherwise, the baby will sleep next to us in a hanging crib like a Kanoe. Obviously, this is idealistic and things will change, but it's definitely possible to raise a baby in a small space. Think of how moms in Manhattan, Japan, and even Africa cope with space...I feel pretty lucky.

Livable Streets Alliance Street Talk: Urban Health

LivableStreets Alliance to host Street Talk by Russ Lopez on Urban Health: How shaping our built environment shapes ourselves.

When: Thursday, April 2, 7 - 9 pm
Where: 100 Sidney Street, Central Square, Cambridge

*This event is free and open to the public. donation suggested beer/sodas provided compliments of Harpoon Brewery!* "If there’s a supermarket in your zip code, for example, you’re 10% less likely to be obese. If there are a lot of intersections in your neighborhood - a sign of street connectivity and continuity - you’re less likely to be obese. And, not surprisingly, the more time people spend in their cars, the more likely they are to be obese” says Lopez. Come hear Russ Lopez speak about how our built environment – from playgrounds to fast food chains – shapes ourselves.

Russ Lopez, a native of California, is an Assistant Professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. Past employment includes working on urban and environmental issues for then Lt. Governor John Kerry. He also worked for ten years in various positions in for the City of Boston on housing, community development and environmental concerns. Dr. Lopez was the first Executive Director of the Environmental Diversity Forum, a coalition of environmentalists and community activists advocating for environmental justice issues throughout New England.
This event is sponsored by LivableStreets Alliance.

For more information, click here.

Enrique Peñalosa speaks on Urban Vision tomorrow

LivableStreets Alliance to host former Bogotá, Colombia mayor and urban visionary, Enrique Peñalosa.

When: Thursday, February 5, 6:30 pm
Where: Boston Public Library, main branch at Copley, Rabb Lecture Hall.

*This event is free and open to the public* An accomplished public official, economist and administrator, Enrique Peñalosa completed his three-year term as Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia on December 31, 2000. While mayor, Peñalosa was responsible for numerous radical improvements to the city and its citizens. He promoted a city model giving priority to children and public spaces…read more.