Gas Worries

Over at www.casaubonsbook.blogspot.com, there's a lot of discussion about cutting back on consumption by 90 percent. I'm too tired tonight to write about the rules and the whys, but if you go look at her blog, you'll find it.

I've thought a lot about participating. I'm gone through every excuse from "my husband won't like it" to "my kids will hate it" to "but I live 100 miles from the nearest Wal-Mart, I can't only use 50 gallons of a gas a YEAR!" But in the end, I've realized that I can't let my life be ruled by excuses.

I don't know if I'll be perfect. I don't know if I'll even come close to succeeding. But I want to be able to relax when I'm an old woman, knowing that I didn't add to the problem of how my grandchildren will eat and breathe. And that I did what I could to make it better.

I'm too tired, like I said, to go into my plans right now. Tomorrow.

I do know that according to the rules, we get 50 gallons of gas per person per year...or 250 gallons for my family of five. That's 20 gallons, or roughly one monthly tank in our minivan or one and a half in our Saturn that we can't all fit in.

Our mini-van gets about 20 miles to the gallon, and can go about 400 miles before running out of gas (don't ask how I know that!) My job requires me to drive 11 miles one way twice a week during the summer, and everyday during the school year. Twenty gallons of gas a month means that we'll be cutting it super close. Driving 22 miles a day, five days a week is 110 miles a week--or forty over our total monthly allowance, even without going to the grocery store or anything else.

Kevin can walk to work, once we move. The kids walk to school. No buses or other forms of public transportation. The grocery store is two miles away, walkable--although the two miles are on Highway 6, fifty miles per hour and no shoulder.

I don't go to school for two weeks in December, one week in the spring, all federal holidays (I'm pretty sure there are eight) and all summer. I have 180 days of school, I think...so that's 3960 miles just going back and forth to work. Or 198 of our 250.

I'm afraid that the answer is to try to get transfered to a school near my house, instead of driving 22 miles a day to work at the school that I love. And to give up the three hour drives every month to the bigger city with it's plentiful shopping.

My brain hurts now! I'll think about this some more tomorrow.