i am a hippie but so is jen

Today Jen and I went to the Farmer's Market! I thought it didn't start up again until June, so I was extra excited when Jen texted me last night and asked if I wanted to go this morning. It is one of my favorite things about the summer. Today I bought a loaf of sourdough bread from Flour Girls and Dough Boys, amazing goat milk yoghurt from Drake Family Farms, and the best granola in the whole world from Bryan's wife Katie. What? Yes. The granola that I have loved since I first tasted it last summer but was then wrenched away from my taste buds when they disappeared from the Farmer's Market mid-summer was made by none other than my fabulous co-worker Bryan's wife. And probably him too. Who knows. I love them even more now than I did before. If that is possible.

Also tonight Megan and I went for a bike ride to rent Lost from Hollywood Video. We haven't ridden our bikes together since last summer and it is one of my favorite things in the whole world. Megan made me buy a bike last year so that we could bike together and I am so glad that she did. I rode Chaela's bike that she left here until June and I am in love with it. It is a real beach cruiser, not like my fake beach cruiser that has mountain bike tires, hand brakes and gears, and it is my favorite. If I knew that I would be living someplace flat, like it is here in Utah, I would buy it from her no questions asked. As it is I will most likely end up someplace mountainous where gears are a must. But we'll see how long I can resist its siren call.

Speaking of biking, Jen and I have been talking a lot about saving the environment recently (because that's what we do) and today we were saying how just doing little things like changing your light bulbs to energy-saving ones or only running your dishwasher when it's full don't really make that big of a difference in the big picture. You can't just change one thing and then continue to live your life the way you always have: you need to make a big change. One example Jen gave was walking or riding your bike everywhere within a 2 mile radius instead of driving. That'd be a pretty big change, at least for most people. I try to do my best at not driving when I don't have to, but when the whole journey to work every morning traverses 9th East and is uphill the whole way I am hesitant to make that kind of commitment. But I try to justify my driving by carpooling which is also good for the environment, right? And I do recycle, bring my own grocery bags whenever I go shopping anywhere (not just for groceries), try to walk most places, and use tupperware instead of zip lock bags whenever possible. I try not to buy food that comes with lots of extra packaging. A lot of my clothes come from thrift stores, I don't shower everyday (though that's more out of laziness than environmental reasons...) and I support local organizations like the Food Co-op and the Farmer's Market that promote local produce/products. That's a lot more than I used to do.

However, I do want to do other things too, like start my own vegetable garden, use homemade cleaning products, and start a compost heap. But some things are just hard when you're a college student and you don't really have a home of your own. Perhaps one day I'll move into a hippie commune where everyone is crazy about being green and I will realize why everyone thought I was weird. But maybe I won't. And maybe I'll love it and maybe I will have found my niche in society. Maybe.