Mileage count: Week 2

For week two of sharing my mileage in my blog I'm proud to say I have an improvement to report: 281 miles instead of 363. What made the difference was one day of taking the train, which I hadn't done in months. I also jumped on my bike a few times to cut out short trips.

Here's the daily breakdown:

• Monday: On my day off, I drove 15 miles to a doctor's appointment and to my softball game.
  

• Tuesday: Drove to work. 64 miles.
  

• Wednesday: Drove to work. 64 miles.
  

• Thursday: I took the train to work so I drove only nine miles. Hooray! And made good headway in the book that I had been neglecting.
  

• Friday: Back to driving to work. But I did bike to the gym at 5:45 am. 64 miles.
  

• Saturday: Drove to work, blah blah. 65 miles. Biked a mile to my friend's house (in boots, thank you very much) and then we walked down to 2nd Street for dinner.

• Sunday: Another no-driving Sunday. I'll call it a biking Sunday. I biked to the same friend's house so we could go running, then biked home, changed and biked to a park 1.5 miles away for softball practice. Coming home I was pretty exhausted and hungry. Yes driving would have been easier but biking isn't too bad, as long as I stay in a two-mile radius of my apartment.
  

Mileage count: Week 1

It's the end of the first week of my experiment to publicly share my mileage. All added up, I drove a grand total of 363 miles. Now that you're done gasping and can read again, here's how it breaks down:

• Monday (my day off): I rode my bike to the gym instead of driving. This is something I should do on a regular basis since it's a whoppin' 1.5 miles away. I drove 16 miles to drop some stuff off at Goodwill and go to the nearby Target. I ended the day getting a ride to my softball game.

• Tuesday: Drove to and from work for a total of 64 miles.

• Wednesday: Another 64-mile commute.
  

• Thursday: At the end of a 13-hour work day, the 110 ramp is closed so I take a detour, adding an extra two miles and a lot of internal cursing at L.A. (My co-worker's guess the next day was that it was closed for filming, which made me even more annoyed.) Total=66 miles.

• Friday: I add an extra 20 miles to my commute to drive to a school to work with a student. Total=82 miles.
  

• Saturday: 66 miles driving to work (I discover that my all-freeway route on Saturdays is slightly longer), then five miles round-trip to meet friends for dinner. I considered biking but I was already running late. Total=71 miles.
  

•  To end the week, I had a no-car Sunday. Since I've taken public transportation to work and liked it, I decided to take the bus to Home Depot. When I'm in my car doing errands I don't think twice about adding another destination or driving to the nice mall over the one that's closest (as I did on New Year's Day, Christmas gift cards in hand). But when you're leaving your car behind, running errands becomes simpler and more streamlined, but not faster so you have to have extra time on your hands. But it did help in my environmental goal of not over-consuming since I couldn't impulse buy and throw whatever I bought in the car.

The Home Depot is three miles away but easy to get to by bus since it's just a straight shot up Cherry. So I walked 15 minutes from my apartment to Cherry, waited about eight minutes for the bus, then rode on the bus for 10 minutes. I got my paint samples and headed out. On the way back the bus came as soon as I arrived at the bus stop. And getting off at 4th Street, I browsed in some antique stores on Retro Row on my walk home with the sun shining (hint, I was enjoying myself). The extra time it took wasn't a big deal but I think that's partly because of the novelty of it all. I'm not sure how often I could do this, or if I could extend it to a whole weekend.

For the rest of the day, I went running with two friends, walked to the grocery store just around the corner from my house and resisted the urge to drive to Target to return some things I'd bought earlier in the week.

A mile here, a mile there starts to add up

After visiting my sister and her family in Dallas for Christmas, I've realized that I can be an impatient, slightly pushy and self-centered Angeleno. So my new year's resolution is to be more considerate. I'll try to thank store clerks and waiters, ask politely for directions and not interrupt a salesperson helping someone else to ask where the bathroom is (I did really have to go). After several years of big city living and always being in a hurry, I found that in a city full of Southern manners where the pace was slower, I liked that people took the time to be gracious to one another. And I started being nicer in return (maybe it helped that I was on vacation and more relaxed). That felt good so I want to extend that positive energy throughout the year.

Despite the theme of my blog, I didn't make a new year's resolution related to the environment. I already do what I can and the big change I could make -- reducing the miles I drive -- is a resolution destined to be broken faster than you can say "diet." But in the spirit of the new year and new beginnings, and inspired by a suggestion from my co-worker Mike, for the next month I'm going to share my mileage in my blog. The goal of my public shaming is to become more aware of how much I drive.

I worked today but didn't remember my plan until I was midway through my morning commute so I'll start on Monday, Jan. 4. Mike recorded his purchases in his blog every day. In a similar vein, I'll be recording my exact mileage. The big culprit will be my commute but I'll also keep track of my weekend driving. This isn't the best timing because lately I've had the urge to redecorate and want to go furniture shopping, which of course involves a lot of driving. But I'm hoping it will force me to cut back, from getting back in the habit of taking public transportation to work to biking more on the weekend. I'll record my mileage every day and update my blog once a week with the total. Mike said his experiment made him more aware of the obvious: small purchases add up. I'm curious to see what I learn. It may be that saying thank you is easier than leaving my car at home.