Join the gas challenge. No pulling of the fingers required.

I'm the kind of person who puts gas in her tank when the car's approximately one teaspoonful away from needing to be pushed. Not so much because I dread forking out the money, but because it's what procrastinators do. I'm ALSO the kind of person who doesn't like to do a lot of joy riding because I get satisfaction out of bitching about the people who need to get a second mortgage to pay for the fuel in their RVs, and I very well can't continue my bitching about RV people if I, myself, am going to hypocritically throw gas money out the window, now can I? It's all very complex. But the truth is that I haven't done the math. Joy riding or no joy riding, I don't know EXACTLY how much gas I'm using on a weekly basis. I've been too busy complaining about the RV people. And, therefore, don't have any idea what to set as a goal if someone, say, challenged me to cut back on my gas usage.

Lo! SOMEONE HAS. It's exactly what I needed, too. Not only do I feel like I need to do everything humanly possible to cut back on my own CO2 emissions, but I need to be AWARE of what I'm spending. So, two days ago (Wednesday, Sept. 19) I filled up my Corolla's tank with $31.27 of my hard-earned money. I'm going to try making that last exactly one week. Granted, it might take some magic and pleading with the highway gods because my job is about 16 miles away from my garage. And my husband and two small children are 120 miles away from my arms. But everything else? Negotiable. I'm going to try finding parents to carpool kids to soccer practice. I'm going to try doing all my shopping in one day at one place. AND... I think that's all I can promise for now. Who knows, maybe I'll try that other thing occasionally... what's it called.... oh yes, WALKING.

So today is the challenge's kickoff which will run until October 13. I'll keep you posted on my progress or (hopefully nonexistent) failures. And all you RV people, feel free to join the club!