We are feeling so very fortunate to have a new family member to share this holiday season with. Thank you to all of you who stopped in to read and share at New Urban Habitat in 2011, and thank you for your patience during my longer than expected new baby sabbatical. I’m grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to dedicate my energies to home and family for the last several months. However, I’ve missed connecting with you in this space. I hope to be back to more regular blogging in 2012.

Wishing you a merry holiday season and health and happiness in the new year.

Well, I did not intend to spend quite so much time away. As you might imagine, the days are busy right now. Ira is six weeks old and growing and changing so fast. I forgot how intense the experience of parenting a newborn is. And of course, it is even more so this time with a three-year old helper. We all seem to experience every emotion each day – joy, frustration, sadness, anger, contentment, etc. – all before breakfast. Oh yes, we are doing a lot of living right now, which means there hasn’t been much time for blogging. Meanwhile I’m still in the throes of a major editing project. So I will be here, stopping in, reading comments, and posting when I can. But I expect my posts will be more brief, and um, perhaps more visual for a little while.

I hope you are enjoying these early fall days. Here are a few scenes from our first September as a family of four.

I’m in the middle of two big editing projects at the moment … and we’re just weeks from welcoming a new family member, which adds a few minor things to our to-do list (like coming up with a name, eek!)… so you will notice the posts slowing down quite a bit around here. I’ll be stopping in, though, to share photos and announcements and hopefully some blog posts too. I hope you’re enjoying the long summer days.

Avoiding Packaged Food Reduces BPA and Pthalate Exposure – National Resource Defense Council

Roads Weren’t Built For Cars – The Urban Country

The World Can Be Powered By Alternative Energy – Stanford University News

20 Frugal Kitchen Tips – Tipnut

The Sunscreen Smoke Screen – Information is Beautiful

The Cyclists Who Beat an Airplane – YES! Magazine

Next stop: Jedediah Smith State Park and Redwood National Park.

We’re home! We had a great time camping and exploring. First stop: the Oregon Coast.

I’m guest-posting today on Jacquelin Cangro’s blog about my family’s decision to go car-free.

My post begins:

I met the Adkins family on a crisp September day a couple of years ago. I leaned my bike on the large bike rack they’d installed where their driveway used to be. Paul showed me around their yard, pointing out beehives, fruit trees, and rows of peppers and tomatoes ripening in their sprawling raised bed gardens. Nearby a flock of Araucana hens squawked and pecked in a run. The family’s Labrador Josie followed behind us wagging her tail as Paul unlocked the shed to show me the family’s 22 bikes and various bike trailers.

Paul and his wife Monica have four kids; their youngest daughter has Down’s Syndrome. When I met them, they’d been living intentionally car-free for a year and a half. Paul is a local bike advocate, so perhaps it’s not surprising that they decided to sell their Toyota Previa minivan. But living without a privatized motorized vehicle is incredibly rare where I live in Eugene, Oregon, as it is in most parts of the United States. Only 8.7 percent of American households have no vehicle, and that includes the young and elderly.

I was visiting the Adkins that day to interview them for an article about local families choosing a car-free lifestyle. Tellingly, I couldn’t find a single other family to interview.

You can read the rest of the post here.

Finally summer has made its way to the Northwest. We’ve gone several days without rain. The days are long. The sun is hot. We’re eating outside every night and munching on strawberries and snap peas from the garden.

To celebrate the long-awaited warm weather, we’re heading out for a much-needed summer vacation. We’ll be exploring and camping and enjoying lots of computer-free time. So I’ll be leaving this space mostly quiet for a couple of weeks. However, I will stop in to make an announcement or two, and I just might have some pictures to share with you as well.

Happy Fourth of July! I hope you’re enjoying the holiday, if you celebrate it.

Dirt! The Movie – Common Ground Media (2 min. 7 sec. trailer)

Simple, Low Cost Home Energy Saving Tips – The Living Green Solution

6 Habits That Can Add Years to Your Life – Huffington Post

A Simple Idea to Transform Our Cities – YES! Magazine

Swing For Joy – Utne

Going Green: the Most Cost-Effective Way to Live – Reusethisbag.com