I was sitting on my front porch earlier this morning, sipping on my first cup of coffee for the day. The birds weren’t out yet and the wind wasn’t blowing, it was quiet.

Then, from down the street, came the roar of an engine. I looked down the hill to see a pair of headlights racing up the street. As the dark SUV sped past, a hand reached out the window and tossed a plastic wrapped newspaper in the general direction of my neighbors house. Without hesitation, the engine roared again and the ‘paperboy‘ continued up the hill.

What happened? I never had a paper route. But I remember when I was in elementary school my best friend did. Whenever I spent the night, I would wake up early with him. We would grab the stack of flat papers from his front porch, pull out a bag of rubber bands, and wrap the papers up. Then he would strategically load his double sided bag and we would walk up and down the neighborhood streets, carefully tossing papers onto porches as we went.

I can’t remember the last time that I saw anyone walking a paper route. And I certainly haven’t seen any kids doing it.

So many things disturbed me about this morning’s experience (not the least of which that someone was speeding down my street…grrr). The fact that an SUV is apparently required for a paper route is ridiculous. As if this isn’t inefficient enough, the driver is racing around with totally inefficient driving habits. Then the fact that this guy cares so little about his work that he barely slows down to toss the paper with any sort of consideration for the customer. And of course, what happened to the rubber band? It wasn’t raining. Why the plastic bag?

I think that our society needs to take a long look at ourselves. We need to slow down, live in a way that is healthy for ourselves and our environment, we need to live in the moment, and we need to be considerate towards others.

So disturbing.

A major step in our move to sustainability happened today. Corey and I waved goodbye to our Hyundai Santa Fe SUV. We bought the car new in 2001, and it served us well over the years. When we bought it the mileage was actually pretty good compared to other options, or so we convinced ourselves. But recently the car has been sitting in the driveway providing target practice for passing birds.

Now we aren’t total SUV haters, so don’t get in a huff that I’m excited about selling mine. But Mark gave us a book last month about life without a car. Surprisingly, Corey snapped it up and read it first. She was entranced, constantly rattling off facts that she pulled from the book about how much money we could save and stress we could limit by reducing our dependence on cars. So we set ourselves about selling it.

We tried Craigslist first, with no luck. Then we posted it on Ebay and the darn thing sold without us even having to answer an email. Tonight, the new owners stopped over and traded us a check for the car. They were thrilled. Heck, I even threw in a bike rack because the guy is a bike rider.

After they drove off, we stood at the end or our driveway and looked at all of the open space. Now we just have a little Mazda sedan, we literally feel lighter. We are going to return the plates to refund our licensing fees and cancel the insurance. In all this move is going to save us well over $1000 each year. And I think we will be able to adjust just fine.

I’m planning on documenting our transition. We will be riding bikes and walking, and planning our trips in detail. Life just got much simpler, more affordable and way more sustainable.