My wishes seem to change regularly. Sometimes, it's to lose weight. Sometimes, it's to have more patience. Sometimes, it's to understand what my 3-year-old is saying.

Recently, however, my wish has been to be inventive and creative because then I could come up with a solution to my family's latest dilemma: An 8-person, leg-powered vehicle.

With gas around $3 a gallon and every fill-up accompanied by sticker-shock, my husband and I have looked for alternatives to using so much gas. Our most creative yet unrealistic idea is a vehicle powered by our entire seven-person family. We're looking for an eight person vehicle in case someone wants to ride along and get a leg work-out.

With a large family, our choices for a vehicle are limited. Sure, we'd like to drive a hybrid. But since they only seat five, my family would be driving two, negating our savings.

On the other end, a 15-passenger bus provides too much room and leaves too few parking spaces. Which leaves us in the SUV and mini-van categories, neither of which are great with fuel economy.

So, my husband and I figure something which is powered by us and our children and coincidentally tires them out during the ride would be the perfect vehicle. Now if someone would just invent one ...

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Since I can't sit around and wait for my 8-passenger leg-powered bike to arrive, I have taken other steps to conserve gas such as combining errands and only making necessary trips rather than just running in for one stop.

With that in mind, I'd like to apologize now to my two youngest boys, who have missed story hour on Wednesdays at the library for several weeks.

That's an extra trip into town and I haven't figured out how to occupy my time from 10 a.m., when story hour begins -- a non-required trip, and 3 p.m., when school is released -- a required trip.

But there are certain concessions that are going to be made regardless of the price of gas.

For example, a trip to the dump requires the use of a vehicle. I contemplated using my bicycle while pulling the two-seat baby cart, but I estimated that it would take me approximately 64 trips at 1 hour and 17 minutes for each trip. It was worth the $3 in gas I used to save myself the three days on the road back and forth to the transfer station.

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The rise in gas prices is going to change more than just driving practices.

The way we mow our lawn is also affected. We have a goat which was going to be shipped off to another owner. But he does such a good job of "mowing" the lawn when on a leash, we'll keep him around.

We just change his location every other day for a nice, even, manicured lawn. Well, maybe not manicured, but he sure is thorough.

We've also taken to not mowing our grass as often. The reason for this is a toss-up between conserving gas and the lack of desire to mow.

Our grass was so tall during the last cutting that we considered bailing the stuff. All we lacked was the proper equipment, but it's still an option.

Even the topics of conversation have changed. Rather than "How's the weather?" someone now asks "Have the gas prices gone up again today?"

Instead of "Are the kids liking school?" it's "How many gallons does your vehicle take?"

While not a competition, many people will quickly rattle off the amount it cost to fill up their vehicle and whether a mild heart attack accompanied the payment.

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I have often made lists of dream jobs, careers that would be fun to have, such as ice cream taster and toy tester.

On the other end of the spectrum, a new entry has been added to the list of jobs which could never pay enough: Gas station cashier.

Unless the owner is stuck behind the register, this person usually does not set the prices at the pump. Yet, they take the brunt of the wrath from the drivers. Perhaps, the station owners could compensate them in new and creative ways -- such as paying them with gas.

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The high gas prices can have a ripple effect clear down to our children.

A friend's son, who rides the bus to and from school each day, had to stay late after school one day this week after failing to complete his homework.

Consequently, this caused him to miss the bus and forced his mother to drive the 10 miles, one way, to pick him up.

In addition to his time after school, what was his punishment for the extra mileage on his mom's vehicle? Dipping into his prized birthday money and putting $5 worth of gas into his mom's mini-van.

When I asked him the next day if he was going to stay after school and miss the bus again, his reply was pretty straight forward: Not if I have to pay $5.

He should just be thankful that his mom didn't make him fill up the entire gas tank. He would have to take out a loan on next year's birthday cash.

-- Ronda Graff filled up her vehicles a few days before all the numerous gas hikes and is trying to see how long those fill-ups will last. So, don't plan to see her cruising around the area anytime too soon.