We're a few days away from the official launch of live local, and in honour of that we have a few exciting things happening. Perhaps most exciting of all (next to the launch itself, which is of course hyperactively exciting) is the live local challenge. Two fantastic Sydney-area ladies, Kate Carruthers and Rebecca Varidel, will be living local for seven straight days starting next Wednesday, and blogging and Twittering about it all the while.

You can follow their progress here, and also in real time by following them: @kcarruthers and @frombecca.(You can follow us, too: @livelocal)

Better still, take the challenge yourself and compare notes and experiences. Here's the brief:

Your challenge is to live local for a week – seven days – and to document your efforts to do so. You can do this anytime.

What is living local?

To live local is to make the most of your community.

• meeting your neighbours and the people who work in your community
• eating delicious food grown as close to where you live as possible
• minimising use of fossil fuels, especially for transport*

* This will be the hardest one for a lot of people. Walking, bicycles and public transit are good ways to reduce (and to keep you closer to your own neighbourhood!). But this challenge is about experimenting and being creative, not about absolutes. See rules #2 and #3 below.

Rules

1. Send an email to info AT livelocal DOT org DOT au and tell us when you're starting or post a comment here. (You don't have to do this, but we'll offer you love and support if you do.)
2. You can't be disqualified or fail. You are merely trying, and thinking about how hard and/or easy it is to live locally.
   
3. If you HAVE to drive a car somewhere, we're more interested in you discussing the factors that led to that. If you've gotta fly to Melbourne, what reasons made this necessary? And when you do manage to avoid driving or flying, what compromises did you make?
4. Document! We want people to share in and get inspired by your experience and your victories and trials and tribulations. Blog, Twitter, call your friends, talk about it during meals.
   
5. Or, why not add an experiment to tell the stories about some or all of your adventures?

Good luck!