A Million Words

Mike has a fondness for talking about the zombie apocalypse. He figures, since he can live on beans and packet noodles, he's in better shape to survive it than I am, with my gourmet tastes for a ridiculously wide range of foods. My brother and his wife are living off the grid (except that they hop over here to use the shower, washing machine, and internet connection) and have a truly lovely vegetable garden. I want to get in on this apocalypse-prep game, but my way of doing it is to skim about fifty million web pages and a few dozen books on the subject before I do anything that requires physical work or much investment of money. Besides, I don't really think that the apocalypse (zombie or otherwise) is coming anytime soon, and in the meantime none of us are making much money (to put it mildly). So, I have spent the past four or five days calculating our food needs, projecting costs, and figuring out how that all lines up with what kind of food we can produce on our three ac...

This time last week, we were on our way to Dublin for Mike's immigrant visa interview. His stamped passport arrived back to us on Friday morning, and I booked our flights to America. I have mixed feelings about moving home. I've made some great friends here. I also enjoy Galway's literary scene, which is younger and more active than what we have on the Vineyard. Living in the middle of the so-called city, with no need for a car, has also been great. I love being able to walk to the library and the grocery store in less than five minutes, and wandering down Shop Street with Nova, saying hello to all the dogs and babies and listening to the buskers. I'll also really miss our view of Galway harbor and the bay beyond, all the way over to the mountains in Clare. I will not, however, miss the constant noise and light pollution that comes with our view. Right now, for example, something is beeping out there as a crane piles clattering scrap-metal onto the heap. I won't...

For four weeks, from February to March, I stuffed all of my grocery shopping receipts into an envelope behind the i-pod on the bookshelf.  At the end of the four weeks, I tallied them up in a spreadsheet to find out how much I'd been spending and where I'd been spending it.  I wrote about the experiment here . My analysis led me into a lot of mumsy internet forum discussions about budgeting, meal planning, comparison shopping, etc. I moved into phase two of the experiment: creating a menu plan and organizing my pantry.  I started off by making a list of all the things I like to keep in stock in the cupboards, refrigerator, etc.  Well. I ended up with a list of about 150 items, including actual staples, baking supplies, spices and sauces for a variety of cuisines, cleaning products, medicines, etc. I could make a shorter list, but it wouldn't come close to including all the things we get from the grocery store.  Having made the list, I never look at it, but the process of ma...

For the past month, I've been keeping track of my grocery spending by keeping receipts and writing down any miscellaneous expenses like market purchases and take-away meals. Yesterday, I tallied it all up and found that we've been spending a bit less than €150/week.  I'd hoped it would be more like €100. Oh well.  I wondered how this compared to what other people spend, so I posted a poll on one of the Irish forums.  44% of the respondents (over 100 so far!) claim to spend in the 100-150 range.23% spend less and 30% spend more.  I don't know the demographics of the respondents, but I'd guess that most of them are stay-at-home mums, and because they're looking at the finance forum they're probably more budget-conscious than average.  In the discussion of the poll, I learned that some women with six or more children spend less than we do, while I'm sure some couples with only one child spend even more.   Am I over-spending, or are we doing just fine?  I do...

This week has been a total loss in terms of writing.  Not only were we moving, but we didn't have an internet connection until yesterday afternoon, and we've been dealing with the byzantine Irish bureaucracy so we can get married.  There has also been a stream of tradesmen coming and going from the apartment, fixing the hot water and the showers, the heaters and fans, etc.  I think I've spent half the week waiting to let them in and texting the landlord about what has or hasn't been done.   And then, there is the laundry.  It's not so bad, just a load or two every morning, but I think I had become accustomed to the help of Nova's grandmothers in that area, not to mention the convenience of having a dryer.  Here, we have lots of light and air and I've bought an enormous clothes drying rack which would hold probably three days worth of diapers at a stretch, but because there's always something else to wash and they do get stinky lying around, I've been...