So That's How They Do That?

In recent days, I've had a little light shed on a couple of personal mysteries. 

First was the issue of computer dependence. I used to wonder how anyone could be so attached to their machine, whiling away hours of their life looking at....stuff, and acting as if their arm had been removed when they were without it. Now I know. It's all happened to me. I get sucked into the interweb void instead of actually doing something on a regular basis. (It's so interesting, so engaging. So devouring.) And now I find myself sprained, if not amputated, by cyber absence.

Alas, my laptop, my trusty window on the world of Whatever I Want to Know (recipe research, yes!), is in a coma brought on by a virus, or perhaps the program intended to remove the virus. The Chief Technical Officer isn't quite sure. What we are both certain of is that all virus planting hackers are sick indviduals who should be beaten with a sack of barbed wire.

But back to my point. I get it now. I understand how computer attachment and mourning come about. I came to rely on it for so many things, and am now bereft of its support.

Well, not totally bereft. I do have access to Dave's computer when he's gone or feeling giving (he was dependent way before I ever was) and to computers at the offices where I work two days a week. I can still keep up with my email and blogs. You know--all the important things. I'm mainly deprived of entertainment, the whiling away bonus.

That may not be such a bad thing. I'm at least a new enough junkie that I remember life before the computer and, more specifically, the internet. In the recent absence of my brain candy dispenser, I have reverted to (Heavens!) activity. I cleaned the bathroms and sewed two table runners last Saturday--because I had to have something to do. I've got other languishing projects that may get my attention soon while the resuscitation efforts continue.

Of course, three days a week I'm home alone with Dave's computer, so maybe I'll still be surfing rather than sewing, even though creative productivity felt so good that one day. We'll see.

The other mystery that has come a little clearer for me in the last week has to do with food spending. I ran across a blog (you know, in all that whiling away time) written by a couple who try to spend $30.00 a week on food--in Brooklyn, of all places. I wondered how in the world they did that. I consider myself a fairly frugal girl, but I've never made my food spending ride that low on a regular basis--and I'm in Kentucky, where the cost of living should be significantly lower than New York.

Well, now I may see how that could be done, aside from the phenomenon of hitting the bar you set. In the absence last Sunday of both my new favorite menu reserach tool and the time to do menu planning anyway, I made a non-list-bearing trip to the grocery store for basic supplies. Since then, I have brain-stormed dinners for the week from what was on hand after purchasing just $23.00 of food. (The $2.00 of non-edible supplies for a top secret project that may someday beautify this humble blog were not counted.) 

After that experience, I'm thinking that digging up interesting recipes to try, even if I do start now with what's already on hand, may create additional ingredients to purchase, thereby driving up spending. It's just a theory at this point. One incidence doesn't prove anything. But it does make that couple's mysterious feat a little less mysterious.

As Phoebe of Friends once said, "That is NEW information." Now if I could just figure out HTML and the new Blogger editor, I might really know something.