Thoughtful Consumption....Gigabytes and Kilowatts (and a Few Pretty Pictures!)

I am sure that we have provided our new friends in Italy plenty of stories to tell their friends.  You know, the stories about the clueless Americans. And our approach to consumption.

Remember when I posted about our first week here in Puglia?  Remember how we lost power? And how we made repeated panicked calls to our friend Franco?  I may have mentioned that it turned out we had exceeded the 3 kilowatts in our contract (this was separate from the storm outage).  You see, when you purchase electricity on a monthly basis here, you purchase a fixed amount. Your usage is not unlimited.  Did we know this?  No.  We just proceeded as we always had, assuming that electricity would just keep on coming (as it always had, albeit at a cost). Now we know better.  And we have a 6kw contract. 

The same is true for internet/wifi connection.  When we signed up for TooWay (Open Sky) satellite internet, we figured that we had contracted for a sufficient number of Gigabytes to handle our needs (I have never had to guess how many Gigabytes I use, have you?).  Ha!  10 days into our monthly contract our internet connection ground to a halt.  We had consumed 103% of our contracted amount. Who knew that a few Netflix movies streaming to your computer and a few Skype conference calls would suck up that much data?!?!? More SOS calls to Franco and Pasquale, poor guys. We have now subscribed to the most generous non-business package they offer.  100 Gigabytes per month.

And mobile phones?  This one is interesting and very telling. Craig and I each signed up for contracts with Wind (Italian mobile provider).  Our contracts give us each the following:  500 minutes, 500 texts, 1 Gigabyte of data usage and 80 minutes of calling back to the US.  So….5 days before the end of our monthly renewal we have each used up our data.  And have not even dented our voice and SMS allowances. You know what that says to me?  Tracey Kleber, get your head out of your email and Facebook.  Maybe pick up the phone and call people when you need to speak with them. What a novel idea.

I mention all of this as I thought, until I moved here, I was a pretty conscious consumer. But I guess what I defined as conscious consumption just meant, very simply, that I was aware of what I consumed.  I didn't really put limits on myself.  Having to look more carefully at the resources available to me, however, has caused me to take pause and think about how much of anything is really essential.  Let’s see how we do in the next 30 days.   I have a sneaking suspicion we will be OK.  Perhaps even happier.  NB: Doesn't mean I won't sneak in a Netflix movie or two. Oh....and please note that I have not curtailed wine consumption....or pasta....or bread....or olives.  They are in ample supply here.  Along with really kind people and sunshine.

Now for the pretty pictures....just because.

There are a few houses next to ours that have not had any visitors since we arrived.  I am not sure what their status is for Spring/Summer, but I can say for sure that mother nature has done her job in getting the properties ready.  These purple flowers are amongst my very favorite.  And I get to enjoy them free!

 

And speaking of flowers...my garden is doing really well.  I can take no credit at all.  The guys who planted them and the Puglia weather did it without any input from me. Note that Lizzie has decided she belongs in the garden as well. She's the prettiest flower of all!!