Some things are going to depend on your climate, so what has worked for me may not be a good fit for you.

That said, things I’ve had success with as a lazy gardener in a cool temperate climate:

• beans: pick every few days and eat fresh; keeps producing through the season
• lettuce: choose a variety from which you can pick a few leaves at a time rather than harvesting the whole head
• silverbeet/chard and spinach: pick leaves as needed
• Jerusalem artichokes: takes all season to grow, but produces an abundance of tubers; use them like potatoes
• leeks and spring onions: use the green part, leave the roots in the ground and it will regrow
• radishes: quick to grow, can be eaten fresh or cooked
• beets: can pick occasional leaves to eat while the roots are growing
• perennial herbs (rosemary, thyme, oregano, chives)
• parsley
• Asian greens (pak choy, choy sum, tatsoi, etc)

Mostly those things have grown with little attention from me apart from water when it’s dry. Many of them can be grown easily from seed, which is cheaper than seedlings but takes longer.

Let a plant go to seed and you get more for free. Leeks, spring onions, radishes, leafy greens, parsley are very easy to do this with. Save a few Jerusalem artichoke tubers for next season’s crop. Let a couple of bean pods dry on the plant, save the beans and plant them next season.

If there is a community garden near you, that’s a great place to ask for advice about what grows well in your area. They may also be able to help you get started with seeds or cuttings.

This.

And there are options that store the data locally on your phone rather than on a company server. This is the safest option.

It’s not about the age of the device, hut whether it is still meeting (or able to meet) the needs of its user(s).

If it was fully functional, would it still be meeting your needs? If yes, it’s worth trying to resolve the problem(s). There are some good suggestions here for things you can try.

If the laptop wasn’t really meeting your needs, or the issues the laptop is having can’t be resolved, then yes it’s time to replace it. (And you may not need to scrap it: sometimes an older device can be repurposed for a new job, either with you or with someone else.)

Regional Australia (New South Wales).

Petrol prices are the highest I’ve ever seen. I guess that’s true everywhere.

But also, on Weds when we went to Canberra we drove past two petrol stations with their signs turned off (suggesting they were completely out) — one in the city and one in the country. I’ve never seen that before. The country station was back on when we passed again a couple of hours later.

I grew up in the USA and live in Australia. I think of and refer to myself as both ‘expat’ and ‘immigrant’.

Which word I use depends on context. I’m an American expat (context: my relationship with USA), but I’m an immigrant in Australia (context: my relationship with Australia).

I guess I’m really just using “expat” to mean “emigrant”. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

My current cats have Opinions (capital O) about what is or isn’t food. I tried giving them variety, at least in flavour. They don’t want it. The want one specific brand of fish-flavored wet food (in jelly, not gravy). They’ll eat some kinds of fish-flavored kibble if wet food isn’t available. Anything else, they have to be pretty desperate.

At least they both like the same stuff! But the lack of variety is 100% on them, not me.

(My previous cats would eat most things. These two are just weird.)