PCV-Eve

You may be wondering, how does one prepare to participate in the 'Live Like a PCV Challenge?' Let me enlighten you.

My roommate and I - both giving up air conditioning, microwaves, refrigerators and television, as well as committing to a reduced living space for the week - took a couple of steps to gear up for a week sans first-world-amenities. Here are my tips to successfully prep for the PCV Challenge:

1). Air Conditioning: Spend lovely summer Sunday indoors (wrapped in the last blanket you will want to look at for a week), soaking up pre-deprivation air-conditioning.

2). Television: While indoors, get final fix of top-tier TV obsessions (The Glee Project and True Blood - duh).

3). Microwave & Refrigerator: Undertake some strategic grocery shopping. The challenge? The vast majority of my packed-lunches and eat-in dinners involve use of either a microwave or refrigerator: salads, cereal (milk), tortellini, soups, sandwiches (cheese, lunch meat, jelly), bagels (cream cheese)...just to name a few.

Now, luckily no one will be forcing me to drink fermented goat's milk this week, or serving me rice and beans three meals a day. However, while grocery shopping I was still faced with the challenge of preventing starvation for the seven days I would be deprived of Kraft spiral mac-and-cheese. Here are some options I came up with:

• Sandwich (PB and banana)
• Fruit snacks
• Granola bars
• Goldfish crackers
• Soups (the stovetop kind - dinner only)
• Pasta (with olive oil - sauces, Parmesan, etc. all in fridge - drat)
  

As this will only feed me until about tomorrow afternoon, please feel free to make suggestions!

5). Reduced living space (living room, kitchen and bathroom):

• Do seven loads of laundry: Our washer/dryer both lie in our scary, dungeon basement - an area we are not allowed to access until Monday the 8th. We collectively washed enough clothes to allow us to sweat through three outfits/day during this week's no-air-conditioning-heat-wave.
  
• PACK: More significantly, we cannot enter our bedrooms for the space of a week. Not only does this entail the pair of us sleeping on a couch that can uncomfortably sleep two people, but it means gathering enough clothes, shoes, jewelry, chargers, medicine, make-up and entertainment (Kindles, laptops) to last us until through next weekend.
  

Obviously, refrigerated wine/beer will be inaccessible to us for the next week, so a six-pack of Blue Moon accompanied us through this last day in the first-world.

More updates on how we are surviving the Challenge to come...