posts that make me hungry Archives • Bitches Get Riches

Everything I Know About Minimalism I Learned from the Zombie Apocalypse

October 29, 2018June 1, 2022 Piggy 13 Comments

Dear readers, it’s time I made a confession. You need to know The Real Me™. I’ve been hiding myself for too long.

Guys… I fucking love zombies.

It’s true. Every year around Halloween I go watch a live theatrical performance of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. I’ve met Max Brooks twice and both times he declined my marriage proposal. Same goes for Mila Jovovich. I finished The Last of Us in forty-eight hours. Zombieland is my favorite family-friendly, feel-good buddy comedy. I attend my city’s annual Zombie Crawl religiously.

I pride myself on having read the entire canon of zombie literature. Including the one about zombies on the Titanic. And the one where a zombie gets elected president. Even the one where a high school football team is reanimated as zombies just in time to win the state championship. Also the one where zombies played a pivotal role in the formation of ancient Israel. And yes, even the YA romance trilogy (no, the other one). I read Warm Bodies before it was published.

Having lived for years with this unhealthy obsession with zombies, you would naturally think that I would’ve learned something by now (besides the double-tap rule and how to steel yourself for mercy-killing a loved one, of course).

Turns out I did. I’ve learned a helluva lot about minimalism from the zombie apocalypse.

So I Got Chickens, Part 3: Baby’s First Egg

October 2, 2017August 14, 2021 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 11 Comments

Read Part 1

Read Part 2

Guys, there’s been a lot of movement on the chicken front. And if you just pictured chickens in tiny military uniforms, good, that was my plan all along.

It’s been just over six months since we got chickens. When I wrote the first post in this series, it was really about expectations. I wanted to lay out the pros and cons of the experience, and why I’d ultimately decided to pull the trigger on obtaining six little day-old chicks from my local agricultural store.

The second part was a major bummer, written after one of the chicks died. It was about how raising living things is hard fucking work, and it’s incredibly sad when they die before their time. But ultimately it didn’t shake my commitment to my choices. It reaffirmed them.

Today’s post is a significantly happier one. No ugly crying this time, I promise! Because as our Twitter followers already know, my chickens finally laid their first egg.

Making Decisions Under Stress: The Siren Song of Chocolate Cake

September 24, 2017June 26, 2021 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 15 Comments

I’m a slut for studies.

I love random, weird studies that reveal surprising and bizarre correlations. And I’d like to take you through one of my favorites today. It’s called “Heart and Mind in Conflict: the Interplay of Affect and Cognition in Consumer Decision Making.” It’s about the ways that stress affects our ability to make good choices.

Oh, and more importantly: it stars a fat slab of chocolate cake.

“Wow,” you may be thinking, “wasn’t the last study Kitty wrote about all about marshmallows? Do you guys cover any studies that don’t prominently feature dessert?”

To which I say: “You have bought me not sweet cane with money, nor have you filled me with the fat of your sacrifices; rather you have burdened me with your sins, you have wearied me with your iniquities.”

That’s Ye Olde Testament Speak for you shut the hell up and learn about cognitive behavioral science while looking at my collection of chocolate cake gifs!

On Financial Discipline, Generational Poverty, and Marshmallows

February 23, 2017March 10, 2021 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 3 Comments

What’s your methodology for eating a bowl of Lucky Charms? And in a related question: how’s your financial discipline?

Do you peck the marshmallows out first, like a marshmallow-loving chicken? Or do you eat around them, creating a cereal-free pleasure palace of marshmallows, swimming together decadently in their milk? Or do you dig in holistically, indiscriminately, with marshmallows and cereal intermingling freely, devil-may-care, eating whatever ends up on your spoon?

The answer could reveal a whole lot about your life, your personality, and the health of your personal finances. We know this thanks to a fascinating series of studies conducted on children eating marshmallows.