My tiny fridge

My fridge defies the laws of physics. It is well known that hot air rises and cold air sinks. This leads me to assume that in a fridge with poor circulation, the bottom shelf would be coldest. In my dorm sized fridge things in the door are warm (spoil in 2 days) while things in the back are cold (freeze solid). I realize this must be because the door leaks (like a mofo, apparently). I'm just astonished that in such a small space no convection occurs, sliding the slab of cold air at the back down to the bottom.

I was reading something about how wasteful Americans are, and our obscenely large refrigerators and how the Europeans always make do with little ones. My small fridge has been another thing I just cannot adjust to, and I was feeling bad about my wasteful, consumerist desires for a full sized fridge with a freezer more than 4 inches tall. But now that I think about it, I suspect a modern, energy efficient larger fridge is probably better than this thing, since it's so poorly insulated. Food lasts about 4 days (well, aside from the thin layer of inadvertently frozen food at the back), which means I'm not only wasting energy cooling the air in front of the fridge, but I also throw out far more food than I ever have in my life because I can't get the balance right. I shop 3 to 4 times a week an an attempt to buy smaller quantities. But because I bring food everywhere (thank you, celiac disease), I tend to cook largish quantities of soups and stews that can be transported. Apparently, I always cook just a bit more than I can eat in 4 days. When I try to be more careful and cook less, I always seem to run out of food entirely and wind up eating nothing but plain brown rice for 3 days. (Whose dumb idea was this whole "being an adult" thing, anyway?)

I struggle here with the balance of work and life and play, and getting errands done and food cooked and house cleaned. This fall I joined the choir at my church for the Christmas Carols. I enjoyed it tremendously, but it turned out to be more time than I had to spare, so I've really been swamped. In the new year I want to take a look at my time-priorities and perhaps arrange my life a bit more thoughtfully so I'm spending my time doing the things I choose rather than rushing around playing catchup, resenting the commitments I've taken on.