A Day in the Life: How 8 trips to the grocery store in 4 days is a "good thing"

Because it means that we have a lot going on, or that I am extremely disorganized. You can be the judge of that (but probably somewhere in the midde). It also doesn't help that I have 3 grocery stores, nevermind the plethora of specialty shops, within a mile or two of my house.

Trip #1: Friday afternoon to Stop and Shop around the corner
Picked up some ingredients for a dairy free, gluten free, diabetic dessert to bring to Lisa C's parents house. Well, we managed to bring 3 things that most people who had allergies could sample two of the desserts. I actually searched all of the restrictions and came up with ZERO results. But the rice krispie treats, fruit salad and sugar free ice cream went over well (although I single handedly ate half of the rice krispie treats).

Zack is quite the ladies man. Working it with his much older friend Noelle Chatigny (6)


Neal figured if Zack is going to be hitting it up with the older ladies he had better get a good palate for some beer.

Trips #2-4: We had a last minute, stopover visit from the Wilsons over the weekend as well. We weren't sure exactly what time they were going be there but it was decided that they would make it for dinner. First trip was to TJs, to get some beer and other things we needed, as well has hopefully some beef for the beef and broccoli stir fry on the menu. No flank steak. Bummer. Fortunately the Fresh Market is literally 500 feet from the TJs. Popped in there for some flank steak. Bingo. Get home, Mike is starting to make dinner (said trips were at approximately 5:30 pm) and oops, we need more oyster sauce. I had checked to see if we had oyster sauce, just not that we had the appropriate amount. Back out to S&S for the oyster sauce. It was a great visit, although it was too crazy for us to capture any photos of it.

I should also note that at every single trip I tended to buy at least 5 more items than I originally went for. I might have a grocery store hoarding trait, but I blame my mother for that.

Trips # 5-6: Nothing too exciting here. Just our regular trip to Fairway for the week (because 4 other trips to the groc store hadn't covered it yet) and then an extra trip to S&S for bread. Of course. Bread. Who forgets that.

Trips# 7-8: Mike's birthday. I haven't mentioned yet that my mother and Jim were in town to help with the kids from Mon-Fri of the week before all of these trips. Then the Wilsons came in for Sat night. And on Sun night Pam came into town to help with the kids for 2 days before we left for Tahoe. Needless to say, between all these trips to the grocery store and people in town and planning to go out of town, I was pretty busy. And it was Mikes' birthday. On Thursday, but since Pam was in town we had decided we would celebrate with her here. Since I am off dairy and Mike generally doesn't allow sweets during the week, I sort of figured I would make a carrot cake and not really frost it and call it a day. When I mentioned to Mike that I felt badly that his birthday was sort of getting the shaft (i.e. I wasn't making a fancy cake), I got a look that read "well that's crap, what's your problem" or something like that. Sigh. (and I should interject that Mike probably really didn't care whether or not I made him a cake I just allowed myself to feel guilty about it). So Monday after work I went to TJs to get the butter and cream cheese for the frosting and then back to Fresh Market for some candies to help make my decorating easier. Amazingly it worked out.