saturday was all about the dog blog. i got up at 7am to go with charlotte to pick up cornwallis from the vet school, and somehow a million other dog-related things happened after that and i didn't get home until 6pm. the rest of the day was shot... i pretty much just collapsed on the couch and watched tv.
sunday i woke up with the intent of kicking some major butt on the freelance website i was hired to do. (i don't get paid until it's done, but i have already spent it all... in the form of getting the A/C fixed in my car. hence, my desire to finish it soon!) my progress was initlally hampered by laundry and housework, but i finally buckled down around 1pm and got a good deal done. the site is probably more than 1/3 of the way complete. what a relief.
then ray & i did our big monthly grocery shopping. we've finally got an efficient system in place... we were out of there in a little over an hour tonight, while it was still light outside! (a first!) what we do is... i carry with me the big shopping list but i dole out to ray a half-dozen things from the list to go after by himself. i give him a mini-list, of sorts, from the big list... usually all focused on the same section of the store. (the cleaning aisle, for example.) he comes back some 10 minutes later with the things he has collected, and that's one less aisle i have to go down. repeat as necessary.
mostly, i think ray just likes running around the store, feeling productive. if we both went down the aisles together he'd get totally bored in 2 minutes.
Posted by xta at August 8, 2004 11:33 PM | TrackBackI am very impressed at your grocery shopping system - we are much more disorganized. Therefore, we often have nothing in the fridge, or are missing that one crucial element for a particular meal. Perhaps you should teach a class :-)
Posted by: pinky at August 9, 2004 7:01 AMYeah...I agree with Pinky. We have to go once a week or we get that "nothing to eat" feeling. You should teach a class.
Posted by: lainey at August 9, 2004 8:08 AMyou guys are too funny. i think a class on grocery shopping would be more boring than baseball on tv.
i also clip coupons, fwiw, which always makes me feel like i'm 70 years old and on social security... but last night we saved 20% on our grocery bill! (that's with coupons & kroger card discounts.)
i could be better at meal planning (i make it up on the spot, usually in the meat aisle)... i strive to sit down with some new recipes and write out all the ingredients needed before we go to the store.
Posted by: christa at August 9, 2004 8:42 AMafter reading the comments about meal planning and lists, i had to share.
a good friend of mine devotes an entire section of his website to this very topic.
http://www.dearmitt.com/sub_fast/eat/explained.php
(scroll to the bottom of the page for handy shopping list templates available in PDF.)
troy's shopping and meal planning system is the yardstick by which all others shall be judged.
Posted by: james at August 9, 2004 11:24 AMBut how do you keep your fruits and veggies fresh for a month?!
Posted by: Jenn at August 9, 2004 2:59 PMaah, jenn... you are so perceptive. :-) i wish i could come up with an answer that involved vacuum-packing or something, but truth be told ray & i *do* make little stops at the grocery throughout the month to pick up milk or fresh produce. but we only do a Really Big Trip once a month. any more than that would surely squash our souls.
mmmm.... squash.
Posted by: christa at August 9, 2004 4:02 PMI don't understand people who don't like to grocery shop. I usually find it relaxing and fun. I especially like finding stupid things I've never seen before and laughing at them. If I visit friends out-of-town, I usually go grocery shopping with them and have a great time.
I visited a friend of mine recently who said her spouse never went grocery shopping with her or helped her carry in the groceries. It apparently really bothered her. They're split up now. So I went shopping with her, but she didn't marry me. :)
Posted by: Joseph H. Vilas at August 9, 2004 4:33 PMOh! I see. I want to try the once/month thing. Or at least twice/month. You're an inspiration!
Posted by: at August 9, 2004 4:35 PMWow - that's organized!
Contrast with life in many less-developed economies, where shopping for food is a daily activity. Not that it's all bad that way: everything is always fresh.
Some of my relatives in the Philippines and Indonesia have very rudimentary refrigerators -- for some in part because of money, and also in part of it's just normal to shop every day.
Even those with fancy refrigerators normally keep them at much warmer temperatures than we do in the US. They're just cool enough to keep butter from being melty, and milk from going instantly bad.
Posted by: Phil at August 9, 2004 10:28 PMWe saved twenty-ONE percent, Christa.
And then there's the Coupon Song.
"You take value in cutting out a coupon.
That's the kind of thing that I would rather poop on.
But, if you need to, I guess that I can take it,
As long as by closing time to the store we make it."
Ah cohab bliss.
Posted by: Ray Ubinger at August 10, 2004 12:53 PMI love grocery shopping. I must go to the grocery store at least 4 times a week. I'd go every day if I had more time.
Posted by: Sarah at August 10, 2004 5:30 PM