Groceries and Gardens and GIFs

We've finally gotten into a smooth rhythm when it comes to grocery shopping. We try to keep our weekly grocery bill under 35 a week, though that's been a recent achievement. Obviously, it was much easier to keep it low when we lived in the south.

As every Muppet knows, shopping around is the best way to ensure the best prices on food. This is also a way to murder joy.

We have two shops relatively close to us: Stop and Shop and Save-A-Lot. Save-A-Lot is nationwide, I believe, so you probably have seen their empty parking lots as you drive by.

Stop and Shop is a relatively expensive and very conveniently located. I track prices there and can occasionally find pretty good deals. They have a great seafood area, like fresh cod for 2.99 a pound good*, but we don't do a whole lot of shopping there. That leaves, well, you know.

It's not as bad as you might think**.

It's a pretty convenient bus ride away and we buy almost all of our staples from Save-A-Lot. A local bakery sells its day old bread there for 99 cents a loaf. We usually pick up two loaves for the week. Cheese, peanut butter, tomato sauce, eggs… Stop and Shop's rock-bottom sale price is the average price at Save-A-Lot.

But yeah. That place is the Daytona Beach of beaches.

I miss Kroger. I could get free items regularly there. I still have a mini stockpile of health and beauty*** products from my time near a Kroger. This was facilitated by double coupons, owning a car and better deals. I used to wonder about people who chose to shop exclusively at heavy discounters (which is what Save-A-Lot is) instead of just utilizing coupons at big retailers; I see now why people choose to shop this way. It's just easier somehow.

Another thing that factors into our grocery shopping is the fact that we don't have a whole lot of room for convenience purchases anymore. Until I can find a grocery cart abandoned by somebody's grandma on the side of the road, we're hauling it in backpacks. We've just resorted to eliminating boxed foods from our grocery list. It's not always easy or fun. If we want swiss cake rolls or pizza or mac and cheese*** then we make it from scratch. I mean, I don't make the mozzarella or cheddar. That would be obnoxious.

And we don't buy organic, usually****.

So our garden. It's a thing that exists now.

xxOrGAnICxx

I purchased seeds about a month ago from Walgreens when they were running a 5 packets for 1.00 thing. They didn't have a huge selection (an alarming number of sunflower varieties, though) so I just got what I thought we would like: tomatoes, squash (of the hott summer persuasion), cucumbers, lettuce and peppers.

I've already been growing some parsley and I finally planted this seed paper thing I found in my backpack. I don't really feel like explaining the whole story, so just go with it.

I had 2 little terracotta pots that used to hold basil and thyme. As peppers are supposed to be very persnickety I put them in there. I made additional seed planters from newspaper. This way when I plant them I won't have to remove them from their home-- the newspaper eventually dissolves. Or so I'm told.

I made them by wrapping newspaper around a cup and then folding the bottoms under. The soil keeps them intact, but I still wrapped them in some jute string that I had leftover from the rug. The markers are from a fake credit card I was sent today.

I'm also trying to grow celery from an end-- it's something that is apparently pretty well known in gardening circles. Just chop the end off the celery (the part you would normally throw out), place it in water and plant it when it spouts. I just started it last night, so we'll see.

Overall, I think the highlight of my day was when I opened the bag of soil and involuntarily said "agg! So dirty!" out loud to myself. So there's that.

*Those glassy fish eyes staring at me. Can't do it.
**If you're thinking it's the Myrtle Beach of beaches.
***Dream meal
****I think all the pesticides make me a better person.

Spring is Here, Woman Sees B.D. Wong Everywhere

Unless you live in Arizona it's a dry cold you are probably experiencing the same fantastic weather we're having up here. The timing of our move was perfect, I guess. I mean I only have light jackets and sweaters, no long johns or anything.

I've slowly been cleaning my house and trying to complete projects that have been bothering me. One of the big ones was an area rug in our little dining nook. My mom found a stack of jute coffee sacks at a yard sale for a few dollars a piece and bought them all. She's pretty clever, and she suggested I make/sew them into some sort of area rug. Or did I come up with that idea? We'll never know. 

I found instagram, you guys.

I took the coffee sacks apart with my bare hands and kept every scrap*, like the true hoarder that I am. No but seriously, I just used the jute twine to bind it together. When my cat Joe isn't perched in a window, chirpin' at the entitled squirrels, he's rootin' around underneath the jute.

In other news, I'm seeing B.D. Wongs everywhere. Does he live in Boston? Someone Google that for me.

I bet he has a fantastic area rug in his home. Made of saxophones.

"I'm in your sweater boxes, just staring"

I'm jinxing the weather by putting away all my sweaters and wool socks. I dragged out our summer clothes and found that I vastly overestimated the amount of summer clothing we own. Or rather, I vastly overestimated the amount of fun, appropriate* clothing we have. 


But how many clothes does one actually need in the summer? Just a few summah shirts, I'm sure. 


We'll see.



*I'm actually keeping them for another project. Squee!