Monday Musings

Zen Sculpture at Penn State.

Snow is in the forecast, and life in the Mid-Atlantic is screeching to a halt.  We haven't had much snow this year.  Snow in March in this part of the Mid-Atlantic is unusual.  Big snow storms in March are rare. 

The last big March snowstorm that we had was in 1993. I'd just had my oldest child, and had my 6 weeks of maternity leave.   I was teaching at the time, and I'd been back to school for a week, and family had covered that week of babysitting for us when the storm hit.  I hit the jackpot!  We were out of school for a week!  My husband's family leave kicked in once I went back to work, and he was off for an additional 4 weeks.  It was great!  We managed to get 12 weeks between the two of us before we had to put him in day care.

I went to the grocery store early this morning.  I worked this weekend, and I really didn't want to go stand in long lines.  I had hoped that the store would have had the opportunity to restock the shelves.  Sadly, not everything was restocked, but I did okay.   There is a rub, though.  I haven't really been shopping yet this year. I've picked up a few needed items here and there, spending anywhere from $20-$40 a week.   I've been trying to eat out of the freezers and the pantry.  We are almost at the end of the food I had on hand, and I really needed to restock.  Today was the day I had planned on shopping.  I've been working on that list for over a week now.   I am sighing heavily as I admit that I spent $269 on groceries this morning.  Granted, I'm mostly stocked again, and it'll be a while before I have to go back to the grocery store again, but I really hated shelling out that kind of money in one trip.  On the other hand, it really is nice to have oatmeal, brown sugar, and gluten free flour again!

One thing I love about our grocery store is that we have hand held scanners we can take with us as we shop.  We scan the item, put it into the bags in the cart, and when we get to the end of the store, we scan our scanners into the self-checkouts, and it rings up the order automatically. What is my least favorite part of the trip - unloading a cart full of groceries onto the belt, loading it all into bags, loading it back into the cart - is now the easiest part of my trip.  I almost enjoy grocery shopping when I've got an Easy Scanner in my hands!

If you're in the path of this impending storm, stay safe and warm! 

Spring is only days away!