To celebrate Jamie not having to work on Saturdays anymore, I went grocery shopping by myself. By myself! It is a luxurious thing, shopping by yourself, and I’m sure that if you are reading this and you don’t have children, it might be impossible to understand why I was so excited to go grocery shopping BY MYSELF!
See, I don’t go shopping if I have kids with me unless there is an emergency or unless Jamie is with me, too. Me vs. four children in a grocery store is a scary situation that I don’t like to find myself in. In fact, I wouldn’t wish for anyone to have to parent four children in a store while having to follow a grocery list, compare prices, and make relevant purchases. It makes me nervous just thinking about it.
Yes, yes, it can be done. I’m sure all of you single mothers out there or mothers of more than four or military moms who go shopping with your kids all the time are laughing it up right now because I’m such a scaredy cat. I realize that it’s not impossible to do and you can probably make the grocery shopping a learning experience and whatnot. I just prefer not to do it!
So Saturday, I was able to print out my e-mealz list, go through the pantry to mark off the things we already had, and print out coupons to go with the list. Then, THEN! I remembered the reusable grocery bags (after being on the road a minute–I turned around to go get them). When I arrived at Publix, I leisurely walked into the grocery store, plopped my bag of grocery bags and my purse into the cart, strapped my new coupon organizer to the front, and shopped.
Oh, how I shopped.
I compared prices, I checked things off my list with a neat little check mark, totaled my prices on a calculator, and stacked my groceries in the cart all nice and organized. For the record, I had to stop using the calculator on my iPod because I kept accidentally clearing it. Can someone recommend a good app that can help me total groceries? There are many out there and I have app anxiety.
While I slowly perused the aisles, I sang along to all the songs I knew that were playing in the background. Oh yes, I was one of THOSE people who hums to themselves while shopping. I was just that happy! I enjoyed taking thirty years to pick out frozen vegetables and another thirty deciding what flavored yogurts I wanted. I even let the sample dude give me his spiel about the sandwiches they made and kindly accepted the frozen foods coupons he was distributing.
TANGENT: Why doesn’t Green Giant carry plain boxed frozen vegetables in Publix anymore? I really did spend ten minutes trying to find a box of carrots and a box of green beans. Ultimately, I gave up and had to get two of those steamer things.
It was a beautiful thing, this grocery shopping. I even told Jamie last night that I want to do that every Saturday. It was just so nice not having to chase anyone down the dairy aisle or argue with a three-year-old about whether or not we need chocolate syrup.
I enjoyed myself so much that when I got home, I took a nap. I had that good of a time.
