Up until a few weeks ago, I have never in my married life gone grocery shopping by myself. Whenever I say that to someone their eyes immediately try to escape their face. Believe me, I am well aware of how spoiled I am. And I revel in it.
Until Polly came along, we were a one car family. For our entire eight year marriage, except for a brief period of a few months when Bear borrowed a car from his parents that broke down every time he took it on the freeway. This never really presented a problem because I quite enjoy being home by myself, and we could always arrange it so that I had a car when I needed it. The added bonus behind this minor inconvenience was that I never had to run errands, which I hate with more force than I can hold in my weak little muscles. If we had to go buy something, we’d do it together when Bear got home. I never had to shop for him, or myself for that matter, I never had to go to the post office or the bank or the DMV. It was bliss.
But since we shelled out the funds to get Polly, I feel obligated to make it a worthwhile purchase. Even though I would still rather spend the day making stuff, I have to force myself out of the house occasionally. Today my errand will be going to get a mani/pedi. Oh gosh, I’m so SoCal. But no one wants to look at winter feet. They’re disgusting. I’m not vain, I’m performing a service for all mankind.
Tomorrow I think I’m getting a cut and color. I haven’t dyed my hair since my wedding (boy is that a story for another day) and I’ve decided to lighten it and bring out more of the red. I’m thinking something like this:
I don’t really have a way to justify that.
The other day, in an attempt to get out of the house and to be a better little wifey, I sacked up and went grocery shopping all by my lonesome. I made my list, I brought my iPod, I was ready to face this new challenge. I don’t think I even made it out of the produce section before I was sweating and wondering how in the world people do this with kids in tow. Seriously, do you just buy what you need one day at a time?
It took me three hours to do my shopping for one week. Granted, it was my first time in that grocery store, but still, 3 HOURS! When Bear and I go together, we speed through. I never go without a list, so my job is to consult and keep track and tell him what to look for on every aisle while he pushes the cart and pulls stuff off the shelf. By myself, I had to keep trying to find a spot to pull over where I wasn’t in someone’s way or blocking someone else’s view while I read my list while scanning the shelves while getting my headphone cord tangled around my cart and yanking my iPod onto the floor. And after all that I kept missing items on the list and had to go back and do the whole store over again.
Yesterday I not only went grocery shopping, but I also went Costco grocery shopping with my sister-in-law and her two kids. If she’s any indication, grocery shopping with kids is apparently just a race to fill up the cart with whatever happens to land in there and then you hope something in there can be scavenged together for dinner.
