Although I try to blog six days a week, (I take Saturdays off) somehow I was remiss both yesterday and today. I tried to piece together a quick blog post this morning before taking my son to school, but was having trouble getting the photos from my phone to my laptop. My thinking was that I’d come home, write up today’s blog and then get started with errands, chores and tasks. But I realized that if I allowed myself the comfort of home, I was unlikely to head out again as my household tasks and e-mail inbox are never ending attention demons.
So I pointed my Prius out to the world at large and got started with my errands. Here’s where I went:
- Grocery Outlet
- Costco
- Costco gas station
- Dave’s Killer Bread
- Bob’s Red Mill
- Trader Joe’s
Not super enjoyable, but we were getting dangerously low on important items such as toilet paper, cat food and bread. It’s much preferable to run all my errands at once rather than piecemeal, so I steeled myself for a few hours of adulting and checked everything from my list. (Id Katy would have preferred to go home and watch a couple episodes of House of Cards, but Ego Katy wore her big girl pants.)
Anyway, my freezer and pantry are full once again, and thanks to some cheap Grocery Outlet cabbage, I’ve got an enormous pot of Cabbage Patch Stew bubbling on the stove.
That photo heavy blog post? It can wait until tomorrow. Until then, enjoy the above photo seen in a the window of a nearby junk shop.
Full time bloggers? I don’t know how they do it all.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
{ 31 comments… read them below or add one }
Your errands look like mine, only where I live we have the most epic fruit and veggie store that also has close outs on dried goods. I wear my crazy shopping routine like a badge of honor! I am able to feed my family with low cost clean eating with the majority being organic.
I hit every place that you did except Daves Killer Bread, picking up gluten free at Costco instead. We probably drive past each other at some point.
On days that I am in town and off work, I make the most of my crazy shopping trips.
Forgot to mention that I also purchased cabbage at Grocery Outlet to make sauerkraut. Used a little in our stir fry. Your soup sounds good. Printed out the recipe to give it a try.
It’s comfort food for me, as my mother made this recipe more than anything else when I was a kid.
Now that I have started to blog, I understand where you are coming from. Mine is supposed to be daily, but it is very difficult to keep up with a daily post. It’s not the content, just the time.
My husband makes fun of me, but I don’t feel comfortable unless we have enough toilet paper on hand to make it through a zombie apocalypse. So I get two 64 roll packs of toilet paper from Amazon.com at a time, put one upstairs and one downstairs—but once once they’re both about half empty, I start getting a little twitchy…
Also, so jealous of the Bob’s Red Mill outlet you have. If we ever get an extra freezer (where I could store dry goods without worrying about pests, I’m paranoid about this) , I’m going to drive down from Seattle and stock up on fine Bob’s products at excellent prices.
It’s not an outlet, it *is* Bob’s Red Mill!
I buy 24 at a time, but then again we only have one bathroom.
I’m with you, sister! You can never have enough toilet paper. I am sure my obsession comes from listening to my father talk about how they had to use leaves and rags when the Nazis took over and finding any consumer goods was hard/impossible. It is also why I have wood furniture, so it can be used for fuel in an emergency…One year as a joke a friend organized a birthday party and asked everyone to bring toilet paper. She thought it would embarrass me but I was THRILLED! I took home case after case of toilet paper. My poor husband, raised in the Midwest and not the child of immigrants who fled the Nazis and then the Soviets thinks it is nutty but puts up with it and even gives me a case now and then—like on Valentine’s Day, instead of flowers. True love, I’ll tell you.
That is THE BEST Valentine’s Day gift!
I was raised by grandparents who lived through the great depression who saved EVERYTHING! So, believe me, I’m always happy when I get practical gifts. I’d love a party where everyone gave me toilet paper and paper towels. (I’m trying to cut down on those, but I do like them.)
I just figure, “Hey, I’m easy to shop for!”
My mother keeps giving gifts from her stash of things from when my grandmother died. It is absolutely awesome. For Christmas, I got my great great grandmother’s antique deviled egg platter.Last week she brought me my grandmother’s cast iron skillet and a very old spatula. My grandmother used the spatula for many years and over 35 years ago it broke. My daddy, who has also passed away, repaired it with a small screw. The spatula is priceless because it is was heavily used by my grandmother and has my daddy’s old screw in it. That lovely simple spatula has stood the test of time. Practical gifts are awesome!
Oh, those are not just practical but so very precious! Thank you for sharing that!
Yes, the comfort of home has kept me from plenty of errands and many other things. Sometimes even the potential that was there for a task filled day ends up becoming a TV filled daze. We have been better at keeping a running list of everything that is about halfway and then watching out for sales. We end up using our coupons as well, which helps us save a lot on needs. But I’d rather stay at home any day…
Home is the best!
I prefer to batch all my errands to save time and gas, but my routine has changed with the birth of DD#2, and the expectation of dear-new-little-one soon. The carseat buckles (in, out, in, out, diaper bag, stroller, shopping cart…) plus making it home in time for next meal/naptime is a challenge.
Now, I try to run ONE errand on the way home from work, and ONE errand with babycakes in tow, per day. It means errands nearly every day, but no one day gets too overwhelming.
How have other people dealt with the carseat/running errands challenge?
I did my errands one per day on the way home from full-time work, with kid #1 and kid #2 in the booster seat and car seat in the back. Kid #1 went to day care/VPK and kid #2 was too young for the day care and went to a private babysitter, so I had two places to go after work just for them. I had to concentrate hard to remember what I needed to do that day, because I even forgot to write my to-do list down a lot. One day, I worked so hard to remember my errand that I forgot to get the baby at the babysitter’s! Luckily, my toddler asked if we weren’t going to go get her sister. Uh, oops. My youngest still offers me “mother of the year” award because of the day I forgot her.
Hahaha!
Once, with DD#1, I was knocking on doors and windows of grandma’s house, wondering where baby was…. oops, she was at babysitter’s that day.
Worst mom ever leaving panicked voicemails on grandma’s phone “Where is the baby?!?” Second voicemail: “sorry about that.”
Oh, don’t feel bad… it happens to the best of us… My son was able to get off the school bus at the dentist office when ever he had an appointment and with me working 45 minutes away, I took advantage of that. Yep, I forgot about it one time and left him there (until they called me when they were getting ready to close for the day). Honestly, I thought he was a football practice!!! Now he is a grown man with children of his own and he is fine. No permanent damage done 🙂
Ha, ha, at least I’m not alone on forgetting my own child. And at least these “forgotten” kids were actually in safe places!
I don’t know about your situation, and this may seem like a cop out, but I really try to leave my kids at home as much as I can when running errands if possible. If I take them both shopping with me I don’t accomplish all I meant to, I usually end up paying more for things due to distraction, and my nerves are shot. Buy large quantities of things you tend to run out of that you “have” to go to the store for ex. diapers, formula.The best thing to do for me is prepare ahead by making a running list ahead of time and leave the kids at daycare, with a friend, or with their dad when shopping. Save those buckle in, out, diaper bags trips for emergency trips only. My kids hardly ever get to go to the store so when they do they are awestruck!Keep quick fix meals in the freezer, because the second you get in the door and think you are going to get a break,everybody is hungry. I know it’s hard now but you will develop a routine that works good for you in time. HTH!
I should have said leave the kids with another trusted adult instead of just dad. Some kids may have two moms, live with grandparents, etc. Anyway, felt the need to correct myself.
Adulting is hard. Congratulations for doing it. Sometimes House of Cards wins out, though.
Lately, I’ve switched from a day of errands to one a day, as I recover from being sick for two weeks. Normally, I prefer to get them all done in one day, so I have one or two days where I don’t have to leave the house. Today, I need to go to the PO and CVS, plus my son needs a ride to work (it’s raining, he normally walks, and he’s waiting on a table of celebrities today during a big fund-raising event at the college he works at, so doesn’t need to arrive soaked.) Wish I could just stay home and nap, but I’ve got one in my future! 🙂
That trunk sign made me laugh. It’s hilarious that anyone would want to buy a trunk just because it belonged to her.
I love Bob Red Mills mixes. I can usually get them at Big Lots for a pretty good price. His gluten-free brownie mix is awesome.
Which reminds me, I need to head over to Big Lots for a few things this week. I love their cheap, gourmet foods.
I love Big Lots! Lots of good, cheap spices too.
Now that I have no kids at home, I batch my errands all the time. Yes, it takes a while on that one day, but it beats driving out every day to get yet something else. And I’m also big on always having toilet paper! I don’t like it to get low on that at all. I’m not as bad as a co-worker I used to have — she wanted three of every pantry item; one in use, one in the pantry, and one in the storage area in her laundry room. She would immediately go buy another if she got down to just two. I can live with just one of most things.
The trunk sign intrigues me — is the fact that Tonya Harding a former owner going to draw buyers? For me, I’m much happier with the antique trunk that had belonged to my great-uncle, who was born in the 1880’s, and who I didn’t have in my life very long, but was very dear to me. I store Christmas decorations in it.
I try to get a blog up at least on Mon, Wed and Friday but Monday flew by in a blur and it didn’t get done. I like to run my errand before and after work so there is minimal extra driving, also because once I’m home, I’m home and don’t typically go back out, including on the weekends and I am ok with that 🙂
“Tanya Harding’s trunks”. About as valuable as “John Voight’s car”. Sorry, everything is a Seinfeld reference to me.
Plus anything she owned is likely to be truly low quality. She was poor!
I also do the multi-stop shopping trip once a week. Depending on what we need, it can include Save-a-lot, Food Lion, two thrift shops, a bread outlet, Aldi, Dollar Tree and Tractor Supply. Sometimes there’s a stop at the Fred’s store (like a tiny discount department store) on the way home after Tractor Supply.
It’s a daunting trip at times, but the savings are huge.