The Cure for Boredom is Curiosity.

This question is mostly posed to those who shop/cook for two, but I'm not discriminating because I'm curious. How much do you guys spend on groceries in a week? Rough estimate.

I'm wondering because I have officially changed places where I shop. I was going to probably 3 different stores on a regular basis because they are all within a 1 mile range of the house and each store had certain things that were better priced. Well, the Larry's market that I was doing most of my shopping at has officially changed to a Tops. Not sure what I can compare it to except the IGA that my grandmother did most of her shopping at which either was exceptionally cheap or grossly overpriced depending on what item you were buying. Larry's was the preferred place since Berkeley Bowl is 12 hours away. Ronette and I made one last excursion through Larry's/Tops and had such a bad shopping experience that we decided it was time to move on. We were buying for a group meal, spent $110, and had 1 lb of coffee thrown in because the store manager didn't know the code. I freecycled the coffee because it was NASTY. They dumped all the good brands.

We nixed Albertson's because it's too far away. Safeway was nixed because the closest one has got to be one of the oldest ones and is gross all the time. Tried QFC, but the reason I don't do all shopping there is because I know that if I buy things like nuts, Trader Joe's is cheaper. So we decided to give Whole Paycheck a chance. We had a pleasant shopping experience. We redeemed them back to Whole Foods and I was excited to find bulk food bins of hard to find items like spelt flour. Then someone said that we just HAD to go to a PCC, they LOVE PCC. Horrible Horrible Horrible All the fruits and veggies are organic, no choice of non-organic and most of it isn't even local. Sorry, organic from Honduras doesn't cut it. We spent $60 for 2 nights worth of dinner and that was already having meat in the freezer.

Today I return to Whole Foods and spent $120. I have breakfast, lunch & dinner for the next week. I bought meat and I bought my $10 worth of sushi for lunch. So yeah, I'm curious about what other people are spending for a weeks worth of groceries.

Just to show how lame I am I also stayed up way too late last night cleaning the house because I needed everything in order to begin the new year. Laugh at me will ya. Going to Vancouver to celebrate. Can't wait to eat as much sushi as I can handle because hopefully I'll have to lay off of it soon.
Lot of things to say, but just wanted to remind everyone not to have too much fun while I am computer-less in Vancouver. No, really, I mean it. This is my birthday week and I am ruling queen, no fun until Saturday.

It's snowing again. What is up with Mother Nature? It was beautiful today. Bonnie and I sat out in the yard and enjoyed the sunshine. Yes, I still had to grab my sweater because it was a little chilly, but I had blue skies and sunshine and NO SNOW!!!!!

I just looked out the window and saw that there was precipitation raining *snort* from the sky. Lo and behold, what I thought was rain is snow - white fluffy flakes of snow. NOOOOOOOOO! No more, please.

All weekend, it's been snow, snow and more snow. Where is my spring? The snow has certainly curtailed most of our activities this weekend. Friday we stayed home because of snow. Saturday we all had haircuts. Melted snow on Saturday morning so that was OK. We went into Seattle for Ronette's hair. Carol and I hung out at the Experience Music Project. I love that place. And I'm excited that they are making a permanent Jimi Hendrix installation. Ronette's hair took 4 hours!!!!! So we missed going into the sci-fi side again since we were waiting for her. That's OK. The new Hendrix installation will be done at the end of the month so I want to go see what kind of changes they made to the original exhibit.

We ordered pizza Saturday night for dinner and were the last delivery of the night at 8:30 because of what? Did you say snow? Yes, of course, you are 110% correct. It was snowing and the poor delivery driver couldn't make it up the slight hill in front of the house so I gave him advice for getting back down the hill safely. And he was cute too.

Sunday we didn't get dirt like we had planned because of more snow. Off and on all day. Sticking to everything. Bonnie had a grand time of it though.

And now after my beautiful, I think the icky weather is done day I get snow.
End of story, I'm done with winter.

I've been fairly silent for a few days. Nothing dramatic, just busy doing other things.

Finally managed to get the fire pit sold. Still have some chairs that I would like to go, but someone is going to need them in order for them to get gone. Got rid of books galore, but then people will gladly take stuff when it's free. I have a bunch of other stuff that needs to be posted, which I will get around to doing sometime this week. Maybe Friday.

I encouraged Ronette in purchasing the H2O Steam mop. We decided to check it out for 30 days to see if we like it. I haven't tested it out yet, I must sweep the floors first. However I have been blasting everything that I can possibly blast with the handheld steam cleaner thingy. I like it. Cleaned my kitchen sink and the counter tops fabulously.

Started looking at school and grad programs. It's time to do that. The wheels in my head also started turning as we were watching an organizing show on TV and I realized that I could do that. I would be a great professional organizer. So we're looking into that. And I think I'm going to get Ronette to post some fliers up around campus for me to do some Mother's day blankets. Looking at Etsy.com too as a way to sell my crafty stuff. Like I said, the wheels are turning.

Our friend Michelle is coming next week which is VERY exciting.

And I think that's about it for now. I need to go to the post office and mail books. Then I think I'm going to the library to check out some stuff.

I woke up way too early this morning. There was a lot of light in the bedroom and the dog was whining to go out. Although that could be an excellent thing because that means spring really is right around the corner and I get to look forward to my long days of summer.

I've actually been sitting here since 6:30-ish messing on the computer. Nothing fun and exciting, just messing. I posted a few things on Craigslist yesterday and I'm hoping that the woman who called about the fire pit shows up today. I posted it last week and had no hits. However, as I told Ronette yesterday "I know how much they cost, what I'm asking is extremely reasonable. And I know if I posted it for free there would be 25 people lined up to take it. But I want cash and it can sit there for all I care". I have a pile of other things I need to post on Freecycle today.

I started plants for my garden this year. This is very exciting since with the back surgery last year, taking care of a garden wasn't in the cards for me. I already have some seedlings poking their little heads up in my "greenhouse". Yeah, I bought two seedstarter things and stuck them on the dining room table. And Ronette built a raised garden for me, which now needs about 25 bags of soil purchased for it.

OK, I'm rambling. I have nothing to say really, but I would sit here and type about anything right now.

So I'm not a tease, calling people I know but don't know.
I hate it.
Terrifies me.

Good grief, it's one of those days when you need to be productive and that's just not working very well. So my mind is here plotting all the wonderful necessary evil things that I want to do and not doing all the necessary good things I need to do. I might have to turn off the computer.

I'm having one of those days when you're thinking, but not thinking as clearly as you should. I went to buy birthday cards which I don't recommend you do on Valentine's day. That would be example # 1 of not thinking clearly. And I have a lot of February birthdays, but I found good cards for everyone and decided to get a couple "thinking of you" cards for non-February birthday people. Well my final example of not thinking clearly is that I ended up buying birthday cards for non-February birthday people. So no thinking of you cards, but I'm prepared for several future birthdays.

Last week, or was it the week before? Anyway I've been replacing all of the electrical outlets and light switches which was going steadily along until I realized that I needed 3 way switches and a couple of dimmers that didn't have the switch plates already attached. I went to Home Depot and found different dimmers than ones we had. The ones I was looking for is a rocker with a dimmer slide on the side - turn the switch on, then slide in place. Then I found the cooler ones which have an on/off switch but then have a 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% button. So I bought two to use downstairs in the rec room. I loved them so much I decided to replace the hall bath, our bedroom and the dining room switch with these. It's so awesome. So right now I'm patting myself on the back for my extreme handiness. Yay me!

This isn't the official recital. Yumi's husband recorded it last night and I have to wait for her to send it to me. We did really well considering we were the only two to show up. I'll be interested to see the final performance since my toes were so cold I couldn't feel the floor. What I'm posting is our last class/practice session. See if you can pick me out. Oh yeah, the floor at the dance studio is bad for turns and I'm still having trouble with my left leg so don't be too hard on me.