Shopping

Shopping is not one of my favorite pastimes and food shopping is the least favorite type of shopping.
First off you have to decide what to buy. It all seems expensive. You then have to decided if you have the money to shop with a conscience and buy things like 7th Generation laundry detergent or the cheaper and smell better, get out dirt better, less environmentally friendly ordinary stuff. For me, the budget dictates which I get. Simple really.
So after making those decisions, you then have to pick out the stuff and put it in the shopping cart, then take it out of the cart and put it on the counter to be rung up, then you get shocked into some state of disbelief on the amount you spent. Now they bag your food, put it in the cart for you and depending where you live, they take it to your car and put it in the car, or if you are like me, you say things like, "oh I will get it, its good exercise". So I take it out to the car, unload the cart, and drive off to the next store to do the same thing all over, but when you shop healthy, it means a few extra stores it seems.
Now you drive home, tired. Then you need to unload the car, put the food away and in my case it is like doing a puzzle trying to find places for all of this food.
We have an old house, old kitchen, which means not much cupboard space. The tops of the Freezer and the refrigerator serve as spots for such things as cereal, corn chips (yes the organic kind), huge jars of honey and other things like olive oil by the gallon. Cheaper that way.
We have 5 gallon buckets in the corner of rice, beans, flour and oats. On a shelf there are gallon jars of nuts and odd types of rice. Seems like there is food everywhere. The task of putting all the food away, sort of ruins the desire for me to cook. By this point I am pretty sick of food in all its forms.
I never quite know where to put all the fruit, the bananas, apples, etc. We want to have them handy for eating. Same goes for the candied ginger, mission figs, almonds, cashews, pecans and pumpkin seeds. So they stay on the kitchen table looking like we are planning some sort of fruit and nut feast.
Tonight the big stuff ended up on the dinning room table. Papaya, mangos, apples and some of the bananas. They looked kinda pretty so that is why its the picture of the evening.
We had company for supper tonight. Not planned of course, but that is how it is all the time around this house. We had chimichangas with refried black beans, mango pico de however you spell it. Salsa and smothered in guacamole. The cheese was tofu and she was a bit worried about eating that but she did anyway and said it was chalky but good. Guess she doesn't mind "chalky" as she put it.
It just seems like food takes up so much time. It might be easier to eat the same thing every day for all three meals. I only eat two meals a day, so that does make it simpler. Not sure what I would pick for this one kind of food to eat day in and day out. Probably pizza.
So here I am, past midnight, still a bit grumpy about having to spend $200 for two weeks worth of food for 4 people. We always have someone extra for meals so I plan on 4. Have no idea if that is a lot of money or not much. No one likes to talk about what they spend. Its one of life's great mysteries. We don't go out to eat but once every two weeks. So not much budgeted there. Its to Cici's normally, which is under $5 for all you can eat pizza and salad. Or we go to a Chinese buffet, for lunch, its cheaper then in the evening. Under $5.
This food business sure is complicated and exhausting. Think I will head to bed.

Just thought of something, I do like shopping at the quilt shop. Tomorrow I get to go there for a lesson on how to use my new pfaff. I am bringing along some extra money !
Also I get to go pick up Melanies wedding dress. Now that kind of shopping is bittersweet. Happy for her, but I know it means my little girl will be leaving the nest all too soon.