My Obsession with Trader Joe's and Grocery Stores

There was once a time in my life when shoes, clothes and pocketbooks were the staples of weekly shopping. What do you expect when you work in retail and get a discount at all the brands your company owns? For 5 long years, never moving up the retail ladder, staying on the 5th rung, I worked and shopped my paycheck away. My husband would be furious about all the bags brought home and my reply with loving eyes was, “But, Baby! It was on SALE!”

Ever seen, “Confessions of a Shopaholic”? Well, if I lived in NY and could have afforded Prada and Gucci that would be my story. But, I live in NC and could only afford Gap and Old Navy. I got a 30 % discount at Banana Republic, but even I knew that it was too expensive.


So, the time came when my husband and I had a child and I could no longer afford to shop like I did before. Somewhere, between my first and second child, I no longer cared about fashion. It was food! I love to browse the aisles of the grocery store, searching for new products and ingredients to cook with. It was also justifiable with my husband, we could eat the food not the clothes and pocketbooks.


As a small-town country girl, my first love with a food store was A Southern Season in Chapel Hill. My BFF went to college at UNC and one night she took me there. (Awesome!) I loved it! Then we ate at Mama Dip’s Kitchen. If you love country cooking, eat there! Anyway, I love to go to grocery store with sales papers, coupons and grocery lists in hand. Then I learned how to love cooking with my new finds. Which brings me to my new favorite store……let me go ahead and admit that I sometimes drive to Charlotte for produce.

Trader Joe’s – it’s a organic/non-uppity grocery store that sells food at crazy good prices, while the employees wear Hawaiian shirts. My kind of store! Now, let me warn you…they don’t carry your typical items/food brands: Kraft, Oscar Meyer, Dunkin Hines or the like. Just their private label organic foods and some name-brand soy, rice or whatever else they can get milk out of now. Now the produce section is the BOMB! I turn around in a grocery store if their produce doesn’t look good. Hence the reason I no longer shop at Wal-Mart for food.


So, yesterday, I was at the outlet mall in Concord with my family and headed south a few exits to the TJ’s to pick up some items for dinner tonight. I’m cooking for Jelly & Kake. (They’re my friends-kind of like Brad & Angelina are known as Bradgelina, Kelly & Jake are known as Jelly & Kake.) Okay, so I’m in TJ’s (which has an awesome wine section) to pick up a bottle of Madeira wine for the Chicken a L’orange tonight. I stop by the produce area to pick up a guacamole kit for my husband. So, I pick up my guacamole kit, salad mix and see it... Brussels Sprouts on a freaking stalk! Beside it a giant “Hurry Up & Get these Brussels Sprouts on a Stalk-Limited Supply-Only $3.99”. Did I know they grew like this? NO. I’m still trying to figure out about the way cranberries grow, but whatever. Okay, just googled it and now I know. I’m now enlightened.


Armed with my giant stalk of Brussels and other food items, I return home triumphant. Then I think-“I’ve only cooked with them from a frozen state. Oh, thank God for Julia Child! She’ll tell me how to prepare them fresh.” I sure hope that Jelly & Kake like Brussels.

Okay.....So, I'm a little slow.

Yesterday, my husband and I received this beautiful painting for Christmas. Funny enough that we had just visited this particular lighthouse on Thursday during our Christmas Vacation to the OBX. So, this Christmas present from my mother-in-law has given me the excuse to re-do the master bedroom and bath in a beach theme. (I've been meaning to, but now I have a painting to go on the wall. So it must be done.) I start thinking of color palettes, wainscoting, and crisp white linens on a towel rack. Okay, so I need a project to keep me busy while my husband is in Texas for the next 4 to 5 months.


While thinking about my own re-do, I thought of a friend-another Army wife, who has been thinking of her own themed room when her family gets to their duty station. Tiffany, my friend, who I've met only one time (Who is hilarious, by the way.) wants to do her new kitchen in a movie theme. We may have had this conversation a month ago on Facebook. -Yes, I use the site, we practically lived on the 1/61 battalion page while our husbands were in basic training together. I guess you could say that Tiffany and I are modern day pen pals or something of the equivalent. (By the way, which is really cool. Because... well, it's just really cool.)


Anyway, so she decides to go with a Breakfast at Tiffany's theme for the kitchen. I've never seen the movie. Yes, I guess I've lived in some dark hole. And to top it off I even took a film appreciation class during college and watched Citizen Kane, but not Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Three or four days later, I start thinking about what Tiffany and her kitchen theme. I died laughing instantly. I never put two and two together, until that moment. Her name is Tiffany and you'll have breakfast at Tiffany's if you go to her house early enough. Okay...so, I'm a little slow.


However, this can almost compare to the time that a friend of mine thought that BCG's (basic combat glasses) were a brand of jeans. Tiffany calls me a week after our husband's graduations and realizes that she has no idea what BCGs are. Her husband and I have to explain the following.


GI glasses
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

BCGs, mid 1990s design.GI glasses are eyeglasses issued by the American military to its service members. Dysphemisms for them include the most common birth control glasses (alternatively birth control goggles, or birth control device) sometimes shortened as BC goggles/glasses, BCGs, BCDs, or simply BCs. For women the appellation was expanded to include the nickname RPGs, in the late 1980s, which referred to the glasses ability to scare off would be rapists, hence Rape Prevention Glasses;

There is a time when everyone can be a true blonde and Tiffany and I have had our share of blonde moments. And let me tell you, the Soldiers above are not our husbands. Neither of them wear BCG's. Thank God!

It's Christmas Day.....

So, here we are on our last full day on our OBX Christmas Vacation. It's been great and we've even had a motto the entire week we've been here.

Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here.

It's been real and it's been crazy. We've had our ups and our downs, but this has been one memorable Christmas with my crazy family. We've laughed, we've cried, we've peed our pants. It's the most togetherness our family has seen since 1991, our last OBX vacation. There hasn't been any broken bones, stitches or a trip to the ER. We're doing great and having a blast. So, in the words of Clark W. Griswald:

"If I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn't be more surprised than I am now."

Merry Christmas!

A Mighty Wind.....

Now, my mother isn't too happy with me. She doesn't think that God has a sense of humor. Well, at least not with what my oldest sister said. My mother, my two older sisters and I were riding around the island in search of an ABC store. (Talk about family togetherness.)My mother loves it here on the outer banks and would LOVE to work and live here, year round. I told her that she could apply for a job at A Mighty Wind UMC in Nags Head. (She has worked at our church back home for 10 plus years.) Anyway, Mande, my oldest sister, started laughing and said something that myself nor my other sister, Julie could hear. Mande is laughing so hard she's crying. Finally, she's able to tell us. "A Mighty Wind. Is that what you call it when God farts?" We die laughing, except for Mom, who still doesn't think it's funny. "You all should be ashamed of yourselves!" she says sternly. I reply, "God has to have a sense of humor, He made ugly people."
If she were driving, I bet that I'd be walking back to the house after that comment. But, come on God has to laugh at the things people do. :)

Hacking a Lung on the Corner of Bonito and Corolla

So, I was told on my Christmas Vacation by my husband to get my butt out of bed and let's go running. Uh-nuh! The salty sea air and crisp 25 degrees didn't agree well with me nor my delicate Southern lungs. We began our run out in front of our amazing OBX beach house (Yes, I'm rubbing it in that I'm having to spend Christmas at the beach). *Sigh* There was some flooding in the area, so we had to jump some puddles to complete our mile run. Right there in turn 4, the corner of Bonito and Corolla, I begin to cough up the sea air. I hacked up my lung all over my hoodie while my husband laughed his butt off at me. Needless to say our run was then finished and I slowly made my way back to the beach house for a breakfast of diet coke and pimento cheese.

Sweet Mullets and Bojangle's BoBerry Biscuits

It's funny that I see things that no one else does. I went to the gas station the other day, it's connected to a Bojangles. (Love that place!) I went in to get a Diet Cheerwine and then I cut through to Bojangles to order my Cajun Filet Biscuit. Now, the small town I live in, it's possible to see about anything. From people wearing Prom dresses in "the Wal-Mart" in September to a "gangsta" car painted like a Trix Cereal box complete with rabbit. Now, on this particular day in Bojangles, I saw a "SWEET MULLET". The mullet man armed with a BoBerry biscuit in hand, I was amazed that this hairstyle never goes away. So, I decided to count how many mullets I saw while in town. Now, for those of you still rockin' this hairdo, don't be offended. I'm just calling it like I see it.
Total count.....46, no wait 47-the cashier at "the Wal-Mart" had one too.
On another note, I have a friend who is British, who lives in SoCal (Southern California) who visited the East Coast for the first time in November. Her husband and my husband were in the same company during basic training. I'll call her Ellie, anyway, she was amazed by the south and the invention of biscuits. However, this is a statement she made on the picture above: (use a British accent while reading)
"Biscuit with gravy - Southerners like to eat this for breakfast apparently - looks like cat puke to me, lol!"
Looks like with that mental image, I'll never eat another gravy biscuit.

It’s all about Pie!

2010 will be a big year for us. We’re starting a year off as an Army family and making lots of resolutions. Pie is going to be one of my big resolutions, but I’m not eating this one. Last year, while at work I caught a clip on the Today Show. It intrigued me. I got home and looked on the internet until I found Carmen’s Pie. I printed it off and tried to start shaping my budget into this pie. Yep, we’re talking money. For anyone living paycheck to paycheck, like I had been for the last several years, this was an attention getter! It’s a budget breakdown. Plain, simple and nothing fancy, but it WORKS! It’s how to live within your means. NOT living on caviar wishes and bringing home the bologna budget, then wondering where your money went. Slowly, I started to shape our budget into the predetermined pie slices –Housing 30%, Transportation 18%, Debt 10%, Food 14%, Household 7%, Savings 10% and Everything Else 11%. It was hard, learning what necessities were and what luxuries were. But, I failed the pie. It was hard to fit that square peg in a round hole, but looking back it was slowly taking shape. You just have to knead your dough, spread it out and pay your bills. It reminds me of a delicious strawberry pie my friend, Lori at work had made, so yummy, but so simple. Then I tried to make one and it turned out like crap the first time. I bet if I had kept with it, I would have had the same yummy strawberry pie like she did. It was the same with my budget, if I had stuck with it. If you’re interested in reading the entire article, please check it out. Tomorrow, I’m starting to put my budget together for 2010 and I’m making strawberry pie for desert to celebrate.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/25933653