Twice a month I do our grocery shopping, and try to get any miscellaneous errands taken care of at that time. That way I can be more ‘energy conscious’, you know, considering the ever-fluctuating gas prices. I got spoiled. Seriously spoiled. For five years I could take my sweet time, was never rushed, didn’t have to be anywhere at a specific time. Until now. You see, for those five years, I could drag my Little Princess along with me, and while she’s gotten disenchanted the past year or so with grocery shopping in particular (I’m a mean mommy, I tell her ‘No, we can’t get that toy…No, not that one either…No, you already have one of those…Not today….Maybe next time…No…No…No’ – she gets really tired of hearing that word ‘No’! LOL), we didn’t have to be anywhere and didn’t have a time limit to our shopping excursions. Now I have to make a decision – either yank her out of bed early and do a ‘hurry-up-and-get-it-done-quick’ shopping trip, or wait until she’s on the school bus around noon-ish and then do a speed shopping trip in a major rush to be home and waiting for the bus to drop her off. I chose the latter, because I would rather do a rush shopping job during the hated afternoon hours (hated by me, since I’m a morning person and like to get all my stuff done early), rather than try to get my Little Princess out the door quickly enough to get it done and be home on time for the bus. Not gonna happen.

So now my formerly enjoyable and leisurely twice-monthly shopping trips have turned into not-so-enjoyable frantic shopping trips (yes, plural, because now I have to spread my major shopping over two days to get it all done since I don’t just shop at one store…gotta take advantage of those bargains!). Today, for instance, was day one of a 2-day bi-monthly grocery shopping day. I had 3 stops to make, and had to factor in 1/2 hour drive to, then 1/2 hour drive from…so I had to ‘limit’ my stops to 1/2 hour, no more than 45 minutes each…luckily the 3 stops I had to make were in close proximity to each other, or I would have had even less time at each location. Now I don’t know about anyone else, but having only about 1/2 hour to try to find everything you’re looking for (and in this case, one of those stops happened to be at a large craft store…I could get ‘lost’ in that store for hours if I didn’t have a modicum of self-restraint! LOL!) Even when one of those stops was to get half of our bi-monthly groceries – picking up things that happen to be on both ends of a large store, and some in between.

Marathon Shopping! I’m not so sure I like it, but I guess it will help the budget, since I’ll have to abide by my list more closely, rather than find other things that I don’t necessarily need, but certainly want… I must appear to be a bit looney to some of the shoppers, though, because if I accidentally cut someone off in my hurry through the aisles, I catch myself saying ‘Excuse us…er, um, I mean, excuse me…” because I was so used to having my Little Princess along for the ride. It’s not quite as fun to shop without her with me being goofy and even though she would pout or get mad because I would tell her ‘No’ so many times when she’d want to get something, at least I’m one of the lucky ones because very rarely has she ever caused a scene when she isn’t getting what she wants…well, at least not for me – for Dada, a different story at least one time! (snicker!)

At any rate, having to adjust my shopping method to be one of the many ‘go-go-go’ people is quite an awakening (and exhausting) thing. I’d tip my hat if I was wearing one to all the people out there that have never experienced a mellow shopping trip – even for groceries – and have always been in this constant ‘rush’ mode. I admire you greatly!