Too Many Bananas

I am supposed to eat bananas to keep my potassium level up. Being on blood pressure pills and diuretics for most of my life contributes to the potasssium issue. So I’ve been eating bananas just about every evening for as long as I can remember. Ten days ago my husband and I both tested positive for Covid after four years of being extremely careful. It just doesn’t seem fair to get it now just as we were finally feeling normal about going out and living our lives. Last week we didn’t have the energy or inclination to go to Giant for groceries, so we decided to go back to the pick up option. It wouldn’t be a good idea to walk around the grocery store anyway. It’s so great to still have this option and used this - and the delivery option - many times during the pandemic. The problem was is that I inadvertently ordered five BUNCHES of bananas rather than one bunch that had 5-6 bananas. We didn’t realize it until we unpacked the bags. Thank goodness bananas are cheap! I asked our neighbor if she and her husband liked bananas and she masked up and I stuck my hand through the door with two banana bunches in a bag. That left us with theee bunches. So every day I’ve been having a banana with tea in the early afternoon, but there are still so many left. We are not banana bread makers and we don’t have the ingredients. That just goes to show you that you need to read the fine print. We are so fortunate to have these types of services available. Next time I will be extra careful! 

Lidl No More

A new Lidl grocery store just opened in the neighborhood. Before it opened there was a huge media blitz to bring in the customers. A coupon arrived in the mail for dollars off over a month period of time. Although we felt bad about abandoning our familiar Giant store, we went in to test the waters. If they don’t have the bread products we like then they are out of luck - and they didn’t. But we did find a few things that were cheaper - crab cakes to name one. Some of the tomatoes and fish items were good. But the chocolate chip cookies and chocolate wafer cookies rang flat. The crab cakes had more other stuff in them than crab even though it was the brand we always get. The coffee was good. I suppose half of what we got we liked or were neutral about. The other half we didn’t care for. We ended up going to Giant anyway to get bread and some vegetables. I’m sure another reason was the store was unfamiliar - the lay out and the brands. Since we went to Lidl we noticed that Giant is having more discounts to compete. In the end that’s what it’s all about anyway. But in our household it is the bread that wins our hearts. And for that Giant has the upper hand. 

Giant Grocery Digital Coupon Savings

During the height of the pandemic we used to order groceries on line and have them delivered to the door. So we used the Giant app to order and schedule the pick up, but also used bonus points that accumulated over time. Now we get emails with coupon savings shown. But I never paid much attention to it thinking that they could only be used for on line ordering. I was wrong. So I investigated how to “clip the coupons” and have the savings placed on our Giant card. All it is is just click on “clip the coupon” and it automatically gets connected to our card and the savings are auto calculated. Since I hadn’t used the option for quite a while, we had a $6.00 points redemption available. Not only that there were three $3.00 off bakery, produce, meat and fish if you spent ten dollars. So I was interested in seeing how this all worked when we went to the grocery store today. Along with a buy one get one free coffee deal we ended up with twenty-nine dollars in savings - something we haven’t seen in a very long time. Since we didn’t use the meat and fish coupon it will be available until July 7. Now I need to diligently check the coupons every week and be sure to clip the items we know we will use but also look out for items we might need in the future. Now I know why my mom was always talking about the buy one get one free. In this current environment it’s foolish not to take advantage of any discount. 

Lidl Grocery Store

They’ve been renovating the old Safeway grocery store in our neighborhood for more than a year. It is being replaced by a Lidl. There is also room for three retail spaces - two of them will be restaurants. We don’t know much about Lidl, but have walked by it at least every week on our morning walk. The signs for hiring were up quite a while ago and the grand opening was last week. In the mail we received coupons for ten dollars off the first three weeks if you spend at least forty dollars. So we thought we would give it a try yesterday. It looks kind of like a small Costco inside. There is nothing fancy about it and it will take a bit to get used to the geography and products. We knew right away that we probably won’t be going there as our go to because it didn’t have the French bread or angel food cake that are staples in our house. But it did have crab cakes and fresh fish and some fruit we like. There were some products in different brands that we will try. There were some great wafer cookies with chocolate that my husband might like. We did get our savings at the register but we still needed to go to Giant for the other things we needed. Depending on how we like the rest of the stuff we picked out will dictate if we return. We are creatures of habit, but I think we will at least use the weekly coupons until they run out. 

Wegmans is Too Expensive

Whenever we came home from a weekend trip to visit family in central Virginia we would stop at Wegmans in Manassas to pick up groceries on Sunday afternoon. We would also get subs made to order for dinner. We always liked the fruit selection and it was a great place in general. We haven’t done that for a while. Since then a Wegmans opened in our northern Virginia neighborhood just a couple of miles away. So we finally went there this morning to try it out. All I can say is that we won’t be going back any time soon. The store is located in the Capitol One building. You need to park underground and take a stamped ticket. The first hour is free. We didn’t get any meat and the bill was $140. We did get two ready made dinners because we have a condo meeting this evening and a library program to watch this afternoon so wanted to save time cooking. The chocolate chip cookie box was $15! I didn’t realize it at the time. We usually spend $3.99 for the same thing at Giant. Our favorite Petit Basque cheese was $7.50 for two bites. We passed. We were also confused by the environment as well and they didn’t have the usual brands we like. They didn’t have the French bread we usually get so we mistakenly picked up sourdough. We had four bags of groceries and felt a bit cheated when we walked out. There is a new Lidl opening just down the street this summer.  We may check it out. In the meantime we will go back to Giant where things are cheaper and we are more familiar with the place and it’s close by. I didn’t think we would be in this sort of situation at this time in our lives. It’s very uncomfortable. 

An Unusually Busy Week

Last week was really weird. We had something to do every day. We aren’t used to that at all! Monday we went to the National Arboretum to take some images for the weekly 52frames photo challenge. Tuesday we went to Old Town Alexandria to finalize our will, power of attorney, and health care directives. Our Midwest documents needed to be updated after forty years. After that we stopped at Vaso’s kitchen to pick up Greek food. We hadn’t been there in over a year and it was delicious. The small throw blanket we ordered from Target arrived. It added a bit of color to the living room. Wednesday we picked up our groceries curbside. We had a huge bread haul as we ran out of just about everything. Thursday was a huge event. I finally got a haircut after thirteen months. I wanted a bob and got a short bob. It felt wonderful. My husband was happier than I was. My hair was looking like a witch and I felt like one. Then on Friday we had eye appointments. My husband has scar tissue on one eye from cataract surgery and my eyes are so dry that I need a special kit and eye gel to try and get them from sticking shut in the morning. Although it was exceptionally unusual to be so active it felt a bit more like “normal.” The only thing that got us out of the house before was a morning walk and a weekly drive in to DC. It was a psychological lift doing really nothing. 

Too Much Activity This Week

Someone told me once that if you’re busy all of the time you don’t mind the interruptions or the need to do more. But if you are generally doing nothing, having to do something can be a real pain. After almost a year of pretty much doing not a lot of anything and staying in the house, this week has been the sheer opposite. We are trying to settle the extended car warranty which means a phone call with the Subaru service and alternates; we are gathering our tax information for 2020; my husband is having his second covid vaccine on Friday and I was finally able to schedule my first vaccine for Sunday - let’s hope the snow doesn’t cancel these appointments; we have a zoom meeting with the lawyer about reviewing and updating our wills - a very unpleasant task; I’m working on a custom pet portrait; nd I received my Cubii Go elliptical device yesterday. The Cubii didn’t require any set up, but it was a new device I needed to read about and try out, along with an app. And of course, we had a curbside pickup grocery order yesterday. For the average person this probably doesn’t sound like much. I remember working full time, going to graduate school, raising a family, dealing with Midwest winters, parents health issues, and juggling all the other every day living activities. But that was another time and there wasn’t a pandemic. Getting older can be difficult. But at least as long as we can stay healthy we don’t take anything for granted. It makes everything else seem so insignificant. 

Harris Teeter Grocery Curbside Pick up

Wegman’s new store will be opening soon. We live a couple of blocks from Giant, and Safeway and Harris Teeter are all options. We have been having groceries delivered from Giant since March, along with a couple of Instacart deliveries from Fresh Market. We thought it might be time to experiment with curbside pickup. I prefer using the grocery in house staff rather than a random Instacart delivery person, so I now have apps for all the above. There are some items you can only get at one or the other place and that determines who we order from. Angel food cake is something that’s been difficult to find and get - but Harris Teeter had it available on their app menu. So I ordered groceries from them this week and found out you are able to add comments about a specific item as well as request something that may not be on the menu. You can also add to the order if you forgot something - Safeway doesn’t. The curbside pick up however, was tricky. I called the store before three to let them know we were on the way, hoping to avoid unnecessary delay. It’s nice that the pick up is covered in a garage in case of inclement weather, but the process is a bit less organized for “express lane” because you need to push a button, give your name, and hope someone will be there shortly. For whatever reason, they didn’t have our order - not under our name, but finally found it under our number. After forty five minutes of waiting, they were finally delivered. In the meantime about 5-6 other customers came and went. I would like to shout out to Simone, who handled our situation with great efficiency and politeness. She also made sure we got the senior discount and five more dollars off for the mishap. She also said Thursdays are the busiest days to pick up groceries due to the senior discount. We ended up paying more in tips for the superb service, but it was worth having the opportunity to meet such a wonderful person. We don’t care for the paper bags, but best of all, we got my angel food cake. Next time we will wait for the email that tells us the groceries are ready. 

Safeway Grocery Pickup

Since March we have been getting our groceries delivered. I don’t feel comfortable going in to the store as we are in the “at risk” category. Primarily we use Giant, and have tried Instacart for Harris Teeter, Fresh Market, and Wegman’s. I prefer using the in store options rather than instacart. This week we decided to try a grocery pick up service. After paying for delivery fees and tips, it can get expensive on top of the inflated grocery prices. I’ve got all the apps on my phone now, including Safeway. We used to go to Safeway every Saturday because we love their bread. Since moving to Northern Virginia, Giant is just a couple of blocks away so we haven’t been to Safeway for a while. So I ordered up the groceries and picked a three o’clock pick up time. We received an email and text when it was ready and we drove to the store. Ironically, the Safeway near our house doesn’t have this service. When we arrived we pulled in to one of six spaces that were designated for pick up, called the phone number on the sign, and waited a few minutes. We opened our trunk and the groceries were dutifully placed. Since we can’t tip on line we gave the store personnel cash, which is a disadvantage over on line options. In the end it wasn’t such a bad idea, but if it was inclement weather it could get dicey. Pick up gives us another option for groceries. I’d like to try Harris Teeter because it looks like the only place that has angel food cake, aside from Fresh Market which is very expensive compared to the others. How things have changed since last year. I don’t like any of it. 

 

Fresh Market Flowers

Since we’ve been ordering groceries on line for delivery we haven’t been getting fresh flowers - until recently. The option wasn’t available or I just didn’t think about it. We always used to get a small bunch of flowers every other week or so when we went to the grocery store on Saturday. Now, being stuck in the house, it makes such a difference to have added color in lifting spirits. And since we don’t have our small Capitol Hill patio garden anymore it’s even more important. We have gotten flowers from Giant recently and they turned out so so - one bunch was better than the other. Recently we got a bunch from Fresh Market. They were unusual and very nice. We have a wall vase, a console plant table in the dining room, and a small glass vase on the dining room table. So after disinfecting the groceries when they arrived I attended to the flowers. Flowers take on a whole different look when you zoom in on the details. But they look wonderful no matter how you look at them.