Saving $$

I've been under-the-weather for far too long now. Between my knee injury and pneumonia, the past couple of months haven't been the best for me or the fam. I'm not usually a sickly person, either. That's partly what's been hard on me.

There have been a couple of side-benefits to all of this, though:

* We're eating well. Between my mom, my neighbor, Kim, and my wonderful friend, Heidi, my little family has been eating better than if I were up and around. Kim had everyone over for Sunday dinner and brought us dinner another night, grandma brought cookies, oranges, a veggie tray & tupperwares full of food. Heidi brought me a gift bag of magazines, bath salts and a massager, not to mention dinner on 2 different nights. Rumor is my sister is bringing us dinner tonight. I'm not known for my love of cooking, so it's been wonderful.

* I'm getting plenty of rest these days. At least compared to my normal life.

* Finally (and probably most importantly), we're spending a lot less money at the grocery store. It's partly due to the free meals I already mentioned, but it's definitely also due to the fact that Mike is doing the grocery shopping these days. When Mike goes to the store, he goes to one store and comes home with exactly what was on the list (except maybe an extra bag of chips & salsa). When I go grocery shopping, I usually hit 2 stores -- Costco for the big stuff and Smith's or Walmart or Target for the rest. My shopping trips usually go something like this:

Head to Costco, stop first to get hot dogs and drinks for whichever kids I have in tow, start perusing the seasonal items near the entrance, add a pair of cool gardening gloves to the cart, consider buying an iTunes gift card for whatever birthday is coming up, browse the spring dresses for the little girls and decide they already have enough clothes (except wait! That one is so cute. Elle and Paige could match. Two $15 dresses into the cart.), check out the book section for anything new or interesting (ooh! I heard this one was sooo good...), gotta have Avatar on DVD, check out the bowls & platters for an upcoming wedding gift, finally make it to the food, put a box of teriyaki something into the cart because the sample tasted really good, buy a ginormous cheap bag of bananas even though I know we won't be able to eat that many before they go bad, get all of the food that I did in fact need, see the spring tulip bulbs on the way to check-out and add that into the cart, etc., etc. $300 later .... See what I mean? And the regular grocery store isn't any better, even though it usually costs less than my Costco bill. I easily find things that I didn't know we even needed.Maybe Mike should always do the grocery shopping. We just might save a little cash that way.