Tag grocery outlet

Sunday update in the midst of the Pandemic

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

These are indeed interesting times.

My mom and I went to Grocery Outlet because I wanted some fresh produce. Got blood oranges, spaghetti squash, cabbage, potatoes, radishes, and fresh Brussel sprouts. I was looking for items that would store nicely if something does confine us with COVID-19.

When I got home, the teenager helped me dig a splinter out of my foot and treat it with betadine.

We did two loads of laundry and the teen taught the budgies to hand feed.

We stripped and made both our beds— which ended up with some Oz antics.

And I made two delicious meals for myself prior to my fasting bloodwork tomorrow: leftover sesame chicken with pan-seared Brussel sprouts seasoned with four color peppercorns and tofu burger on whole grain wheat with avocado, sautéed radish and dill havarti cheese.

Of course, the afternoon led to some discussions among my neighbors of whether or not Coronavirus is worse than the normal flu. Does it matter? Flu outbreaks have killed people at fairly regular intervals. I’m not concerned that I will die from it, but I am concerned that I could help spread it if I’m not careful.

The neighbor we went to dinner last night spent the evening playing Yahtzee with another neighbor whose son just came home from college. The son woke up with a 102 degree fever today coughing. And his lab partner just got home from Germany.

And there’s a presumptive positive case in the next town over where my in-laws live. So it’s coming.

And I’m not an alarmist or panic-stricken but I agree that we all should be limiting our interactions. The more careful we are now, hopefully we can minimize the impact on our community and our economy.

And here’s some animal photos:

Friday: “It’s so basic”

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment
  1. Kittens/laundry
  2. Bird/plucking update
  3. Coffee smell better
  4. It’s so basic

That’s the list I typed for myself early this morning to remind me what the heck I wanted to write tonight.

But let’s go out of order from my original list. It’s Friday let’s go wild.

The smell improves

You may have heard that Nala, my four-year-old Goffin’s cockatoo who swindled me into bringing her home early last month, rather dramatically spilled my coffee into my rather cheap lime green bedroom rug.

I attacked the area with some lavender Johnson & Johnson’s baby soap. As of tonight, the smell of stale coffee has dissipated unless you are on the floor.

So, stay off my floor.

Kitten update

Day 2 of letting our two kittens roam the house. They are drawn to the laundry room and as kittens do, they tear all the laundry down. First they drug the sheets everywhere. Then the knocked down my blouses. Then they tackled all the towels.

Kittens.

I used to fold all the laundry nicely and pile it in the laundry room to put away during the weekend. I also left the dry laundry linger on the drying rack.

Guess everything needs to be put away right away. Leave it to those silly kittens to find the one lazy arena of my household routines.

But Opie is doing his best to babysit. Opie and the kittens are all exhausted by the end of the day.

Nala’s plucking

She’s got her wings pretty badly stripped.

I keep telling her she’ll never be able to fly if she keeps this up. The ladies at the pie shop suggested I get her a companion.

My teenager can vouch for me. This bird is spoiled and loved!

I came home for lunch today and spent time with her and put on Shrek the Musical for her.

“It’s so Basic.”

  • My thought for the day:

I found myself scraping dried cat food off a spoon at 6 a.m., again, because the teenager more often than not forgets to rinse her dirty dishes.

And I ask myself all the time, “how?” She’s not an idiot, so why is it such a challenge to remember to rinse the dishes.

Husbands and wives are also prone to situations like this. One partner can’t quite fathom why the other doesn’t find something as common sense as the other.

Then I found myself thinking even more.

After all, I’m an extremely intelligent and self-aware person. But as a new(er) employee, in a brand new career path, I’m sure some people at my office look at me and wonder how I miss things that to them are completely basic.

It’s a profound reminder of how different our experiences and points of view are.

For example, my teenager learned to change a tire by watching her father change one of my flats. Once. She keeps saying she’ll teach me, because it’s really easy. It’s so basic.

I told her I’ll join AAA, it’s easier. And after six months of trying to stop by the AAA office, I finally thought to join online.

And it turns out that AAA remembers me from the membership I had before the teenager was born. It won’t let me join online because it’s a renewal and I can’t renew online because you need your membership card.

Seriously?

PS–

I also went grocery shopping today. Bought a ridiculous pile of stuff from Grocery Outlet.

Highlights include:

  • Matcha protein drink
  • Protein cold brew
  • Pecan yogurt smoothie
  • Fish pie
  • Epic pork rinds
  • Various noodles
  • Parsnips
  • Blood oranges
  • Marinated feta

I started some chicken bone broth in the crockpot, so by Sunday night I’ll be able to make homemade chicken soup with carrots, parsnips, potatoes and alphabet noodles for dinner Monday night.

Matcha Quark

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

So when I still worked retail, and walked more than 10,000 steps a day and put away about 1,000 pounds of frozen food in addition to other physical stuff, I ate a big breakfast. Eggs, avocado, toast, fruit, vegetables.

For that decade, I worked hard and often didn’t know when I’d have time to eat. Big meals were a must.

But now I’m sedentary (and losing my will to go to the gym) and I’m just not as hungry. And I’m back to my bad habit of not having a proper breakfast.

Luckily, there are a lot of hearty yogurts out there and protein granola bars for a particularly rough start. Trouble is, I bore of food easily.

So when I see a new intriguing, protein-dense breakfast product I try it.

And the Grocery Outlet allows our household to try such things very inexpensively. That’s how I ended up with vanilla Farmer’s Cheese. Now, that was gross. But if I were hungry enough, I could have eaten it.

I also ate it a few days past the expiration but from what I knew about Farmer’s Cheese it is a cross between yogurt and cottage cheese so doesn’t that mean it’s already rotten? It certain had that exact texture.

Next I saw Quark.

Now, it was grass-fed Matcha Quark.

I have no idea what Quark is.

To me, Quark is the software I learned graphic design on nearly 25 years ago.

But I’ve loved matcha since before it was trendy.

Today I saw I had left it in the work fridge. This was good.

It stirred like yogurt, but pulled out of the cup like soft serve. No butter, acidic tang like yogurt. No bits or weird texture like the Farmer’s Cheese.

When the highlight of your day is a trip to the Grocery Outlet

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I worked a long day today. Voluntarily got to the office at 7:30 to prepare for my 8:30 development committee meeting, followed by some grant writing, lunch at home with the teenager who had an early dismissal, then an afternoon meeting and an evening mixer at another local nonprofit.

The mixer typically goes until 7 p.m. I asked the teenager if she wanted to go get milk and more salmon salad at the grocery outlet. When we bought the salmon salad last week, it was $1.99. But the “Best Buy” date was today so it was 47 cents! The teenager bought one for lunch tomorrow and I suggested tossing one in the freezer. For 47 cents, if it doesn’t free well who cares.

They had a nice selection of essential oils for $5 a vial. I almost bought tea tree oil, but instead opted for this $12 gift set.

My little treat.

We also got various yogurts and smoothie/yogurt drinks. A snack mix of dried mango, banana chips, peanuts and spicy almonds. Very yummy. Baby bel cheese wound in a pinwheel. Organic coffee in yogurt. And some weird matcha “quark” thing that I fear is Farmer’s cheese. And a caramel apple pie yogurt.

And a layered chili lollipop with gum inside. Not even sure what the heck that is.

I spent $15 on the aromatherapy set and garbage bags and $24 on yogurt, milk, fruit, salmon salad and broccoli.

I love stepping outside of my comfort zone and trying weird stuff at the Grocery Outlet.

And did I mention this particular Grocery Outlet supports our food pantry? They do.

Nala shenanigans and meal planning

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

For those who enjoy Nala’s shenanigans… She insisted on trying to steal my coffee. See her here: Coffee thief.

And we do still have the cats. Including big, dumb Oz.

Periodically I put her back in my room, but she kept calling me due to her fear of the budgies. So Nala watched me unload & reload the dishwasher, have breakfast and make extra parfaits, do two loads of wash, hang wash, let the roomba vacuum the kitchen and then I washed the kitchen floor.

As for meals this week, the menu includes:

  • A nice chunk of ham I got at the grocery outlet for $1. Probably with boxed Mac and cheese.
  • Veggie burgers or regular burgers
  • Spaghetti, either that black bean spaghetti I got at Marshall’s or Green Giant lentil rotini I got on sale at Target
  • A prepared salmon and vegetable salad I also got cheap at Grocery Outlet
  • And “Greek night” with a lentil salad and a white bean salad from Lidl and some mighty fine looking mixed olives I got at Grocery Outlet for 77 cents.

And this little naughty cockatoo refuses to vacate the drying rack, probably because it’s heated.

Now my daughter and I are off to bake cookies.