This week our family started hosting a park day for our homeschool group. Park meetups were commonplace in our local homeschooling community before COVID-19, but in 2020 we were put on hiatus, and while we were “allowed” to have them more recently, the group leadership asked for us to resume consistently scheduled meets a couple weeks ago. I decided, after looking at my calendar, that I was able to host at a local playground once a week for the forseeable future. Last week was the first meetup and the kids had a blast. The older kids played chess, the younger ones played on the playground equipment, and the parents all got to socialize. I’m really looking forward to these meetups each week.
We also did some shopping at a couple new stores this week. We’ve had a BJ’s Wholesale Club membership for several months, but had only ever used it for online orders. We tend to get baby wipes, paper towels, and my Powerade Zero there because I haven’t been able to beat their prices on those anywhere else. We also got a few other things to try, but most of it was for my wife and the kids. We didn’t really go through the whole store, but honestly, there were a lot of mislabeled items/aisles. I also didn’t see any scooter carts available, which really sucks for me because warehouse stores are huge and my back was screaming by the end of the trip. It was honestly kind of messy and cluttered. For comparison, we also have a membership at Costco and it’s way easier to shop there. Employees are easier to find, there are more checkout lanes available, and it is typically way more organized. Not to mention the fleet of scooter carts available at the front for people like me, who have trouble walking the whole store.
The second new store we went to was Sprouts Farmers Market. This is a little more of a drive for us, but was SO worth it for my food allergies. They had several varieties of the Enjoy Life cookies and chocolate (we got the semi-sweet mega chunks and my favorite, the ricemilk crunch candy bars), multiple flavors of So Delicious Coconutmilk Yogurt (most stores around here only have one or two), burrito-size Siete tortillas, a chocolate coconut milk “ice cream,” way more flavors of Mikey’s “hot pocket” type foods (I got meaty marinara, pepperoni pizza, and “cheddar” broccoli), plantain croutons that taste pretty delicious, and several other things. But by far, the major highlight of this trip was finding Violife “Just Like Sour Cream.” I have been looking for a easy sour cream replacement for over nine months, and hadn’t had any luck. So when we were walking through the store and my wife started whisper shouting my name and pointing at the refrigerator case, while I was facing the other way looking at several varieties of Siete tortillas, we scrapped any plans we’d been working on for dinner in favor of tacos. And let me tell you, they were the most amazing tacos I’ve had in the better part of a year.
I also had some time to go back to the optometrist’s office. I placed an order for my new glasses about 2 weeks before our Disney trip in March. Never had any other communication about my glasses. Nothing about them being ready, nothing about them being cancelled. I had one email from when I originally placed the order with a tracker, and it just kept saying that it was delayed and the date to expect them just came back further and further out until it eventually said “unavailable.” Thankfully I have my red pair and they work pretty well, just slightly outdated and a couple minor changes. But I went in yesterday to figure out what was happening, and turns out the lab had completely cancelled the order because the frames were no longer available. The employee was able to grab a pair of the frames off the display and resubmitted the order, mailing out the frames they had in the office, and putting it as a “rush” order so I should have them pretty soon, fingers crossed. I’ll have to show y’all when I get them in – they’re a pretty green color that should match my Renn Faire dress!
There’s not much else going on this upcoming week, though what we do have is going to be pretty time-consuming. We’ve got the usual appointments, and the homeschool meetup. The only other major plans include cleaning out one of the vehicles (our old van that we don’t have any use for anymore) to sell, catching up on some housework, and doing the first phase of a major repair job on our porch roof (which took some hail damage in a massive hailstorm we had last year, and then a recent wind storm compounded that damage.)
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