Choices: Grocery Shopping

Talk about having to make choices! When you go for the groceries the first choice you have to make is "Which store am I going to?"  Do you try to choose the one where you can save the most money, or the one where you can get the best fresh vegetables?  I never wanted to go to more than one store but lately I find myself hitting at least two and sometimes three.

With the economy the way it is I'm all about saving money, so my first choice is the discount stores.  They are good for some things, especially the bulk items.  Then the store where I like to buy my meat is also the only one that carries the Popsicles my husband likes.  This store has started taking out brand name items and replacing them with "store" brands and they are not necessarily cheaper and I usually don't like them.  This means I do more of my shopping elsewhere.  Generally speaking, items in this store can run as much as 10-20% more than the discount store.  While we are talking about pricing.... you really have to be careful and read the pricing labels.  Buying larger does not necessarily mean you are buying cheaper.  Many times you can buy two small sizes of something and the cost per ounce will be less than the cost per ounce on the larger one.

The next choice is the items you are actually buying.  I find if I make a list and stick to it I'm not so surprised when I get to the checkout counter.  I don't try to go up and down each aisle so I'm not tempted to buy things I see that were not on my list.  I actually came home with money in my pocket yesterday.

In the end, after driving to town, going to the different stores, choosing my items and paying for them, loading them into my car, running whatever errands I have, driving home and unloading the groceries and putting them away, I am both brain dead and physically tired.  It's time for a cold drink and a nap.

Choices: When you want to do something other than....

Chores!  I am the great procrastinator of all time.  When it comes to chores (house/yard work) I can think of a million things I would rather do.  And yet, I like a clean and tidy house and yard.  I think part of the problem is that I become so distracted... I pick up something in one room that belongs somewhere else and when I get to the room where it belongs I see something else that needs to be done.  Consequently, it takes me all day, hurrying and scurrying, and I don't get anything accomplished and I'm bone tired.

Today I have decided on picking one chore... seeing it through to the end and then I can pick one thing I really want to do.  I can read a book, watch a program I recorded, play golf or bowl on my WII game.  Maybe this way I can work my way through the house one chore at a time.

"I make no secret of the fact that I would rather lie on a sofa than sweep beneath it. But you have to be efficient if you're going to be lazy."
Shirley Conran

Choices: Daily, Weekly, Monthly.....

Each day, when we first open our eyes, we have a choice... "shall I get up now or should I go back to sleep?"  When and if we do get up we have the choice of how we are going to face our day, "am I going to smile and be happy or am I going to grumble and growl because something/someone woke me up too early?"  These are some of the daily choices we all have to make.

When I have a lot of things I want to accomplish I have to choose whether I want to make a plan for my day or week or do I just want to drift... hoping I will accomplish something.  I find when I drift I don't get near as much done as I do when I plan.  This all comes under the heading of daily/weekly choices.

Then we have the biggie.... the long range choices.  This next year I am going to my 50 Year High School Reunion (see, I already chose that I am going).  I know I'm going to want to look as good as I can for that reunion.  So I recently realized I have approximately 11 months to whip myself into shape and I definitely have to plan for that.  So again, it's back to choices:  What to eat to lose some weight,  do I exercise, how will I save enough money for the occasion.

We all know that no matter how well we plan sometimes chaos will reign.  Then we have the choice of how we will respond.  We can become angry, frightened, confused or we can stop, assess the situation, fix what we can and leave the rest to God because ultimately He is the one in control.

I choose to live my life as stress free and happy as possible.  I enjoy the small moments of beauty and wonder of this life and laugh at the silliness of it all.

Choices - To Retire or not to retire

Four years ago my husband and I were living in the Seattle area, each us of working and not really having any plans to retire because we had a house to pay for.  Then my mother died.  All of a sudden, we had a choice to make.  We could stay where we were and continue working for 20 more years to pay for our house, or... we could retire and move into Mother's house.  Not only would we be leaving the beautiful northwest and moving to the desert, but we would also be downsizing quite a bit.  We were 64 years old.


Choices, that's what we have to deal with all of our lives, but this one would affect us for the balance of our lives. We chose the desert and a house that needed to be totally remodeled and updated.  And the adventure began.  We completely gutted the kitchen, put in all brand new appliances and two new windows, new cabinets and sinks in both bathrooms, redid all the floors with carpet and tiles and repainted every single room and door and all the ceilings.  We also knocked out a wall and moved the whole front of the house out 10 feet increasing our square footage by 520 sq. ft.  We finished in four months.


By that time we were ready for a vacation.... but that's another story.

The Original Kitchen

The kitchen with new cabinets, windows, paint and floor

New appliances, vent and shelves (no upper cabinets)

Knocking out the wall in the Living Room

The old front of the house

The new front of the hosue, and that's a stained glass window my sister made