Finally Had To Do It

Neither of us is a big fan of grocery shopping, which is why we usually only do it every three to four weeks. I don’t know how long it was since our last outing to Publix, but it was getting to the point where we were just about out of everything. I think Miss Terry got the message when she saw me browsing the Internet looking for cows for sale. She asked what I was going to do with a cow, and I told her either butcher it or milk it. So off to the grocery store we went.

We had hoped that the store wouldn’t be too crowded since it was a Sunday afternoon but we were wrong. There must have been a lot of people thinking the same way we were. Even so, we managed to maneuver our way through the aisles until we had a shopping cart so full that we could not have put a single additional grape or strawberry in it. We had so much that by the time it was rung up and bagged, we needed two shopping carts to take it all out to the van. But the good news is we won’t have to do that again for several weeks.

Whenever we go shopping, I either return the carts to the store itself, or to a cart corral if there’s one handy. I was surprised when I took the two carts back into the store yesterday (once I started the van and got the air conditioning going so Terry could cool off), when a store employee thanked me and said that probably one out of 100 customers actually does that. She said they’re lucky if people even take them to the cart corral since most people just leave them wherever they are when they are empty. I’m not sure if her numbers are correct, but to me, it’s just common courtesy. And Lord knows I can use all the exercise I can get, too.

By the time we got home and got everything put away, we were both hot and sweaty, and I told Terry rather than trying to cook, we should just go out and grab something to eat. Beef O’Bradys in New Smyrna Beach is one of our standby restaurants, and we’ve never had a bad meal there. This time was no exception. I had the BBQ bacon chicken sandwich with cheese, and Terry had a Chef’s salad. I think the young lady serving us was new, and she went out of her way to come to our table several times to ask if we needed anything and made sure to keep our glasses full. We, of course, thanked her for the excellent service and tipped her well.

Back at home, we watched an episode of Aerial America on the National Geographic Channel. This episode was about America’s coastlines and had a lot of interesting historical information as well as their typical fantastic photography. Then we watched another of our favorite shows, Secrets Of The Zoo. By then, it was time to select a winner for this week’s free drawing and write the blog and call it a day.

I have a doctor’s appointment today to get the results of my most recent MRI on my back to see how much more things have deteriorated, given the constant pain I’ve been in lately. And then Wednesday is Terry’s big day, when she has cataract surgery on her right eye. Two weeks later, they will do the left eye. Even though I’ve had it and our daughter has had it, as well as many other people we know, Terry is still understandably nervous. It’s like a friend told me before my own surgery – it’s the most common and safest surgical procedure there is, and they do millions of them around the world every week. But when it’s your eyes they are messing with, you’re going to be concerned no matter what.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Congratulations Gail Reitz, winner of our drawing for an audiobook of Watching Over Me: A Psychological Thriller, the first book in the heart-racing Crime After Crime series by M K Farrar and M.A. Comley. Trust me, this British crime writing duo know how to keep readers on the edge of their seats from the first page to the last!

We had 21 entries this time around. Stay tuned, a new contest starts soon. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.

Thought For The Day – The happiest people in life are the givers, not the getters.