GROCERY HAUL

 Hello, friends!  Welcome to Sunday and I hope this day is wonderful for you.  We all need a wonderful day, don't we?  We have been having such beautiful weather.  Warm for this time of year.  I am not complaining a bit.  The weather forecaster here said it was good news because people could get outside and social distance which would help to not spread the virus.

Also good news about the vaccine being so close to being available to the public.  I hope this means we can be back to normal by next summer.  At least I see an end in sight.

Joe gave me an early birthday present today.  He bought me a new tablet.  It has a learning curve, of course, and I have to put my apps back on it, but it's wonderful.  He's such a great hubby.

It is my turn to bring the treat for church today.  This is the last week we will be doing this until the lockdown is over.  Instead of me baking, we went to our favorite bakery.  We bought some cookies, but they gave the church two cakes.  They always do that for us.  We go when they are about to close and they want to get rid of the leftovers.  Besides which they love giving to the church.  Such nice people.  I have known the owners since the 1970s.

We also went to Shoprite and picked up our groceries.  Yes, I would rather do my own shopping and pick out my own things, but for right now at least this is the way to do it.  I make a grocery list, enter it onto their website, they do the shopping for me, and I pick it up.  There is only a $5 charge for them doing this.  Usually one person can go inside and pay for it, but yesterday everyone had to stay outside and they brought everything to us.

I haven't done a grocery haul in a while.  Frankly, it is so much easier to just put everything away instead of emptying a bag, taking a picture, putting it away and then on to the next bag.  But a few of you have mentioned the grocery haul in your comments over the past couple of weeks, so I thought I would do one for you.  Here's what we got this week.

Of course the most important person in our household is Jack.  At least in his eyes.  We got him some more canned food with a special one of turkey and carrots for Thanksgiving.  He has to have turkey too.  We also got a bag of dry food for the cats outside.

We have an automatic air freshener in the bathroom.  Every time we replace the cartridge, I buy another one so there is always one ready to go.  This time I got Fresh Waters.  Right now there is a citrus one in it.  (Joe's favorite)  We needed trash bags and were almost out of dishwasher tabs.

We go through the frozen fries like crazy.  I like to make them for breakfast with onions and an egg cracked over everything.  Joe asked for ice cream sandwiches.  And they are all his since I don't like them.

It's that time of year and Joe is on his eggnog kick again.  He will drink it from now until it is no longer available.  I needed some more lactose free milk.  And we were out of shredded cheddar cheese.  Now I can make some mac and cheese one night this week.

Joe loves milk.  He drinks it a lot.  We were out of it.

I made sure I had turkey gravy for Thursday.  I asked for tomato sauce last time and they didn't have the brand I wanted and offered a substitute. I said no.  Again this week they didn't have my brand but I really needed it so I said OK.  The shopper must have pulled the crushed tomatoes with basil by mistake and gave it to me.  But this was a happy accident because I am going to use it on spaghetti tomorrow.

I love the produce this time of year.  I got potatoes, onions, sweet potatoes and an acorn squash.

Oops, here's that acorn squash again.  Really, I got only one.  Hard to see but there is a head of Boston lettuce, Brussels sprouts, baby carrots and mushrooms.

Pie crust, pie crust and pie crust.  Neither Joe nor I can make decent pie crust so I buy this.  Pumpkin pies being made this week.  Also, I had a coupon for the Johnsonville sausage.  I love the brown sugar and honey ones.

And finally evaporated milk and vanilla for baking and Stove Top stuffing for Thanksgiving.  I think we are all set for the big day.

This year Joe and I are staying home for Thankgiving.  I rarely (as in only one time that I can remember in our marriage) cook Thanksgiving dinner and I am excited and looking forward to doing it.  I am going to be taking you along with me this week as I get everything ready.  It should be fun.

I told Joe we need to get the fridge emptied out as much as possible and cleaned before the big day.  We have two drawers and three shelves in our fridge so we are doing one a day.  We got the first drawer done yesterday and are doing the second drawer today.  I so hate cleaning the fridge but it's not so bad when I have someone helping me.

I am going to leave you with another of Pastor Ralph's messages.  I hope you enjoy it.

And with that, I am going to get going and get myself ready for church.  I'm so glad that it is still OK to attend.  Until tomorrow...

Kathy