I said "milk, bread, hot dogs..."

We're getting our first big snowstorm of the season tonight. Earlier today, while I was still at work, I texted Mike and said "I'll pick up the boys, but could you run to the store and pick up some milk, bread, hot dogs and hot chocolate?"

You know, the basics.

So when I checked Facebook shortly before I was ready leave work and saw this:



I quite honestly LOL'd. I think it's the funniest Facebook post my husband has ever made. I'm not sure if it was the caption that got me or the fact that he had strayed so far from my suggested list of items.

This is what a man-cart looks like...at least a cart for my men.

• Six different kinds of frozen pizza
• Lean Pockets
• Protein shakes and protein bars
• Hot dogs 
• Bread
• Waffles & frozen French toast (Who buys that? Even I can make that!)
• Syrup
• Two kinds of Oreos
• 3 kinds of crappy cereal 
• Milk
• And of course, Diet Coke

I think the only green he managed to pick up was the green on the Lean Pockets box. He does get points for going generic on many items and for using the Target Cartwheel. 

Charlie and Robbie were in heaven seeing the groceries unpacked, which means all of that food will last approximately 3-1/2 hours.

Mike hasn't caught on yet that you have to buy some food that they will only eat if they are really hungry -- things like carrots, apples, bananas, you know, the good-for-you stuff and things that require some work on your part and can't just be snarfed down straight out of the box.  Otherwise, the kids blow through it all like they haven't eaten in weeks.

I'm not complaining. Honestly. I'm glad to have been freed from the chaos that is a pre-snowpocalypse grocery store. But seriously, have you ever tried to warm up with a mug of Oreos?

How do I feed this thing?

I've been a parent for a little more than 15 years. So I know things. Parental type, family care type things. But one thing I haven't quite figured out is how to feed this:

My first child is a girl. Annie is a predictable eater. Yogurt, cheese, apples, pretzels, cucumber, ham sandwiches. When it comes to meal time, with the exception of breakfast which she prefers not to eat, when it's time to eat, she eats. Robbie, the little guy, a steady diet of cereal and he's happy.

This one? He is a tricky one. Ring the dinner bell and he comes to the table, protests already forming on his tongue.

"I don't like broccoli."

"Rice? Ewww."

"Can I make myself a sandwich?"

If the meal is not pasta, tacos or pizza, forget it.

Then there are all those other edible moments of the day -- after school, before and after soccer practice, before bed. Oh, he'll eat then. But not before he complains about the lack of food in the house.

Today for example. "Mom, you have to go to the store to buy more food," he whined in a more angry than whiny voice.

"I just went to the store."

"But there's nothing here."

Well, son, it may seem that there is nothing here because at this point you have eaten 3 popsicles, 4 bags of fruit snacks and 2 granola bars in the last 10 minutes. All of which was said in my head because I really wasn't in the mood to argue.

"Have a sandwich. There's peanut butter and jelly, and ham and cheese."

One PB&J later, he was still grousing about never having food in the house. And he does have a small point. I don't generally buy volumes of food at once. Usually about $100 worth at a time. That's for two reasons. 1. If I buy it, they will eat it. And 2. I try to space out our food expenditures over the month. Food is expensive, yo.

He is a really active kid, so I don't doubt that he gets hungry. Famished, even. But feeding our family of five, one of whom is a near-teenaged boy, is like feeding a family of nine.

It all makes me feel a little guilty. I can see him stretched out on some therapist's couch tracing his life troubles to the fact that his mother never had enough food in the house. In my own defense, our definitions of portion sizes differ. A serving of strawberries to me is 5- 6 strawberries. To Charlie, a serving of strawberries is a 1lb. clamshell package.
 
So today I asked him to make a list of the things he thinks should be available at our house at all times. This is what he came up with:

• apples
• bananas
• strawberries
• blueberries
• jelly, more jars
• mio shock (whatever nonsense that is)
• a lot of giant boxes of cereal
• chocolate chip, blueberry, and plain waffles
• protein bars -- labeled for Charlie and Dad
• energy drinks
• hot dogs
• brats
• cheese
• a lot more bread
• bagels
• hot chocolate

 So he likes fruits, crappy meats, carbs and stuff hawked by professional athletes on TV. In abundance.

I think I might need another part time job.

How my cart stacked up

I was at the grocery store this morning to pick up a few things for the next couple of days. (I haven't taken the time to plan ahead any further.) When I got in line, I noticed that I was behind my old doctor. She didn't recognize me -- it's been a long time and I'm sure that she had hundreds of patients in that practice. Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to see what a primary care physician puts in her cart at the grocery store.

This is what she had:

• Activia yogurt
• Whole-grain pasta
• Protein bars
• 2 gallons of water
• Strawberries
• Lower-sodium bacon

Here's what I had in mine:

• Cheddar cheese
• Vegetable broth
• Carrots
• Bananas
• Hamburger patties
• Hot dogs
• Buns
• Mini bagels
• Trash bags

So all in all, if she had recognized me, I wouldn't have been too embarrassed by what was in my cart.  What was in your last cart of groceries?

Groundhog Day

Do you ever feel like you're living in the movie "Groundhog Day," the one with Bill Murray who just keeps reliving the same thing over and over again?

I sat down with my healthy, packed lunch (yay me!) to do a little lunchtime blogging. The subject at hand is food: boredom with it and lack of it. As I began to formulate the post in my brain, it started sounding familiar. So I did a little searching on my own blog and found this:

How much is my time worth?

Yes. That's what I wanted to say. Except that great 3-week dinner menu I created is gone because I foolishly wrote it on paper and didn't save it electronically anywhere. I had forgotten about the weekly dinner "formula," which would come in super handy right now because it calls for 2-3 meatless nights -- perfect for Annie's continuing vegetarianism.

Oh, and I'm thinking maybe I'll make my own hot chocolate mix. I bought hot chocolate in the little packets at the store last week and they were gone in a matter of a few days. Again, been there, blogged that.

I'm thinking I should make some of my own other things, too. Things the kids (and the grown ups) can snack on. I try to keep apples and bananas in the house. Carrots are another staple. But foods like granola bars and graham crackers, yogurt and pretzels seem to have a shelf-life of about 30 minutes once they cross the threshold of the front door.

Each person has his or her favorites, so there's not one person to blame. Charlie will plow through the fruits and veggies (and almost everything else that's not nailed down). Annie downs the yogurt and the pretzels. Robbie is the milk and cereal man. He would eat cereal (Honey Nut Cheerios, usually) for every meal, guzzling almost a gallon of milk a day, if I let him. And Mike likes to dig into the lunchmeat and bread. Of course, I'm not without guilt. Apples, graham crackers and peanut butter, and tortilla chips and salsa are my go-to snacks.

But the point is, we seem to go through groceries so quickly that what I'm going to is the store or the pizza delivery menu. Too often.

Getting back to the pre-planned menu is one solution. I think that once-a-month cooking might be another one. But what about those snacks? Are there healthy and economical snacks you keep on hand? Do you buy them or make them? Do you lock them up or just give your family the evil eye when the pantry door's been opened one too many times? Help a mom out so we're not both reliving this post in another six months.

How much is my time worth?

Mike got his last paycheck from his former employer yesterday. I won't get paid again until February 25th. So I'm trying to be very mindful about stretching that money over the next two and a half weeks.

To that end, I sat down to make a 3-week dinner menu, trying a new format some cyber friends suggested.

Sundays - Crockpot meal

Mondays - Chicken/beef meal

Tuesdays - Meatless meal

Wednesdays - Mexican (which may or may not be meatless)

Thursdays - Leftovers

Fridays - Pizza/sandwiches (until Lent begins, at which point this category will switch with Saturday's meatless option)

Saturdays - Meatless meal

Once I had my menu made out (only 1 repeat in 21 days, pretty good if I do say so myself), I sat down to make the shopping list. I spent 10 minutes debating whether or not I should bake my own bread and make my own hot chocolate mix. Seriously, I could not decide for the life of me.

I ended up deciding I'd make my own dinner breads, but would buy the sandwich breads and the hot chocolate. All right, already! Back to the list. I have some meat already purchased and in the freezer, so that's good. The rest of the list looks pretty manageable.

Then it was time to gather up the coupons to match what was on my list. Ideally, I would have made my menu with the grocery ad in front of me, then matched coupons to that. But I figured I was good to get the menu made in the first place. So first I went to coupons.com and clicked then printed all the coupons that appealed to me. Then I went to Meijer.com, clicked through the Meal Box and printed those coupons.

As if I wasn't couponed enough by then, I dug through last Sunday's paper for the coupon inserts to see if there were any coupons I need there. (Still haven't gotten that coupon system down I put on my 2010 to do list).

At that point, I needed to lay down for a nap because I'd been working on this freaking menu and shopping list for something like 3 hours! Feeling too guilty to nap, I stayed with it, marking the list as to what I'd buy at Meijer and what I'll buy at Aldi. Of course, neither store is very close to us -- that would be Marsh and Target. But their prices are higher - unless I have my 10% off shopping certificate for filling 10 prescriptions at the Target pharmacy.

Ordinarily, I do my big shopping at Meijer, but my sister swears by the produce at Aldi. I stopped in there the other day and some of the things were pretty cheap. However, shopping there requires a to-do list all its own. Have cash -- and a quarter for the cart -- ready. Bring your own shopping bags. Leave the coupons at home.

So now I have my 3-week menu, my Meijer list, my Aldi list, my printed coupons, my newspaper coupons and my obsessive mind wondering if I should get any of this stuff at Costco.

What don't I have?

Groceries.

Think I might have to go get those tomorrow because all this work getting ready to go shopping has quite frankly worn me out and left me thinking, "just how much is my time worth anyway?"

(And you know as soon as I get home, I'll be pulling out the Sharpie marker and putting half of the groceries into hiding. Otherwise all my budgeting and planning will be eaten right before my eyes!)