Song of the day....well, there wasn’t any. What with it being grocery-shopping day, I’m not surprised either.
Yesterday was a pretty good day, all things considered, though. Started off a little late, what with summer time throwing me out of whack, and my alarm giving the spirit, but all in all lots got done.
My bed got a solid remodel, and now sports a big storage underneath a huge spring that actually manages to lift up with mattress and all. It took some designing, fixing and them wood work to hide the metal contraption, but now it looks downright pretty and solid.
When I finally finished with it ‘round eight in the evening (in full daylight still, hah) I was so darn tired from it (illness is such a persistent little bugger) I could have crawled into it right then.
I didn’t, of course: always lots of other things to do…in this case editing, naturally. Managed a solid nine pages during the last four hours of the evening, which was good enough for me, all things considered. Still sick and then still managing a four-hour edit is not all bad, and only one hour less than usual. 70 pages in the full 330…we’ll get there yet. Hah.
I am pleasantly surprised at how very few errors there are in the manuscript. Seriously, this is the rough material, completely unedited, unread, and let’s face it, unseen, seeing as I wrote it straight through without ever once going back to check…and yet there are only few errors: some typos, a missing word here and there, a sentence turned around, of course…but nothing as bad as I’d expected and feared. There are actually entire paragraphs that don’t need work at all.
Suffice it to say that I am properly stunned about the entire thing.
Added to the wonderful realization that it is pretty darn good already, is that it feels like reading a book for the very first time. Hah. Seriously, I’m going over pages I wrote thinking, “huh? I wrote that? When?” It’s great!
Going to bed last night was a wonderful reward after a job well done.
Which brings us, inevitably to today, darn it: Grocery shopping day! Lemme just get it out right now: Aaaaaargh!!!
It was a long one, I tell ya. It started off early too, seeing as we had to go to the bank as well. Took us a full hour too, and then we still had to head for town to get two weeks worth of supplies for nine people.
So yeah, I’m always complaining about grocery shopping day, so I figure I might as well take this splendid opportunity to share the experience.
Shop # 1:
The hobby shop: mom needs oil paint and this is our first stop of the day. We rush inside, get the sap green, black and white, and then are back outside on the road. It doesn’t really count as the first shop, though. It is minor, all things considered.
Shop # 2:
This is the biggest shopping we do on this particular. We used to save it for last, but then we realized that we might as well start with it while we’re still fresh, rather than drag our butts through it when we’re already exhausted. We hit it (little sister, big brother and I) with three carts and separate sectional lists of the supplies that need to be gathered. I head off to the canned section, the fresh produce and then slowly work myself to the back of the store, picking up little sister n the way until we come upon big brother by the fridges, finishing the last bit of his list. Yay. Talk about excellent timing, eh? We headed straight for the registers, unloaded everything on the treadmill counter (for the life of me I can’t recall what they’re really called), reloaded and then hauled the lot out to the car. There we could unload again, putting everything in boxes and bags, and then at long last into the car. Half full we depart.
Shop # 3:
Is a small speciality store from country of origin, where, miracle above miracle we only move out of with a minimal of two tiny bags. Hah. Getting there took twenty minutes, though, and heading back takes the same amount.
Shop # 4:
Big supermarket chain that mostly caters to foreigners. It also holds the DVD rental, where we need to return Surrogates with Bruce Willis (oddly enough for a Bruce film, it was disappointing, darn it) and rent a couple more.
The only things we need to buy in the store are hair paint for our tenant’s care taker, mom, and some sunscreen 30 for our tenant.
Shop # 5:
Big frozen specialty shop fifteen minutes further into the city. It takes a good fifteen minutes to go through it, pack up five big bags and pay before we’re outside and head across the court for some do it yourself articles. *snort*
Shop # 6:
Hardware store. Yeah, now we’re talking. I drool at the power tool section for about five minutes, we buy three boxes of screws, varnish and a shovel. Another twenty minutes lost, darn it; time goes too bloody fast. We were starting to lose steam ‘round here, considering we’re all still coughing occasionally and the weather could have been better. I did enjoy what little sun there was, though.
Shop # 7:
A foray into the massive media store; peering at laptops, blinking at huge TV screens and then heading on over to the back where the TDT machines are stored. What with Spanish TV going digital officially, as of this year, there’s dire need for one of those nifty little machines that just freak me out when they’ve got fifty different brands (and prices) for the same darn thing. Stupid machines.
Nothing gets bought in this store, thank gawd.
Shop # 8:
Luckily there was no need for the pet store today, yay. The smaller pets are still supplied enough to get through to the next shopping day. We did need to check out sales in the third supermarket, because this particular one often has sales on laundry detergent and such.
Only a few items get added to the supplies in the end, seeing as the stuff we need isn’t on sale, and before you know it (sucking orange juice) we’re back on our way to the next place.
Shop # 9:
Fourth supermarket, specializing in mostly fresh produce. Veggies, bread and cereal (the younger sibs’ favorite) are added to the pile; a whole cart full no less, and by this time it is already past five in the afternoon (four and a half hours after our departure) and the smaller stores are open again after the three hour “siesta” break that is normal ‘round these parts.
Shop # 10:
Chinese Euro shop. We love this place, especially for garden stuff, a watch for little sister and cheap underwear that will actually stay in place. Hah. Big brother needs a calendar to keep track of our gardening schedule and I need more paper.
We are also regulars, and the girl behind the counter is always laughing and chatting (in Spanish, even though she knows we seriously suck at it) and offering us a present by the time she’s tallied up our purchases and we’re about ready to depart. Such a nice girl.
Shop # 11:
Last shop of the day, yes, another supermarket; a German one this time, where we buy a nice batch of vegetable seeds, some teas (they have the best chamomile that is still affordable) and a sale on coffee. If all goes well, we won’t need to buy any for a month now. Hah.
And that concludes today’s shopping, thank gawd. Four less than the last two times, and due to a reroute on the way home, (darn road works have been going on for a full year now, darn it!) it took us almost an hour longer than usual.
I can tell you that I was seriously bushed by the time we got home, unloaded the overfull car…we’d actually put down the back couch, leaving only one seat for little sister…and put everything in place. Seriously, I’m amazed I even managed this blog, ‘cause I was looking at the entire writing of it rather bleakly.
Well, I’ve got to go! We’re watching 2012. I’ll let you know if I found it remotely interesting.
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