the best grocery trip ever.

today is just one of those days where i really feel like complaining. we havent had any hot water for almost two days now, james lost his phone (his 3rd one since weve had sprint), the weathers been gloomy and weird, all the housework is behind schedule because i still feel funny from tuesdays procedure, and i somehow lost the photos i took for the post i was going to do today. but im not going to complain about any of those things. 

because last night, i had a really, really, really great trip to the grocery store. 

first of all i went by myself, which made everything so much faster and easier (seriously, why dont i do that more often?). second this was kind of a light week grocery-wise (we didnt finish all the meals on last weeks meal plan), and i managed to get out of sprouts for only $14. and thats including treating myself to a cider and some spontaneous cashews. 

then i went to vons. heres a picture of my receipt:

see the "total savings value" at the bottom? this is my main way of judging the success of a shopping trip, and 67% is the highest score ive gotten since i started keeping track at the beginning of the year (excluding the trip when i got the sausage for jamess party, but that wasnt really groceries). i really wasnt expecting to get anything exciting, just a few things to fill in the gaps in our meal plan, and lunchmeat for james. 

but then i went to the clearance rack, and what did i find? gluten free treats!

i normally dont buy this kind of thing because it usually costs about twice as much as im willing to pay for it, but at half price it was totally worth the splurge. i havent tried the brownie mix yet ( ill let you what i think about it when i do), but we did eat some of the pecan shortbread cookies last night, and they were certainly adequate. kind of dry and crumbly, definitely not worth the $5 they normally cost, but tasty enough. 

at this point i would have been totally stoked about the trip, but it kept getting better! in the meat section i found some of the sausage on my list in the clearance, which made it negative 26 cents after my coupons. then right next to it was seven packages of lunchmeat, which after all the discounts rang up for about 60 cents each. now james is all stocked up on meats (for a while) and it only cost us $4. 

THEN when i thought things just couldnt get any better, there was no line at the checkout. and the vons i usually go to has the WORST checkout situation, ive never seen more than three registers open. last night there were only two, but in some kind of christmas miracle there was no line at either one. so not only did i have the best grocery run ive had in a LONG time, but i managed to do it in record time too. 

and that was just the kind of thing i needed this week. 

this is a weird week.

lately ive been working really hard on becoming a productive member of society, mostly through the use of lists (you can read more about my relationship with lists here), and its starting to feel natural. as of today im midway through my TENTH week of getting all my lists done, and then some. seriously, ive gotten my weekly chore routine working so efficiently that lately ive even had time to do crafts, take naps, and even have a spontaneous picnic dinner at disneyland on monday. me, who worries about everything and never does anything spontaneous. heres a photo since i know you dont believe me:

see, theres alice and my sister emily in line for the jungle cruise, at night. alice isnt a big fan of the jungle cruise. i promise she enjoyed our hummus picnic and ice cream and the winnie the pooh ride and watching fantasmic (which i never, ever stay for, but we made an exception because james has never seen it), but i didnt get any decent pictures of those things. 

but thats not why this week is weird. this week is weird because yesterday i had surgery. ok, maybe thats a little dramatic. actually i had an endoscopy to confirm my celiac diagnosis and check for acid damage in my stomach (because i refuse to take prescription antacids indefinitely "in case it makes me feel better"). but i had to not eat anything all day and check in to the hospital and get anesthesia so im going to go ahead and call it surgery. i was hoping to have some pictures of my guts for you, but they said they would mail them to me in a couple weeks (lame) so youll have to settle for a low quality cell phone photo of me waking up from sedation:

the procedure itself only takes about five minutes, but if you include all the shenanagains surrounding it, it takes a couple of hours. thats not the part that messed up my week.

it was having to sleep for the whole rest of the day. and all night. and spend all of today in a weird, drug induced fog thats thrown me off course. see, i dont do well with medications, i never have. it took me weeks to recover from getting my wisdom teeth out, i took ibuprofen after my c-section. i actually had an endoscopy when i was 17 and i vividly remember being incapacitated for a long time afterwards.

i asked specifically if there was a way for the them to give me either less medication, or something that would metabolize faster and not put me out for so long, but this proved difficult since doctors REALLY dont like it when patients ask questions, especially if they involve said patient not wanting narcotics (which seems really, really backwards to me). i did eventually communicate what i was asking for (at first the nurse thought i was asking for no sedation at all), and they did end up giving me something that was supposed to metabolize faster, but still ended up sleeping most of yesterday afternoon (except when i needed to eat). and after my mom took us back home (she was the designated driver for the day since i was in no shape to be driving anywhere) i just went straight to bed. 

so today ive just been trying to play catch up, which is pretty difficult given that my head is killing me and for most of the day i havent been able to focus on anything for more than a few minutes. but i got our meal pland done, and i think ill make it to the grocery store tonight. 

and maybe by the end of the week things will be back to normal. hopefully. 

backyard party. an outfit post.

i wasnt sure what to post about this weekend. i spent this week really experimenting in the kitchen and was looking forward to sharing the results, but everything i did (spicy pickled carrots, dill pickles, and mayonnaise) just fell flat (not spicy, weird and gross, and not even a food, respectively). thankfully the carrots are still edible and i was able to salvage the ruined mayonnaise into a caesar salad dressing so all thats getting thrown out is 48 cents of cucumber. 

my brother turned 16 this week and yesterday and my mom threw one of her fantastic parties. i do plan on posting about that, however im still working on convincing her to work with me on doing a guest post about her party magic. 

so instead i figured id just do an outfit post, heres what i wore to the party:

dress: victorias secret, cardigan: target, leggings: cotton on, moccasins: minnetonka, necklace and pin: vintage, glasses: zenni optical

 im really unsure of what to wear for the summertime. last summer i was nursing the worlds hungriest baby, and the summer before that i was very hugely pregnant with said baby, so its been a long time since ive had much freedom in my summer dressing. 

right now i have exactly one pair of shorts that fits, so ive mostly been wearing a lot of dresses. i recently dug this one out of the back of my closet, its kind of old (my grandma gave it to me at my bridal shower), but it fits really well (cant say that about most of the clothes i own) and i really love the print. i think ill be wearing this one a lot. 

its still gets pretty cold in the evenings, and my brothers party was outside so i added my favorite cardigan and leggings (which i got for the incredible price of $6). ive really gotten out of the habit of, you know, accessorizing my outfits, but i did remember to wear a cool necklace that i got at an estate sale (its one of my favorites because it has a secret compartment, presumably intended for either drugs or mermaid voices). 

i realize that this isnt exactly the most exciting outfit post ever, but my moccasins have kind of a funny story: 

see, back when james and i had first started dating and i lived in lomita and he lived in prescott valley, i tagged along with my aunt and cousins on a four day long trip to phoenix so that james and i could go on a date (ridiculous, i know). anyways, on the way back we stopped at this weird indian themed store in quartzite, arizona and i got these really cute soft soled moccasins. and i wore them all the time, until the soles started to wear out and they always had sand in them (by that time james and i were married and living in arizona), so i stopped wearing them and eventually, when we were getting ready to move to california, i found them and noticed that they both had unrepairable holes in the soles and reluctantly threw them out and missed them ever since. then, MONTHS later, james and i took a trip up to westwood for some diddy reese cookies. we impulsively stopped by a vintage shop that i had never seen before, and what do i find right in the middle of the shoe table? the EXACT SAME pair of moccasins. IN MY SIZE. for half the price i would have paid for a new pair. so of course i bought them. and wear them all the time. and have just had to accept that im just that kind of person that replaces their all old things with new versions of the exact same thing.