Week in Review: Cold, Grocery Shopping

First, let's get the weather out of the way: it has been coo - ooo - ooo -ld here this past week. When I looked at the thermometer outside of our kitchen/dining room on Friday morning, it read 20 degrees below zero.

Of course, that thermometer is in the shade.

On the up side of winter, the days are getting noticeably longer -- the evening sky around 5:00 on Tuesday was a beautifully glowing blue, seemingly moonlight-infused in all areas of the sky. And the full moon itself was absolutely stunning as it glittered in the sky. (I believe the most appropriate name for this full moon of January is "Moon of Strong Cold.")

We had no babysitter on Wednesday (somehow, she didn't feel like dealing with preschoolers on the day of a double root canal. Huh.), so the four-year-old and I were sort-of home together all day -- except that we went to the grocery store in the morning and her church choir in the evening. We also made cookies (peanut butter cookies with Hershey's kisses on top), and played Play-Doh®.

At the grocery store, I replenished supplies of things like frozen pizza and hot tea, and put her in charge of finding six General Mills cereals that had a "10" on the sign -- since they were running a deal where, if you bought six G.M. cereals, it took $10 instantly off your bill at checkout, plus you got coupons for free milk and eggs on future trips. I required that two of the six choices be varieties of Cheerios, and only ended up with Cocoa Puffs as something I wouldn't normally purchase. We also picked up a tad bit of guacamole from the deli, since it was being prepared on a cooking show the four-year-old and her father were watching in the past week, and one of our dinner table conversations was about how avocados are "healthy for your body." She also helped unload the cart at the checkout lane; as she was hoisting full jugs of milk and 64-oz. bottles of juice out of the cart, the elderly couple behind us commented, "Wow, that looks heavy." To which her response was a confident, "Yep. But I'm a strong girl."

I also had a book group meeting (to discuss The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck), and a women's group meeting this week. I used a bit of time before book group to go to Bath and Body Works in the nearby mall and smell the scents of spring.