So it’s Monday.  Again.  The bright side is that it’s the last day of August.  Don’t let the door hit you in the rear on your way out, August.  I’m onto to bigger and better (and cooler) things.

Still, as happy as I am to see August end, I wouldn’t have minded another day or two of weekend.  It was a busy one around here and busy weekends always seem to be over way too soon.

Kile got paid on Friday night and since he gets paid once a month (the joys of being a state employee), we do the bulk of our shopping for the month when he gets paid.  Unfortunately, this stresses Kile out since he doesn’t like to spend money, no matter how necessary, and when he gets stressed he gets crabby.  And when he gets crabby, it rubs off on me.   Still, I did a pretty good job of deflecting his crabbiness all weekend.  And if I had remembered to take my thyroid pills yesterday, I probably would have been able to deflect it yesterday as well.

Alas, I did not take my pill and alas, I did not deflect.  By the end of the day, I was tired and I just absorbed it.  And when I absorb a bad mood off of someone… well it ain’t pretty.  And it’s not fun.  But the upshot is that I took my pill FIRST THING this morning.  I wasn’t interested in having another down day today.  It’s a Monday and I need all the help I can get!

ANYHOW… Saturday was our monthly B.O.O.S.T. (Big Ol’ Obnoxious Shopping Trip) at Walmart.  We actually went to Kohl’s first to look for shoes for Harry.  That child’s feet are growing at alarming rates.  He’s almost out of kid sizes!  We weren’t able to find anything though and as Kile was crabby, we decided it was best to just move on.  We had lunch at Chili’s before heading over to Walmart and that was nice.  We don’t eat out at sit down restaurants that much anymore.

The grocery shopping went pretty well and I think we remembered almost everything on our list.  Which is impressive because we had a LOT of stuff on our list.  We chinzed on our shopping last month because of the trip to Florida, so we were pretty much out of pretty much everything.  It was not a small trip and it was not cheap.  But at least now we have everything we need for the month, for the most part.  Perhaps maybe now lunchtime won’t be a source of stress around here!  It’s hard to find food to give the little ones when you have just graham crackers and granola bars.  Even moreso when one of your wee ones is as picky as Liam is.

Believe it or not, this all took up the better part of the day on Saturday.  We were wiped out come Saturday night!

Sunday brought more shopping through.  We headed over to Legends to do some more shopping for shoes.  On the way, Kile stopped at In n’ Out and we grabbed some burgers and fries to go.  We ate at one of the picnic tables at Legends which was really a fabulous idea.   Or it would have been fabulous if it hadn’t been so windy.  Until Subway opens up over there, there just aren’t a lot of options for quick, cheap dining.  That would be my only complaint about it.   Otherwise, Legends is awesome.

We finally found Harry some shoes at the Sketchers store there.  We also got the little ones some croc-style shoes that were on a fantastic sale.  After that we checked out the Carter’s outlet store.  We were hoping to find some clothes for Liam since we never seem to have enough clothes for the poor kid these days.  But we did get him and Evie their Christmas jammies.  So one present down, many to go!

But our shopping was not done there!  We headed over to Michael’s where I had some specific things to look for: a container for my cloth diaper laundry detergent, some knitting notions, and a scrapbook for our Disney vacation memorabilia.  Sam’s Club was next and we had some very specific things to get there.  Including chips and snacks for Harry’s lunches, frozen stuff for the deep freeze, etc and so forth.  Luckily, we thought ahead and had a cooler in the back of the van.  We packed the frozen stuff in there before heading over to Whole Foods.

Yep, we weren’t done yet.  We ALWAYS have to go to Whole Foods!   We got some fruit, some cheese, some laundry stuff for me… and we got a pizza for dinner!  Which meant:  it was time to go home.  At last.

The pizza was awesome.  But of course it was!  And it was the perfect dinner because were all beyond tired.

Like I said, last night was kind of hard emotionally for me and I entirely blame the lack of thyroid medication yesterday.  I really do need to stay on top of taking those pills.  At the very least.

And now I feel like I need another weekend to recover from my weekend.  OY.

So what did you do this weekend? Did you spend as much money as we did?  Because I’m starting to see why Kile was so crabby about it.  UGH.

Okay, so maybe not a proper blog post quite yet.  Things are still a little hectic today, even though I’m getting back to “real life” (snort… what’s that?).  I’m getting some knitting business off the ground at last which makes me so happy you can’t possibly believe how happy it makes me.  And there are so many things I want to do, try, see, learn and experience that I’m having a hard time concentrating on ANYTHING.  Seriously.  You should see the state of my Google Reader.  It’s shameful.

But I wanted to share some pictures I took with my BRAND. NEW. CAMERA on Saturday night.  They’re nothing special, but just me having a great time and trying out some new things.  I’m ridiculously excited about this camera.  I literally CANNOT wait to play with it some more.

The very first picture I took with the new camera.  Believe it or not, I took this sitting in the van at the gas station at Sam’s Club.  I zoomed in on this funky looking tree next to the gas station that had the Atlantis Hotel-Casino in the background.  Not fabulous, but sorta cool.

As well as having a very messy face, Liam is excited about the new camera too.  Still at the gas station.

Taken from, you guessed it, the gas station.  Sam’s Club is where I got this precious, precious new camera.  I love it so.  (That’s the camera AND Sam’s Club, fyi.)

I love playing with street lights and headlights at night.  This camera makes it SO EASY.

Mmm… wine.  Taken at Whole Foods.

Hello, pretty flower!  Whole Foods has some of the prettiest flowers I’ve seen in any grocery store.

The bookshelf in my room.  A portion of my insane Nora Roberts collection and some knick-knacks from my grandmother.

I played with post-processing on this photo to make it look kinda grungy and antique-y.  And no, that’s not dust on the lampshade there. *cough*

I’m warning you now, there’s probably going to be a lot of pictures on this here blog in the future.  I’m having WAY too much fun.

So despite my husband declaring that it is a store inhabited by snobby old bitches, we found ourselves at Whole Foods for the third weekend in a row.  And, I gotta say, I pretty much love it there.  I love the produce department where you can sample sweet, tangy oranges, crisp grapes and juicy pineapple to your hearts content, the pungant cheese department where they have more cheese than I’ve ever seen in one place in my life, the abundant selection of wine, the extensive selection of meats in the meat department, the tantalizing treats in the bakery along with the fabulous selection of bread… I could go on and on and on.

But holy jeebus, it’s expensive.

We picked up a package of diapers for Liam (we don’t have quite enough cloth diapers for him to wear them full time), a bag more of the same apples we got and loved last week and a bag of oranges for $20.  GULP.  Still.  It’s a beautiful store and I wouldn’t mind very much if I could just set up a tent and LIVE THERE.

It’s different from Wild Oats (which is what we had before) and Trader Joes (which still exists in town, as far as I know).  We always felt out of place sohpping at either of those stores.  Like perhaps we weren’t a part of the “club” and would be outed as total frauds.  And those stores just didn’t feel quite as accessible.  The aisles were crowded and unorganized, the store at large was pretty small and the selection was wee.  Not so with Whole Foods.  No, Whole Foods is a mecca of consumerism.  And they even have a fireplace and some couches up front for if you need to sit down and take a load off for a few.  Now that’s a concept I can get behind!

As we were driving home, we realized our shopping can neatly divided into one of four categories.  The vast majority of our shopping is done on the supah-cheap at Walmart.  Then there’s the bulk and other budget-related shopping which is done at Sam’s Club.  We go to Whole Foods for our fancy-schmancy stuff.  When there’s an ingredient that we’re unlikely to find elsewhere or when we really want to get quality, that’s where to go.  And then we have our mid-week Emergency Shopping that is done at the Smith’s that is just five minutes down the road.  It is neither cheap like Walmart so it’s out for our majority shopping and the quality isn’t that fantastic so it’s not a fancy store by any means.  But it is close and that’s something neither Whole Foods or Walmart can boast.

And wow.  Yes, I just toally did an entire blog post about grocery stores.  It’s a slow weekend around here, what can I say?