PICKY, PICKY  

I have to admit I'm particular about grocery shopping.

I don't make a list on my phone—it's handwritten.  (Okay, it's old-fashioned)

At the top of the page are the dinner menus for each day of the week.  Below that, I list fruits and veggies, the first department customers approach when they enter the store.  My goal is to make my list mirror the layout of the store to make grocery shopping fast and efficient.

After completing the list, I circle foods with a pink marker to check how many we have on hand like apples, oranges, and soups to get an accurate count.  Then, I rewrite the list.  Why?  I'm a neat-freak.  Writing the list twice sounds crazy, but for me it has to be easy to read.  I want to glance at the list, reach for the item, and move on to the next one.  Quickly.

One neat grocery list. 

If you were to map my steps, you'd find that I begin in produce, stroll through the bakery, go to the meat department, the bread aisle, condiment aisle, canned goods, cereals, baking goods, paper products, pet products, snacks, dairy, frozen foods and if needed, the pharmacy department.  All of which takes about twenty-five minutes. 

There is also a system to loading my cart.  I place two small sacks in the child-seat and they are perfect for holding apples, plums, peaches, broccoli, asparagus, and green peppers.  A sturdy bag goes in the basket of the cart for larger produce items.  Smaller cloth bags are for dairy and frozen foods, meats, and boxes of cereal and pasta and canned goods.  Laundry detergent and milk don't need to be bagged since they have handles. Birdseed and paper towels ride under the cart.  

For the most part, shopping for groceries is easy and quick.  But there are times when it can be challenging.  Occasionally, the store has run out of the item that I need.  Most of the time it is not a big deal.  But if the store doesn't carry a major ingredient for a recipe I'll be cooking that week, I might get a little panicky.  This forces me to come up with a new recipe on the spot without being able to refer to a cookbook for the ingredients.  A lot of times my go-to recipe is spaghetti and meat sauce, which requires purchasing only three ingredients: crushed tomatoes, spaghetti, and beef. 

One of the biggest challenge I've had is learning the placement of foods after Kroger decides to rearrange the aisles.  It takes me weeks to remember the new homes of grocery items.  This change makes it more difficult for me to make out my shopping list because I have to remember the new layout of the store.  And sometimes, the new arrangement doesn't make any sense.  To this day, I'm still confused as to why the diced tomatoes aren't placed in the canned veggie aisle and why the yogurt is not with the dairy department.

Go ahead, you can say it:  picky, picky.  It's true.  I won't deny it.  Going to the grocery takes over an hour (counting the drive and the time it takes to clean, shelf, and refrigerate the groceries) and several sheets of note paper, but it usually goes smoothly and I've got it down to a science—and that makes this writer one happy shopper.

À la prochaine!