Grocery Store: Then and Now

Today, one of the cute young ladies in our ward (local congregation) shared her exciting news: she's getting married. She was joking that she isn't sure she knows how to grocery shop well enough to be married, but we reassured her that this was a skill that she would easily learn.

Then I started thinking about grocery shopping when D and I were first married. We'd go to the store together as a Friday night date. We'd lazily saunter up and down the isles and occasionally pick up a new item. It was, actually, a lot of fun!! And then, as life got busier (aka twins) D's stops at the grocery store became fewer and fewer.

My grocery store enthusiasm really didn't wane for quite some time--even when D was gone. For the first time in my life after the twins were born, I actually started making lists. . . .oh, what joy to cross an item off--as if I had accomplished something spectacular. I could even get that shopping 'high' as a decided between one brand or another, one treat or another. But, the 'high' was a non-guilty one because the money I spent at the grocery store was already budgeted for. To top things off--there was nothing funner than having two sleeping babies nestled happily in their carts.

As the years have wore on, I find all the joys of grocery shopping have slowly evaporated-- my cute, gentle babies quickly turned into tantruming toddlers, then whiny preschoolers, and now they don't stop asking for treats at the store. Where I used to enjoy using a grocery store trip as a way to get out of the house, I find now I long for a day when I don't have to LEAVE the house and shuttle bodies around. Now that I know every square inch of the grocery story, the mystery is gone--hence shoppers 'high' doesn't exist for me-nope, I try to get in, get out and be done as quickly as possible.

Anyway, I realize this is a pointless post, but I just want to say that I am SO excited to grocery shop just me and my husband someday, probably a long way away, in the future.