Yesterday I woke and got ready to be at Aldi when it opened. I had a list (our fav Aldi snacks, fresh produce, milk, coffee, cheese, meat) and had planned on maybe grabbing more rice and one more thing of toilet paper (ha! yeah right, like it'd be there). When I got there, this was the line:
I sent this picture to Evan and then had to calm myself down because this was what I had been worried about. No one was rude, everyone was polite and kind, but we were all on a mission, and most of us had hand written lists in our hands. A few people had on masks, but I've been seeing people driving around with masks for a bit now.
They were completely out of eggs, flour, toilet paper (told ya), rice, most of the Mexican food selection (including tortillas), almost all the bread was gone, there was no chicken left but the drumsticks. There was tons of fresh produce, a good supply of milk (and I could take more than 2!), a good selection of pork and beef, no sliced cheese at all, but blocks of cheese was still available. They did have paper towels, which was good because I saw them and remember we only had 3 rolls left, but no baby wipes. Oh, and their frozen selection did not have much left to choose. They had whole hams (I'm just now realizing those are probably for Easter...), but I don't have room for a whole ham to live in my freezer right now. They did have their Winking Owl wines discounted and that was MUCH APPRECIATED. The lines there were long and for as many people as there were when it first opened, there were that many people coming in as I was leaving, so it was a steady stream of people.
I think not seeing the flour, eggs, and rice were hardest for me. That actually made me feel really wound up and I had to kind of talk myself down. I definitely cried in the car. I ended up making another trip to Valli because they always have the best produce and a great selection of meat (they were low on chicken, too, but did have all the produce). No eggs, no toilet paper, no rice, and they were almost out of flour. The lines there were ridiculously long, the longest I have ever seen them. Again, people were kind, workers were patient, but it was surreal.
I think we're going to mainly use Walmart pick up from now on, not only to avoid being in public, but for my anxiety levels.
All that to say, I did leave with groceries. We are going to be fine for the next few weeks with another produce trip needed in probably a week or so. But, I didn't have it in me to blog yesterday. I decided to hole up and really dive into my book instead (which is wonderful!!! The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes) and watch the younger kids pretend to be superheroes and villians and play with kinetic sand.
Today, we had nothing planned but art projects we didn't get to during the week. Evan tried out the sourdough recipe from the baking cookbook I'm working my way through. He made the starter at the beginning of the week and then made sourdough bread bowls for us to eat leftover soup tomorrow for lunch! My favorite!
I am endlessly grateful for all of the art classes and tutorials sprouting up all over the internet. Painting with Thomas is not relaxing (by any means of the word), but he loves it, and once he paints his masterpiece, he tends to wander off and the rest of us can then take our time finishing longer projects.
We are doing some sort of art project almost daily right now, which is not our norm, so I am going to be doing some rearranging to accommodate all of the supplies we have gathered (both from the basement and Amazon) to avoid getting them off of my dining room table.
I also read a lot today and banned most screens after 11am to avoid the rage that screen time tends to bring to my children when I let them use them too long.
We also have reinstituted saying our Favorite and Least Favorite at dinner time. I had wanted to bring it back to practice being quiet when people talk and listening to what they say (because dinner had become one, giant scream-fest), but I think it's going to be a great way to talk about what's happening and to look for positives. Everyone's Least Favorite is that we're stuck in quarantine, but everyone has had Favorites.
I'm worried about people I know starting to get sick, but I'm thankful for all these ways of communicating with them to keep tabs on them. I hate the news, but am checking it daily because I need to and have to. I'm trying to just think about tomorrow and not what next week will bring. So, with all of that turmoil, our plans today, our mood today in our house, was a balm.
It was a good day.
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