Life Scams vs. Price Scams

This is such a scam. I used to pride myself on my killer immune system. I mean, I DON'T GET SICK. Maybe a cold once in awhile, maybe a 5-hour stomach bug once every few years, but this is getting ridiculous!! I've been sick with one thing after another for the past three weeks! And maybe if I were in college and got to skip class and cuddle up on the couch drinking tea and watching chick flicks that would be one thing... but as my life is now, that is just not an option, not on any level. Ugh.

Yesterday I woke up feeling coughy. Anja and I spent the whooooooole day outside (except for naptime, of course) taking stroller walks, and then later in the afternoon walking up and down the sidewalk in front of the library together, picking up sticks and pointing out piles of dog poo. We came in just for enough time to have a little snack before my sister came over to drop of some SUPER CUTE shoes for Anja, and we all sat outside and after they left, we stayed sitting on the steps playing with sticks and dirt until Martin came home. By that time I was feeling pretty lousy. I wasn't hungry and I was coughing and my chest hurt. (My chest still hurts today, but I really think it's just hearburn.) It didn't end up mattering that I wasn't hungry though, because while I'd planned to make corned beef & cabbage for dinner, when I called my mom around 4:00 to ask her how to make it, she told me that corned beef has to cook all day. So there went dinner. It didn't matter at all, in the end. Mrs. Schap called Martin on his way home from work, offering him a couple of steaks she'd already fried up, so he picked those up and then we walked over to the Levee and had Frozen Custard for dinner. We're all three coughing and I thought it would feel nice on our throats. AND, since it was St. Patrick's Day, we got mint chocolate chip, which is green. Then we walked home and I wanted to kill myself, and I sat down on the couch and never wanted to get up again. Martin took Anja on an errand and they came back home with soup for me and a Real Simple magazine. Martin so loves to pamper! Then he put Anja to bed (in about two seconds flat) and I stayed on the couch until the first time she woke up, then I joined the rest upstairs in the bedroom.

I woke up this morning feeling sooooooo muuuuuch better, but I'm still coughing (and Anja is too, and it's REALLY SAD, because this is a very chesty cough, one that takes your breath away) and I'm really tired, although I'm sure that has less to do with being sick and more to do with the fact that Anja has yet to kick her incredible habit of waking up at 4:00 and staying up until 6:00.

But I can't complain too much--Anja and I had a delightfully lazy morning, and despite her feeling under the weather, she is in the best of moods. She went down easily for a nap, and I'm hoping for a long one today. I don't know what we'll do about dinner.

The other thing on my mind lately is the price differences between Target and Kroger. These are the two places we do our shopping. Martin used to insist that Target was cheaper, while I insisted Kroger was cheaper. For the next two weekly grocery trips, I'm going to write down the price of everything we buy (we usually get about the same list every week) and compare, because there are price differences at both places, and in some cases they are so different that it would be worthing keeping two separate lists. For example: I bought Cheerios at Target the other day. I never would've imagined that Cheerios would be cheaper at Target than at Kroger, but there they were: HALF the price! Other cheaper things include canned goods, orange juice, and butter. However, buying meat at Target every week would send us to the poorhouse. They are such major differences! So I really think I'm going to start going to both places. And it isn't even like one is more conveniently located... they're both about the same distance away from our home.

The day I bought the Cheerios at Target I also decided to treat myself to some fancy shampoo and body wash for after the baby comes, when I'm feeling especially flabby and stinky and covered in spit-up and baby poo. (And that's just the time before half my hair falls out!) Usually I use a variety of shampoos, most of which are the hotel sample-sized bottles that Martin brought back for me from his Wabash travels. (Since I don't condition my hair every day, the conditioners especially last a long time! And some of them are Pantene ProV!) Aaaanyway... I decided to buy myself a bottle of Herbal Essances 2-in-1 that smells like nectarines. I LOVE IT. It's amazing, and totally worth the extra money. Plus, it's a ginormous bottle and I am pretty good at using just a dime-sized amount, so it should last me awhile, AND it's volumizing, so hopefully it'll come in handy when my hair thins out in about five months. The other thing I splurged on was a bottle of Pure & Natural body wash, which smells like rosemary and mint. Boooooooo. Not only was it expensive, but it doesn't have a very strong smell, and it has TERRIBLE lather capabilities. I am used to using el-cheapo Suave, which costs me about a dollar and a half for a huge bottle that smells sooooooooo good, and that lathers up so well I could wash myself four times. Plus, it has such a smooth lather that I get a GREAT shave on my legs with it too. Not so, with the Pure and Natural. What a bummer! The other great thing about Suave is that it comes in those rectangular containers that you can always store upside down on your shower shelf, and you can actually get every last bit of soap out of the bottle. Great price, great product, and no waste! So I learned my lesson there. Fancy soaps are a scam, but Herbal Essances is DEFINITELY worth it.

Wow, is anybody still reading?