Fun Finds and a Weekly Splurge

Tomorrow it is supposed to be 62 degrees without a cloud in the sky. I decided I better run all my errands today! I want to spend the afternoon tomorrow lying out on a blanket in the sun, getting lost in the pages of "The Other Boleyn Girl." That's what I did all afternoon yesterday too. I've been stuck inside for way too long, and I'm going to go outside every chance I can get!

Anyway, I went grocery shopping after work today. I have found that grocery shopping is one of these areas where it's very hard to serve! Ha! I used to hate it so much. But a few months ago, I decided I need to make it more fun. First of all, I switched grocery stores. I had been going to Wal Mart. It was always so crowded I'd just try to get in and out as fast as I could. But then I started going to Giant Eagle. Now we use their fuel perks, and Luke almost never has to pay full price for gas. And their meat and produce sections are much better quality than Wal Mart. A little more expensive, but we figure with the money we save on gas, it probably evens out. Plus I have an advantage card. Today alone I saved $11 just for having one!

Okay, I'm done with my commercial for Giant Eagle. Another way to make grocery shopping more fun is to look for fun things on sale. Here are some fun finds from my trip today:
The butter sesame and pumpernickel & onion pretzels were on sale. They are delicious! You can kind of tell the Pumpernickel & Onion bag is opened...I needed something to much on on the way home:-) And if you ever need something quick and easy to make, pick up one of these Macaroni Grill dinners. It is basically like Hamburger Helper, but a little classier. lol...they are very delicious, and very easy to make. My favorite part? It's almost impossible to mess it up :-) And finally, I bought the yellow squash. It wasn't on sale, but I had about $30 extra that we had budgeted for groceries this week, so I decided to splurge and buy them. One of my favorite comfort foods is slices of yellow squash and onions fried in butter. Not the most nutritional snack, but oh, so delicious!! Luke thinks I'm disgusting, but I promise it tastes amazing. I'm kind of strange though, because I love vegetables. I would pick squash or asparagus over oranges or a banana any day.

I also found my weekly splurge pick for this week at Giant Eagle. They have a small seasonal section that I like to look at. They had lots of spring and Easter things there today, and I bought this:

I thought it was very cute, and brought a little touch of spring into our hallway/dining room :-P This reminds me that I still have a few winter decorations that need boxed up. I don't want to see them again until next Christmas!

We are officially only 5 days away from the first official day of spring. Usually we still have some snow and cold temperatures through the middle of April, but I think this year might be different. The 10-day forecast looks pretty good! I'm going to go as far as to say that I think we're done with snow for this year...KNOCK ON WOOD! We had a much colder and more bitter and snowy winter than we usually do here, and I think God may be blessing us with an early spring! And even if it does snow some more, I'll know it's almost done. Things are looking up!

Happy St. Patrick's Day tomorrow!