Last Friday grocery shopping literally gave me the “shits” for lack of a better use of a word it is the only way I can describe how I was feeling when I got home.
This year is the first time since having children that I have two days during the week where I am not at work and I get to do all the things like housework, grocery shopping, the laundry and indulge in cooking new recipes for this blog and finalising the cookbook that is out in June this year. I feel grateful to have these two (well 12 hours) of child free, work free time to do all these things.
So I now get to do the grocery shopping on my own with no nagging, fighting, running away etc. I get to check my list twice and walk through the aisle checking the prices and looking for bargains. That is all well and good. But last Friday it hit my how much grocery shopping gives me the “shits”.
I mean if you think about the steps involved to just get food home to feed your family your mind is blown.
1. Drive to the shopping centre, park the car away from roaming trolleys and badly parked cars.
2. Get a trolley that hopefully doesn’t have a wonky wheel or two.
3. Get your list out (that’s right I forgot it at home). Try and remember what is on your list.
4. Make your way around the grocery shop dogging trolleys, children, the workers with there large trolleys collecting the home delivery or click and collect orders that take up over half the aisle.
5. Put your chosen items in the trolley
6. Load the groceries on the checkout belt trying to put cold things etc together.
7. Put the overpacked grocery bags back in the trolley. Nothing fits like it did before it was all in a bag.
8. Load the bags into the car, making sure the eggs are placed somewhere safe and that nothing is going to fall out of the door when it opens up (wagon car).
9. Get home, take all the bags out of the car, again making sure the eggs are safe.
10. Unpack the groceries into the pantry, fridge, freezer and so on.
So just to get my groceries from the supermarket shelf to my shelf at home I have to handle them 6 times.
1. Supermarket shelf to trolley
2. Trolley to checkout
3. Checkout to trolley
4. Trolley to car
5. Car to house
6. House to pantry, fridge, freezer etc.
I tell you over this inking something like this is not good for your mental health. Last Friday I wanted to chuck in the whole grocery shopping caper and just get it home delivered. But alas one week later and less overthinking meant I just got on with it.
Grocery shopping still gives me the shits but I must push those overthinking thoughts to the back of my head otherwise I’ll never get stuff done.
Not to self, things I must never overthink: laundry, kids bedtime, school pickup – did I miss anything?
Dude. Home delivered. Save your precious kid free time.
You are not alone, I know many people who feel the same!
I live in Germany where they do not pack the
groceries into bags for you. They scan them so quickly and if you can’t keep up, they build up and roll off the counter onto the floor. It used to drive me crazy, especially with kids, but the kids are at school now and I have time, so I try not to stress!
Also no seat belts in shopping trolleys here and no play equipment, baby change area or parent parking at the shops here in Germany like there is in Oz. Such a shame!
These are the main reasons why I really despise weekly grocery shopping. This momma just doesn t have the time to shop weekly over and over again. When I once a month grocery shop I m able to