the_rck | Entries tagged with groceries

I'm still testing negative for Covid, but I'm also still definitely sick with something. Earlier in the week, it was headaches (probably sinus) and exhaustion (on the level of 'why are the muscles in my torso wobbling when I'm on my feet more than 30 seconds?'). Right now, both of my ears ache, and I'm unsure of my balance. I've taken sudafed and mucinex and am hoping things will drain soon. Today's the first day when sitting in the living room wasn't an option.

Scott is recovering. He'll be going back to work tomorrow. He'll also have to figure out which of his scheduled vacation days between now and 31 December he'll be giving up. We already knew he'd be working Black Friday because that was part of his deal for having last weekend free.

Cordelia decided not to come home. She had a five day weekend, so she'd been planning to visit. She made the decision based on not wanting to risk getting sick as she had two different offers of a ride. She says that campus feels empty. MSU scheduled tomorrow and Tuesday off for 'fall break,' and Cordelia's Friday class only meets some weeks.

I just got my Yuletide assignment, and I'm excited about it. I'm probably going to end up buying the canon so that I can take proper notes without worrying about due dates. I'll be returning all of the other things that I borrowed from the library before offering them; getting stuff that way helps me feel able to offer more things. That way, I know I'll have access if finding a copy to buy takes longer than I expected.

I finished filling out my ballot last night. We'd been planning to take them downtown today, but I wasn't up to it. Either Scott will drop them off tomorrow, or we'll put them in the out-going mail.

We did a grocery pickup at Meijer on Saturday. Unfortunately, one of the items they didn't have was the tissues I ordered. My suspicion is that they didn't have the exact size of package I ordered. They have a single toggle for substitutions, and I always set it to 'no substitutions' because of the risk of getting things no one in the house will be able to eat. Also, for things like tissues and soap, I have to have unscented, but there's no way to specify that.

Scott had fun at UCon. He says he probably won't get a room next year, though. It's only a half hour drive, and our bed is more comfortable (and less expensive). Also, the food at the convention wasn't great this year, so he ended up leaving the building more often than he'd planned. We'll what he thinks closer to next UCon.

He has left for his first day on 2nd shift. He'll be doing supervisory work on top of the usual machine operator stuff. It shifts him from hourly to salaried and will mean more frequent weekend work. We're not sure how much more. There are two supervisors per shift, and one of them has to be there when people are working. We're not sure how many weekends this will affect.

We're also looking at how this affects our grocery shopping and such. Some weeks, Scott's been picking up pre-orders at a Meijer on his way home from work. That store carries things that aren't available in the Kroger where he normally shops. An after-work pick up won't work now (before work would only work for a few items), and the nearest iteration of that chain is half an hour away. I don't think he'll want to trek out there on his days off. Maybe we can make it work once a month or every other month. Most of what they have that Kroger doesn't is frozen or shelf stable at room temperature. We'd have to store things in the basement, though.

I'll also have to figure out, in advance, when I need prescriptions picked up or other things that require a brief shopping trip. As in, the half and half has gone off or I forgot something critical on that week's grocery list and can't wait until next time. If I could walk better, I could take the bus for some of those things, but that's about a 3 hour trip, including time waiting for buses, so I strongly prefer not to do it trivially. When I do, it's likely to be the only thing I do that day.

Scott can, in theory, run errands before work, but it will require getting up earlier and getting out the door promptly. I think it will be feasible. We just haven't done this part of 2nd shift before. The last time Scott was on 2nd shift, we were on heavy lockdown and just doing without in order to avoid unnecessary trips into stores.

Kroger did substitute on our grocery order. We didn't end up with anything that will kill Scott, but one or two of the substitutions are things none of us will eat in place of things only I will eat. The ease of pickup was helpful, but us being able to read the labels matters a lot.

I haven't checked the bread yet, so I don't know if I'll be using the bread maker tomorrow.

And we didn't get any of the things that Scott habitually checks for to see if there are any sales. I don't have that list in my head, and I found the Kroger website horribly frustrating (and it crashed for 20 minutes while I was working).

I have a bit of a back up in terms of DVDs I need to watch and return to the library. I ended up not watching anything last week so that I could listen to some Overdrive audiobooks. Fortunately, the season set due today was renewable. I just have to get myself to turn on the TV.

I may have overdone things today. My wrists are bad, and my back is threatening to dump me face-first on the floor if I'm not sufficiently careful when walking.

The wrists are probably mostly down to having read a hardcover from the library, 450 pages in the last 48 hours. I typed a good bit yesterday, too.

I'm less sure about my back. I stripped the bed. I've washed three loads of laundry. None of those have come upstairs yet, so that's not a factor. Scott helped me get the fitted sheet on the bed, and I've managed the pillowcases. I haven't tried to deal with my flat sheet and blankets yet. (Scott and I have sufficiently different needs in terms of comfortable sleeping temperatures that we don't share flat sheets and blankets. It's just now because I'm constantly too warm instead of because I'm constantly too cold.)

Scott did the grocery and library pick up today. He mowed the lawn which required shifting all of the stuff in the front yard.

We're in that annoying state between summer and full on fall when I can't predict whether or not having the ceiling fan on over night will be a necessity or a misery. Scott generally doesn't have trouble either way. I do, but getting out of bed to flip the switch requires taking off my c-pap gear and then putting it back on again. Also, turning the fan on risks turning the overhead light on because I'm not likely to remember whether or not the light was on.

Fan and light are on the same switch, and I can't reach the cord for the fan. The light has a long pull cord so that I can find it in any light and so that I can reach it at all. We've discussed alternatives for the fan pull cord that will still make it obvious which is which, but Scott can reach it when he's standing at the sides or the foot of the bed, so I don't think he quite gets how difficult it is for me to reach. It's also something that's an issue for a few weeks every year, non-consecutive weeks even.

The household repair I most desperately want, though, is new back steps. The current ones are decaying from the inside out, and bits that look safe to step on have given out under our feet. Snow and ice will not improve footing. Scott says he wants to get something custom made, something wooden instead of concrete. Given cider season, though, I don't know that we'll be able to do anything before spring.

I've tried looking online to see what can be done about steps, but neither Lowe's nor Home Depot have been helpful. I very much don't want stackable pieces because that's what we have now. The top step has wobbled for years, and I'm nearly certain that's due to the same freeze-thaw cycles that destroy local roads and sidewalks.

I'd like to ban use of the back steps entirely until we have a replacement, but I'm not convinced that either Scott or Cordelia will listen to me.

Scott has to go in early tomorrow, so he's already in bed (it's 8 p.m. as I write. He'll be getting up around the time I usually go to sleep.

I've got a test scheduled for the 7th of October to see whether or not I have full on carpal tunnel. It involves needles and electricity and sounds thoroughly unpleasant. I'm not looking forward to it with any sort of pleasant anticipation.

I had energy today, so I did a lot of cooking. Nothing fancy, just dumping things into the instant pot and shoving pans into the oven. I cooked some cod, two types of chicken (I can't eat chicken thighs without reflux issues; Cordelia hates chicken breast) with potatoes and mushrooms. I found some brussel sprouts in the fridge, so I steamed them in the instant pot. I microwaved two ears of sweet corn (I don't eat it, but Scott and Cordelia do). We had a huge sweet potato in this week's Imperfect Foods box. I washed it, wrapped it in foil, and shoved into into a corner of the oven while the chicken cooked.

We got food delivered from Evergreen Wednesday because we had a Firefly session that evening. I still have leftovers and might eat them later this evening.

The Firefly session was fun. I was feeling reasonably good and awake, so I was able to think. My character was trying to investigate an artifact we'd found. She lacks the skills to do any sort of testing, but she could explain what she was looking for and why she wanted to know. The characters who can actually do the testing weren't quite sure why she wanted to do it, not at first.

Today, I mixed a can of Zevia ginger ale with a can of carbonated water and about three tablespoons of lime juice. The goal of this was to make the Zevia palatable to me, and I succeeded. Previous attempts haven't gone really well because they've usually intersected with migraine days. I was almost certain that the migraines were't caused by the Zevia because each occasion had other fairly clear explanations and because there's nothing in the Zevia that ought to give me trouble.

I did wonder if I had an upper limit for the amount of stevia I can handle in one day, but it seemed improbable.

( UCon related )

Cordelia's had a week of classes now. Most of the instructors are still figuring out how to make things work and are finding their planned lessons either much too short or too long for the scheduled time.

Cordelia's really missing the social interaction. It's not just the between classes chatting. Normal classes include some time when the kids can talk to each other or, at the very least, exchange glances. Right now, Cordelia's crocheting during some lectures. She's done some classes in bed (which is apparently common) and some in the dining room (also common).

The dining room had the downside that the chairs are all terrible, so she and Scott went and bought a new chair. Scott put it together last night; Cordelia used it today and gives it two thumbs up.

Choir is going to be an issue for me because I wake up and want to make tea halfway through the period. I can be in the kitchen during choir, if I'm quiet, but I can't use anything that whistles or dings.

Skyline Blues poses a similar problem to food preparation because the rehearsals run two hours and put the kitchen off limits. For Blues, Cordelia wants us in our bedroom, the bathroom, or the basement for the duration because being reminded that we're in the house increases her anxiety about doing well.

I think the Skyline Blues stuff is mostly a matter of me and Scott adapting. We can make sure we have food before practice starts. I'm less sure about choir. The classes run just short of two hours, and I need 10-15 minutes to be able to make my tea. If I set an alarm and get up at 10:00, I can do it before choir. Otherwise, I can't do it until after 12:10. I'm mostly waking up between 11:00 or 11:30. Sometimes, I sleep as late as 1:00 (having gone to bed between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m.).

I keep meaning to work on shifting my schedule to an earlier bedtime, but my body keeps wanting me to stay up later every successive night. I think my internal clock might be expecting a 24.5 hour day or something.

I've leveled up in Ingress. Almost all of the points involved in that came from recharging portals since I haven't gone out much in the last several months. I need one badge in order to attain level 16 (currently working on 15, so it will be a long time). At the beginning of this year, I assumed that I'd be getting the 4th level in Trekker for distance walked sooner than any of the other options, but I think I'm going to have to try for one of the others (I think it's called Sojourner), the one for playing daily for so many days in a row. I hadn't wanted to commit to 360 daily treks to the nearest portal, but I'm more than halfway there because of how they shifted what counts toward it.

I'm just concerned that I'll miss a day and have to start over. 360 consecutive days is a lot. I'm at 184 days now, and it's something I'm currently capable of doing, but...

I've put in a grocery order for pickup. I'm not sure whether the substitution thing was toggled on or off because the state wasn't marked in either position. The last time I ordered for pickup, I said no substitutions, so I'm hoping that will hold.

In many cases, it's better to get nothing at all than to get whatever the Kroger employee thinks is the closest match. I mean, the half and half would be fine, but the wrong hummus cups would mean I couldn't eat them. I picked a loaf of bread that didn't contain anything that would make me sick, but some other whole wheat breads do and so do other breads from the same company.

I'm at 1500 words for a 5000 word minimum story that's due this weekend (Fandom 5K). I've got the characters in the same place and am ready for Plot to happen. I just don't yet have hook for it. I'm confident that I can finish the story, but there may be some marathon writing sessions at the end.

I'm in the middle of a long Overdrive audiobook with two more checked out and needing my attention. One of those isn't quite as long and is a thing I should be able to get again without much delay. The second is long and has a waitlist as long as my arm. I can listen to some things while I write, but I tend to miss parts of the story. I think I won't mind that so much with the current book, but I would mind with the other two.

We're still in that unfortunate part of the year when I'm too warm to do without the ceiling fan but get very cold with all that wind blowing on me. The fan in the living room is adjustable via dial, but some lower speeds make grinding noises as the fan spins. The fan in the bedroom has three or four different speeds, but changing requires pulling on a cord that's a bit difficult for me to reach, enough so that I don't bother even when I'm uncomfortable. (We haven't lengthened it reasons that make sense to us but are likely to confuse other people. Mainly, that it's one of two cords right there and the one I'm less likely to need to reach easily and quickly.)

I still haven't adjusted to Scott's new schedule. I'm not sure how long it will take. This morning, I fell back to sleep after he left and woke less than an hour later with reflux. I have no idea why reflux at that point since it had been at least seven hours since I'd had anything but water and my normal medications. I had to take my before breakfast meds, wait half an hour, and then eat something in order to settle it. I went for bread as easy and likely to work. It did, but I still had a hard time getting back to sleep, so I think I only had about five hours of sleep during the ten hours I was in bed.

I'd probably have slept later, but I had something I needed to do at 1:00. That's when Imperfect Foods lets us look at what they're planning to send us and allows for alterations. Going online even ten minutes late can mean that half of the goods they were offering are sold out. If I'm fast, there will still be some things completely gone, but I have better odds, generally.

I would prefer that Scott and Cordelia have input on the order, too, but Cordelia's unwilling, and Scott's now unavailable until around 4:00. This leaves me trying to figure out whether or not he actually wants, say, celery (I can't eat it, not even in small amounts). They don't have the same things every time, so it's hard to make a get-this-every-time list. I've also mentioned to Scott that we should compare prices on a few things that we can also get at Kroger.

Naturally, we both forget by Saturday. Then it comes up again on Monday. I think we're kind of bad at this planning thing. In a different time, I'd look at the online prices on the Kroger website, but those no longer reliably track with in-store prices.

I suspect that Imperfect Foods would inspire more expensive impulse buys from us if Scott didn't have the alpha-galactose allergy. They've often got sausages, bacon, and various cuts of beef. They've also usually got vegan alternatives, but those tend to be priced high enough not to be in our budget. Also, a lot of them add celery and/or rosemary for flavor and so will make me quite sick. (And, yes, buying boxed or canned broth has become vastly more exciting in also sorts of risky ways).

My allergies are still acting up. I have no solid idea about why they're so much worse this year (including last fall) than usual. My suspicion is that there's some low level allergen around pretty constantly that's making my immune system crankier and more likely to overreact to things that would normally be minor. As to what that could be, I have zero clue.

If last fall had been normal for me rather than filled with the LTD appeal and insurance uncertainties, I'd have tried to get a referral to an allergist. I don't see such a referral as a good option right now, either, just for very different reasons. I think I may send my doctor a patient portal message about it anyway. It might take months to get to see someone anyway.

Sleep last night wasn't great. I was both too warm and too cold, just different parts of my body, and I kept sneezing off and on. I spent a lot of time in that weird state of being aware of being in bed and of my body and surroundings while still having uncontrollable dream nonsense running through my head.

That's more restful than not sleeping at all, but it's not really refreshing. I spend a lot of energy on deciding whether or not x or y bit of information from my body merits movement and risk of full waking. I can manage some things-- for example adjusting my cpap headgear strap when it starts slipping on my hair or sticking a foot out from under the blankets when my feet feel too warm-- but others are less feasible. I can't shift my pillows or ease my back and/or shoulders and/or hips. I can't relayer the sheet and blankets.

Today's to-do list includes making biscuits (if I can get Cordelia to help) and a load of laundry. I should probably start the grocery list, too.

We've been experimenting with Todoist for that which Scott likes a great deal and I'm less enthusiastic about. My main objection is that I dislike having to open the program every time I think of something to put on the list. My usual approach is to keep the paper list by me for most of a day and jot things down as I'm reminded. On Scott's side, it's better than the paper list because he can check things off and tell with a glance what he hasn't picked up yet.

On the whole, Scott's needs are more important here because the paper list does lead to him missing things when I make a mistake about which section of the store the item is in or when that bit is too near the folds he makes in the list to get it into his pocket. Dental items have consistently been casualties of that second problem because the box for that part of the store is bisected by a fold.

I didn't end up going out yesterday. I showered, and by the time my hair was dry enough to put up, it was 90F, and I wasn't feeling great. I placed an order for pickup at Kroger, though, and a couple of the friends who came over for games last night picked it up for me.

I may still try to go out there today to pick up prescriptions. I don't know. It's dark enough outside right now, that I think it's threatening rain. Also, I really, really want to try to nap. We have roofers coming tomorrow to work on the garage, and I will not be able to sleep in then.

Scott thinks that it might save us time if I order at least some of our weekly groceries for pick up, so we'll be experimenting with that. The search function on the website is kind of terrible in terms of needing to have the exact right name ('Colgate sensitivity toothpaste' brings up zero results. 'Colgate sensitive toothpaste' finds what I'm looking for. That would seem like a case for matching on two out of three words).

Also, they don't guarantee that the price on the website is the price we'll pay. If the price changes between ordering and pick up, we pay the price that's current at pick up. That makes stocking up on things that we only buy on sale considerably more challenging. I think it can work if I order the same day Scott will pick things up.

Accepting substitutions on the order is something that is on for the whole order or off for the whole order. That's hard because there are some things for which a substitute would be fine, some things for which a substitute from a short list of options would be fine, and some things where substitution means that one of us can't eat the thing without getting sick. If I'm getting, say, sliced cheese, the brand likely won't matter, and nothing horrible will happen if I get colby-jack instead of medium cheddar.

We played Flashpoint Fire Rescue last night. I missed the second half of the game, but apparently we won. We were playing the airplane hangar board which is more challenging than the basic house, and we had both hotspots and hazardous materials.

We talked to those of our visitors who're helping run UCon about events we were considering running. There's a glut of Sentinels of the Multiverse games, so I'm going to run something else for my board game option (I usually run a board game in a two hour time slot and an RPG in a four hour time slot).

Scott's probably going to run two or three sessions of Flashpoint (part of why we were trying the more challenging scenario). I need to check a couple of timing details with Scott before I register my events. I want to make sure he has vacation on that Friday because I don't want to commit to a 9 a.m. game on Friday when I have no way to get there.

We stayed up later than we should have because Scott was expecting a call from work telling him all of what was going wrong on 2nd shift, but the call never came. Scott had to take melatonin and benadryl in order to fall asleep.

My own sleep has been difficult. I'm still taking a single tablet of Halcion at night. If I take two, I sleep very soundly and feel more rested but also somewhat groggy. If I take one, I wake a lot during the night, not full waking but the sort where I'm awake enough to be annoyed about where my pillows have gotten to and to wonder how much time I have left to try to sleep but can't manage enough awareness to rearrange my pillows or look at the clock.

There's also a certain amount of concern from doctors apart from my psychiatrist who are afraid that taking Halcion will doom me to a slow slide into addiction that will lead inevitably to death. I'm sufficiently dependent on the stuff right now that, if I don't take it at bedtime, I'm lucky to get an hour or two of sleep. My intention was to try getting through that over the summer so that I'd know what it looked like, but I never managed to find a point when I could afford several days of near zero sleep.