I’m having guests over to the house for a special meal this coming weekend. I don’t entertain too often, but it’s nice to invite friends over once in awhile. The funny thing is I notice the house always gets extra cleaning before the guests arrive. Am I the only one that works harder at cleaning before guests are expected? Housecleaning, however, is not part of the story today. It’s the shopping story that I want to share with you.
Grocery shopping before a big meal, you know the deal … 1) Figure out how many guests will be coming, 2) Find out the best day/time when everyone is available (especially hard with multiple families during holiday season), 3) Figure out who likes what type of food, 4) Plan the grocery list. Do you worry about finding the store(s) with the best prices or do you just go to one store to save time, because you need to clean up the house before the guests arrive? I figure a big meal deserves a good plan. So I did my homework. I talked to everyone about what they wanted and built my grocery list (in my head – uh oh!) and then looked at fliers to see which stores had the best prices. Luckily, as I mentioned, I have time to do the house cleaning tomorrow.
I started shopping with a good feeling that I wasn’t rushed, and I knew everything that I needed for the meal. After shopping I returned home satisfied with my “hunter/gatherer” accomplishments. Life is too good, you say? Yup. That smug feeling of accomplishment quickly changed with a simple question … “Honey, did you remember to get the [fill in the blank]”. I’m sure I did, because [fill in the blank] is very important for one of our guests. Hmmmm, first comes the sinking feeling, then GRRRRR, then #$@#! Nope, of course I forgot the [fill in the blank – sausages this time]. Life would be too simple if I had just taken a little extra time to go to the meat section to pick up the sausages when I was at the store.
And so I reluctantly get back in the car …
Round trip time – 1 hour.
Yes, it was sausages this time, but I’ve done it before, and I’ll likely do it again.
I guess I won’t really miss that hour, but gee, it is very annoying when I forget to pick up [fill in the blank] at the store!
Does this every happen to you too? If yes, please let me know that I’m not alone. 🙂