Messed Up March

I can’t believe it…I mean…I just can’t believe it.

Most of you know I am a go with the flow type of girl. I roll the dice and let the art flow over me. I am usually really good about rolling with the punches.

But you also know I am a girl who likes her little rituals. Each season has its own time frame. Don’t display Halloween candy in the summer. Don’t put out the Valentines displays until after Christmas. I do not want to see Christmas trees next to the Halloween costumes. Please do not tell me in August you are already drinking a Pumpkin Spice latte.

Okay, okay. Some people like that early display of holiday cheer, I get it. Go do your thing and enjoy. I will stand on the sidelines and wait until I am ready, then I will dive in full on right next to you. My only exemption to my rule is the school supply displays they bring out in July. I am a sucker for all things school supplies. A marble composition book will end up in my cart EVERY time, lol.

This year another early attempt was tried, and it has failed me. I am hoping for a miracle, but I am not sure it will happen.

I am talking about McDonalds bringing out the Shamrock Shake in February. Ever since I can remember, they have been available on March 1st. and they seem to go away around the 31st. The perfect time frame. Why would they think to mess with it?

Ok, like I said before, go do your thing and I will wait until I am ready to do mine. But…

I have been to my McDonalds (here in Hawaii) about 3 times now in the month of March and they have been out of the Shamrock Shake every time. It’s March!!! It’s not even St. Patrick’s Day yet…how are you out?????

Just last night we rolled through the Golden Arches Drive-Thru and were told they were out. We paid and drove up to the other window to pick up our food. Neil asked the guy if they would be getting any more of the mix for the Shamrock and we were told they were out for the season…

WHAT????

You might be thinking, well maybe they just have a problem shipping to Hawaii…No. I have lived here for 12 years now and even during the pandemic my green goddess of a milkshake treat was available right on time. Never has it been sold out in March.

I am hoping (fingers crossed) that it is just the one closest to our condo that’s out and we can find another location that has them available. I mean, I am not going to make Neil drive to the other side of the island for one, but we will hit up another location in the next few days.

Wish me luck!

***Question for the comments: Have you ever been in the situation where you haven’t been able to get the one thing you wait for every year? Or you go to the store and your favorite thing always seems to be out of stock? Let me know in the comments.

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Missing You Like Crazy!!

Photo by Vie Studio on Pexels.com

Hawaii has been home for the past 11 years and it will be my home for the rest of my life. I have talked before in previous posts about how it came to pass that I found myself on a plane with just a suitcase and a backpack and a job waiting for me. The rest has been a total blessing from God. My church, my friends, the love of my life…all from God.

As much as I love Hawaii, and I do, the beach, the people, the aloha, there are still a few spots in my life that have been void and a little empty since 2012. I could tell you that living in paradise has made those spaces smaller, but I don’t want to lie. I can tell you that my overall life in Hawaii is almost perfect and if I had the following things available to me from time to time it would be perfection.

What’s missing…

1. IKEA: I love that furniture store. Its comfortable, the decorations are cute, and I am a big fan of the Swedish meatballs in their cafe. A lot of my furnishings in the past have been from IKEA. Can we please get a location here?
2. A good Italian deli: ok, I can make do with what is here. I mean if I close my eyes really tight and wish upon a star, I can make Jersey Mike’s feel like Philly…almost. But nothing beats going into a small family deli and picking up roasted red peppers, good Italian rolls and freshly made mozzarella.
3. Autumn: this is my favorite time of year and not because of Pumpkin Spice Lattes, well not only because of them. To feel a little chill to the air and to crunch around in the colorful fallen leaves in a thick cozy sweater with a PSL in my hand would be heavenly.
4. Tastykakes: A Philadelphia company that is known for their amazing little treats. Kinda like Little Debbie’s and Hostess, but so much better in my opinion. I could go for a peanut butter kandy cake right now, it would be wonderful with my coffee.
5. Yuengling: I might not be a big beer drinker by nature, but I am a fan of this regional beer. I used to drink it when I went to a good old crab feast in Baltimore, which is another thing I miss…steamed blue crabs with Old Bay seasoning. Good News though…I can buy Old Bay here!!
6. Snow: I am not talking about having to be in the freezing cold digging your car out of a blizzard, forget that noise. I am talking about a little dusting of snow on Christmas Eve, watching it lightly fall while drinking hot chocolate or eggnog, eating Christmas cookies and watching “It’s a Wonderful Life”.
7. Beach towns with boardwalks: I love the towns in Hawaii, but nothing beats walking down the boardwalk stopping in to get a pretzel or fries and then going to play some Skee-Ball at the arcade. Next stop would be the local tee shirt place for a souvenir and ending the evening with a ride on The Himalaya with the music pumping and the strobe lights going off while it spins you round and round. I would do all of this today at the age of 53 cuz I am a big old kid.

Those are most of the things I miss about the mainland. Every so often I get nostalgic for them and wish they were here. But I would not trade living in shorts and slippahs all year long for anything on this list.

How about you?

Question for the comments: Tell me one thing in the comments you would miss if you moved away from home.

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How Do You Grocery Shop?

We are getting ready to go have a little breakfast and then go grocery shopping and it got me wondering about how everyone else shops. There is no right, or wrong way and I have changed up my routine through the years. So let me ask you, how to you shop for groceries?

Do you make a list? Do you go down each aisle, row after row, in order? Do you coupon? (For my sister, who hates using nouns as verbs, let me rephrase…Do you use coupons?) How do you get through the daunting task that is going to the grocery store?

Nowadays, Neil and I will have an idea of what we want, so we just go to the store and look around. We pick up what we know we want or need and then troll the aisles to see if anything else grabs our attention. You would think that would lead to overspending, but it hasn’t so far.

When I first moved out on my own, many years ago, I took grocery shopping very seriously. I would look through all the Sunday ads and clip coupons and make a list of what I wanted to buy. This is a normal method of shopping, and it worked out pretty well. I did this for years, but when all the grocery stores started with their own discount cards, I pretty much stopped clipping coupons. I still like to look at the ads.

When I started working in restaurants, the days of weekly shopping went out the window. I stopped cooking, because after looking at food all day, every day, the last thing I wanted to do was shop and make a healthy meal. So, I turned to the comforts of take out and convenience store pickups. Well, you can guess what happened…I gained a bunch of weight and I have yet to take it off. I am a fast food/junk food junkie. It is time to get off the merry go round and get back to making nice, simple meals at home.

That means meal planning and grocery lists. It’s time to really start thinking about what I want to cook throughout the week and make it happen. If you have been with me for a while, you know the thoughts of cooking on a regular basis kinda intimidates me. But I can read and follow directions. I just sike myself out.

Maybe I will even start to use coupons again. When I used them before, I used to have a small organizer for them. I used a very simple method; I pulled them together by date. For a single girl shopping alone, it worked great. But, man, some of these organizers and binders are insane. I see people in the store with a binder as big as the grocery cart. How do they even know what’s in there? But they do. They can pull a coupon out from anywhere in a second. It is fascinating and scary at the same time. I have watched “Extreme Couponing”, I know what they do.

Today is not a big shop for us, just a few items here and there, to get us through the week. But I am going to take the week and come up with a meal game plan for next week. The small free local paper comes out tomorrow and there are ads and coupons in there…I may have to snag one from the lobby of our building and pull out a notebook to make my lists and an envelope for my coupons. Am I turning into June Cleaver? LOL…no, you will never see me in pearls vacuuming the house and I hate high heels, so I’m good, no worries.

***Question for the comments…How do you grocery shop? List or no list? Coupons? A lot of stores or just one?

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If You Could Go Anywhere…

To kind of piggyback off of yesterday’s post let me ask you this…if money was not an issue where would you want to go. You have unlimited time, and your ultimate vacation was waiting for you, what is your destination? Do you have an idea? Let me know in the comments.

A lot of people love to travel, some do it a lot and some maybe have never left the state they live in. I have travelled a little bit in my life, and I love it. It is amazing to go check out foreign lands, see new culture and eat things you never have before. I have been to Germany, Austria, Canada, the Bahamas and a bunch of different cities in the United States. I think one of my favorite vacations was the week I spent in Nashville, Tennessee. There was so much to do and no, not all of it involved country music. It really was a fun town.

But if I could go anywhere with unlimited time and funds…I am going back to Europe. I am going to hit England, France, Italy and Ireland and nobody is going to see me for about 8 to 12 weeks. I want to immerse myself in the culture of each country. I want to see Big Ben, The Eiffel Tower, The Vatican and a million other places. I want to drink a pint in an Irish pub singing songs with the locals and hearing the craic. I want to sit in front of a beautiful fountain in Rome eating gelato and head to Naples to eat pizza where it first originated from.

I want to go to the museums, bookstores, theaters and opera houses. I want to go buy a Chanel handbag at the store in Paris and shop at Marks and Spencer in London. I want to drink real French champagne in France and go visit the vineyards of Italy. I want to visit the Irish countryside and have to wait while a herd of sheep make their way across the road. I want to sit and write in the cafes where Hemingway and Fitzgerald sat before me. And then, when I am ready to come home, I am going to stop in New York for a week, then a stop in Philadelphia to eat some cheesesteak and drop off my sister (you didn’t think I was going to be able to sneak out of the country without her, did you? Lol) Next stop would be San Francisco to see where the Beat writers hung out and then home to Honolulu. My perfect fantasy vacation and it would be heavenly.

But really, you don’t need to travel to try new things. The description above is my fantasy vacation, the dream of all dreams and one day I will get there. But in the meantime, I can explore my own backyard. For me that would be spending the day at a beach I haven’t been to before and eating in a new restaurant. Or maybe checking out any number of things listed in the paper to do. And you can do the same wherever you live. Consider being a tourist in your own town or driving to a different place in your state or the next one over or your country. The whole idea is living life to the fullest with a bunch of new experiences wherever you experience them.

***Question for the comments…what is your fantasy vacation? And tell me one new place in your own town you would like to check out and try.

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Nowhere To Go, But Everywhere…

I love riding around in cars, not driving because I hate to drive, but just sitting there, blasting tunes and soaking in the sites. I want to say that this began when we moved across country for the first time when I was around 7 years old. We packed up the car and headed west to California. It took us 5 days to travel the country, stopping every night at a motel. I would just spend the hours staring out the window looking at all the new things, playing the license plate game and listening to whatever my parents were playing on the radio or the 8-track…yes, I am that old. It was cramped, and I probably annoyed the heck out of my older brother, but I remember having a great time.

As I got older, and my friends started to drive, we would just tool around the neighborhoods looking for things to do. Now we could listen to our music on the radio…80s all the way. It was a typical scene right out of American Graffiti, cruising and carrying on, before we got hungry and stopped at the Double T Diner or Sorrento’s for something to eat. Pizza and patty melts with fries are still favorites of mine. I was part of the youth group crowd from church, so we were pretty tame, but it was a blast.

When I reached my 20’s and had no curfew, we would be sitting around someone’s house watching a movie or playing games. All of a sudden someone would get the great idea to get in the cars and head to Ocean City, Maryland to watch the sunrise and have a beach day. Off we went to grab what we needed for the day and hit the road for the 3-hour long drive to the beach. We would get there in time and watch night turn to morning, then it was off to The Dough Roller for some pancakes before hitting the beach and the boardwalk. Best days ever…

Around Christmas, we would pile in to see all the lights in the neighborhoods. I remember being in the back of someone’s truck one cold winter night freezing my heinie off singing carols and drinking hot chocolate as we drove around. We also staged potluck dinners, but each course would be at a different person’s house. After each course we would hop in the car and drive on to the next stop.

In those days we didn’t think twice about how long it was to get somewhere. We would cross state lines just to go to Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt and uncle’s house or we would travel to see friends at college. It didn’t matter, as long as we had music and some gas money, we were good to go.

Now, I live in Hawaii, so obviously we can’t get very far, but we continue to cruise. Usually after breakfast and errands on a Saturday, Neil will start the drive around the island. I know the sights, but it never gets dull. We drive around still listening to 80’s music until we hit the North Shore and the station fades…then comes the Hawaiian music. We have our favorite places to stop for fruit and shave ice. Sometimes we pull in front of our pastor’s house and if his truck is there, we give him a call and he will come out and talk story. If he’s not home…well…we just keep on driving enjoying the day. Some days may start off with just breakfast out with our friend James. But if we pick him up instead of meeting him someplace, well, then he is stuck in the car with us, and we are off for a ride.

Like I said, I love to ride around in cars, you never know what you’re going to end up doing. You may just cruise the day away or you may find some new place to get out and explore. Either way, it’s an adventure and it’s an adventure I plan on taking part of for a long long time.

***Question for the comments…Do you like to ride around? What is your favorite memory in the car?

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