the siren song of costco...

so today . . . i went to costco. it was time. we were out of almonds.

going to the grocery store is not my favorite thing to do. it ranks right up there with cleaning the shower or going to the dentist. but sometimes i have to go. we need food that i can only get at costco--like two pound bags of almonds or five dozen eggs or a giant bag of kettle corn (which, btw, is only 150 calories per serving. and guess what? a serving is 2 1/2 cups!!! this is new knowledge that i gained while shopping at costco today! now the big bag of kettle corn is on my 'must have it' list.)

i had put off going to costco as long as i could. but this morning we were totally out of almonds, which is 1/3 of rollie's breakfast. thankfully, i had a small bag of trail mix (no almonds, but it did have peanuts and raisins, and bonus m&ms,) so i left that out for him--you know, because it's sort of my responsibility to make sure we have cheese and eggs and nuts at all times, and i didn't make it to the store yesterday. so i knew i had to go today.

when i left school and headed for costco, i realized that i was going to drive right past the house we are hoping to buy--well, not right past, but really close to it--so i decided to make a short detour and just drive by again...

i didn't have the address, but i've been there twice. how hard could it be to find it? it is in a housing development, surrounded by a cement block wall, with only one entrance. i figured if i got in, i would eventually find it.

eventually turned out to be right! i made it to the street that the house is on with no problems. and then i turned the wrong way. i went left when i should have gone right. this was not good, not good at all. i had no idea there could be so many dead ends and cul-de-sacs in such a small area! it seemed like no matter where i went, i had to turn around and go back! i kept thinking that if i just went a little further, i could get out. i was wrong.

i finally got turned around the right way and found the house... and a whole street lined with giant pine trees!

how could i have missed that before?!? our possible new house is on a street lined with pine trees! i am not a fan of pine trees, unless i am in oregon. that is where pine trees belong! they look normal up there! in southern california, they look like they are lost, like somehow they were on their way north when they just got too tired to continue, and so they put their roots down here. i don't like it. it isn't a deal breaker, but i don't like it.

eventually i found my way out of the housing development, and continued on to costco. i was just there to get the staples of our diet--lettuce, broccoli, cheese, bananas, dried mangoes, almonds and pecans, eggs, and wheat thins. (ok, we eat other stuff too, but this is what i get at costco.) i walked in, flipped my card at the entrance guard, and stopped.

i was in big trouble.

let's just say that if you are in the process of buying a new home, you should probably stay out of costco unless you have a credit card with a zero balance.

before i even got to the first aisle, i saw a commercial grade garden hose, water resistant throw pillows (for that outdoor furniture i will one day have,) and refrigerators (because we might have to buy one.) and then it occurred to me that costco might be a good place to get a whole bunch of stuff we will need when we move into a new house.

but not today. today i did not have an empty credit card with me. today i do not yet have a new house. today the house i am living in does not have room for anything else! so today was not the day to stock up on new house stuff.

i turned my cart toward the lettuce, moving quickly past all the shiny kitchen gadgets. because even though i don't like to cook, i looooove shiny kitchen gadgets. if it plugs in and whirrs, i want it. i might never, ever use it, but i like having shiny kitchen gadgets in my kitchen. because you just never know when i might be inspired to prepare something... i got the lettuce and turned toward the cheese. but to get to the cheese, i had to go through the bakery...

ah, the bakery... the bakery at costco is like the fourth level of hell. it lures and entices you with the delicious smells that are created when white sugar and flour are baked together. if they sold any of those baked good individually, i would be in deep and serious trouble! but since you have to buy them in great quantities, i can usually resist.

i got the cheese and then braved the cold of the giant cooler to add some eggs to my cart. while i was on my way to get wheat thins, i spied the outdoor furniture...

ok, we are going to need outdoor furniture. one of the things we like about the new house is the back yard. it isn't great yet, but we have plans for it. big plans. and i am pretty sure that at some point outdoor furniture is going to be a part of those plans. so it is good to know what the options are...

i sat in chairs. i sat on loveseats. i sat at tables and pretended i was having 'breakfast out on the terrace.'

i moved on to the nuts. i finished my shopping and headed home. i did not go past the new house again.

i don't know if we are going to get this house. they've asked for another day to think about it. they may reject our offer, and i don't want to get too attached until i see if it is going to be ours. but if it is, i see more than one trip to costco in our future. because costco pretty much seems to have everything a new house needs...

...except the kitchen sink. thankfully, we won't need a kitchen sink!

"let them eat...bagels?"

so today . . . my breakfast bagel had a marie antoinette moment. and then i ate it.

i love bagels! the flavor, the texture, the cream cheese... but they don't really fit in very well with this low carb healthy eating routine i say that i do :) so rather than eat the chewy goodness of a plain bagel, or the delicious onion-y flavor of an everything bagel, i eat 100% whole grain mini bagels--yes mini bagels--and i usually only eat one at a time. for breakfast. i guess i've adjusted to this whole healthy eating thing.

but a couple of days ago diandra came to costco with me. diandra + costco = food that i don't usually buy. i was zipping right past the bagels, when these delectable goodies caught her eye. "ooo, look mom! everything bagels!!" that is her favorite kind. "uh huh," i replied, trying to make my way past the third level of hell (which costco calls the bakery,) before anything made with white flour could jump uninvited into my cart. she pulled a plastic bag off the roll. "and look! we can get 2 bags for $5! i can get these everything bagels and you can have these honey wheat ones." she is under the impression that if the label says 'wheat' then i will eat it--she totally ignored the 'honey' part...which is just another way of saying 'sugar.' but by then, she was already bagging them up, and saying, "i'll buy them." so what could i do?!?

besides, now that the contraband is in the house, i can eat it :)

then last night we were watching tv, and diandra got hungry. "you have bagels from costco," i reminded her. her face lit up, and soon she was back with her snack. she took one bite and made a face--and it wasn't an "oh this is the most delicious food i have ever eaten" face. it was a "what the heck is this?!?!?!" face.

"this is not an everything bagel," she said. "but it is covered with all those seeds!" i said. "i know," she said, "but it does not taste like an everything bagel..."

i could tell she didn't really like it. and now there i was with a bag of five more of them, white flour and all. i was probably going to have to 'take one for the team,' and eat them.

so this morning, i thought i would just get it over with and eat one--even though they are gigantic! well, at least they seem gigantic to me, since i usually eat those tiny little mini bagels. i pulled a plump, savory, white bagel out of the package. i got out the cream cheese (because i read somewhere that if you are going to eat bad carbs, you should eat them with some protein or fat. i can't remember if it said protein OR fat, but i love cream cheese, so i went with the fat.) i got out a knife and prepared to slather the killer bagel with cream cheesy goodness.

and then, i encountered a problem...

...because the bagel wasn't sliced. i hate that!! i simply cannot slice a bagel properly. one half is always thicker than the other. or one edge will be thick and the other one will be thin. and since it is round, i have to hold it in my hand to slice it, which increases my chances of cutting myself by about 10,000%!

and then i remembered that we have a bagel guillotine!

yes!! a bagel guillotine!! i first encountered one of these wonderful devices when we were on vacation one year. we stayed at a motel that had a really nice complementary breakfast, and they had a bagel guillotine. i thought it was so cool!! i sliced up bagels for anyone who would let me. i wanted one!!!! but i could never find one in a store.

then, a few years ago diandra was getting ready to move out of our house. and i discovered that bed, bath, and beyond had bagel guillotines. "you have GOT to get one of these!!" i said, apparently somewhat forcefully. so she got one. and then when she moved back home, the bagel guillotine moved back with her :) i put it in a kitchen cupboard and promply forgot about it...because those 100% whole grain mini bagels that i usually eat are pre-sliced.

but this morning, as i stood there with my big, fat, chewy unsliced bagel in my hand, i remembered the guillotine. i got it out, put it on the counter, placed my bagel into the slot, and with one smooth motion i had a perfectly sliced bagel. which i quickly slathered with cream cheese. and then i ate it!

diandra will be moving out of our house again when she gets married next year. but i am thinking the bagel guillotine will not go with her. i am thinking that the bagel guillotine now belongs to me...

...even if i have to temporarily "forget" where i keep it :)

a trip to costco

so today . . . i went to costco after school.

i just wanted to go home and crawl into bed, but we were out of tillamook cheddar cheese and eggs. and without tillamook cheddar cheese and eggs, we die. seriously. you can eat tillamook cheddar cheese and eggs in many different ways that require little or no cooking--well, except for the eggs. of course you have to cook the eggs. but if you don't happen to have bread or english muffins or tortillas or pasta in the cupboard, it is ok--you can just scramble the eggs and put the cheese on top and voila! dinner :) so yeah, you could live on tillamook cheddar cheese and eggs . . .

and the best place to get them is at costco. the savings on those two foods alone make the trip worthwhile, but if you add in a whole bunch of bananas for $1.33, it is almost like going to the bank. well, not really, because it is a challenge to go to costco and spend less than $100, but still . . .

i live right between two costcos, but the newer one is a little further away. so the first question that always has to be settled is, which costco? today i chose the newer one, because i know where they keep the dried mangoes. i know they have dried mangoes at the other costco, but i've never actually been able to find them. and when i ask, they always seem to be out. and rollie needs dried mangoes like i need dark chocolate m&ms. we won't discuss whose addiction is healthier, but they say dark chocolate is good for you . . .

i always have to fight snack food battles when i go to costco. have you ever been in a store with so many snacking choices?!? and i am not just talking about the candy aisles. since we don't really eat candy anymore (except for you know what,) i don't even walk through that part of the store. but the bakery section just kills me! i can't even go back there!! the chocolate muffins call to me. the white chocolate macadamia nut cookies call to me. the croissants call to me. the squishy white dinner rolls call to me. it is a cacophony of evils! thankfully it is in the back corner of the store next to the automotive stuff, so i am usually able to avoid it.

and then there are the clothes . . . a trip to costco is never complete unless i walk through the clothes. i don't know why i do it. i don't think their clothing prices are exceptionally good, and they rarely carry anything in my size. but every once in a while i am rewarded . . . like the time i found these great fur lined hoodies. they were in the kid's section, but i found that the XXL fit me just fine. and there was a brown one with leopard print fur lining. so of course it had to come home with me, and now it is my favorite coat! (and it doesn't even bother me one little bit that one of my former students who is now in the third grade has the same coat. because i am sure hers is not XXL!)

i really only needed a few things today. i thought. until i started walking through the store. before i knew it, my cart was starting to fill up. of course, it doesn't take much to fill a cart, because everything comes in super enormous sizes! thankfully, costco has also supersized their carts, so you don't realize just how much stuff you have until you try to put it in the tiny little trunk of a convertible! i finally had to buy their big reusable shopping bags, because they would put my food in cardboard boxes, and then i couldn't get them into my trunk! which meant i had to take all the food out of the boxes. which meant that when i got home, getting the food from my trunk into the house took many, many trips . . .

today i used the self-checkout line for the first time. there was no waiting, so i thought i would give it a try--it had to be faster if there was no line, right? um, apparently not necessarily. the machine wouldn't recognize my costco card, so i had to have help before i even got started! and then the bananas wouldn't scan through, and i had to have help again! i'm not sure you can really call it a self-checkout line when the costco employee is standing right there watching your every move. but the machine finally totaled up my purchases, sucked funds from my bank account, and sent me on my way, reminding me to keep my receipt handy so that it could be checked on my way out . . .

i got to the exit with my two giant bags of mostly groceries, only to be stopped by the girl at the door. she took my receipt, gave it a glance and handed it back to me.

and then she said, "oooo, i like your necklace."

costco. they have it all--tillamook cheese, eggs, dried mangoes. and compliments!