Lost My Pants in Aisle 4

Well, the grocery shopping was completed yesterday afternoon. Halfway through, as I reached up to take something down from a shelf, I nearly lost my pants. That was interesting. I never moved so fast in my life - whew! I spent the rest of the shopping experience trying to stick my stomach out (there's a change!!), just to help me hold the pants up.

I'm going to take them to the cleaners (who does alterations too), and just have them take it in an inch, and hem them up an inch too. I'd rather spend $8 than to have to buy another pair of pants just yet.

Back to my "vegan" shopping experience. Can you believe, the hardest thing to find was simple old BARLEY? I love BEEF barley soup, especially in the fall and winter, so I don't think of barley as such an odd thing to shop for, but the manager had to finally locate some. (I don't suppose this 21-day kickstart program has beef barley soup though. haha)

I had to get several things from the health food store. I was not surprised to see a lot of college kids and 60-year old hippies in the place, but I was very surprised at how many "everyday" people were in there too.

I was the largest person in the place, of course. No surprises there.

The health food store was foreign to me. Usually, when you walk into a grocery store (ANY major chain grocery store, in any part of the country), there is a familiar look and style to the place. This was none of those. But, it isn't about the store. It is about the products they carry.

My first impressions? The picture of the whole grain vegan waffles (on the box) even look cardboardy. Still, I'll reserve judgement for when I have to try them. I also bought something called "soy yogurt" while there. I like yogurt. Normal yogurt. So we'll see ...

Most of the regular (familiar) grocery store shopping was spent in the fresh produce area, with a little visit to the frozen food and grain/legume aisles. I enjoy fruit, and I certainly seemed to buy a lot of it this trip. The Kickstart site had us buy a much bigger variety than I would otherwise bother with: apples, bananas, oranges, cantaloupe, grapes, strawberries, peaches ... all for one week. Usually, I'd get maybe two different fruit, so I can see variety won't be an issue.

But what about vegetables? That is, of course, my primary reason for trying this out. I want to learn to incorporate more veggies.

I think my first myth has been popped. I thought vegetarians ate veggie-laden, vegetable-heavy diets. However, the list for vegetables wasn't half as long as for fruit. So, either they are breaking us meat-eaters in slowly, or they don't seem to eat that many more vegetables than we do. We shall see if I still think that way next weekend.

Anyway, shopping done, and pants held up with one hand, I made my way home and my refrigerator and pantry are now stocked for tomorrow's first day.

Today, I'm wearing an old pair of stretchy pants (the ones with the elastic waistband). I wanted NO surprises in church this morning.

The AP wires are saying the Christchurch earthquake created a new fault. That is amazing ...

I wonder if Australia is just trying to pull NZ closer. Everyone likes kiwi.