shopping

Detour

| cheriarmour

Have you guys been watching this season of “Girls”?  I feel like the show was like kinda meh last season, and something in Lena really clicked…between her and the other writers, I really, really feel like they’re making some good tv.

Moving right along.

You know how they say to never shop when you’re hungry?  This is even more true when you’re pregnant.

So tonight, after I taught my Zumba class (thank God, because I feel like I did nothing else earlier), I had a real hankering for some dessert.  Unfortunately, I also wasn’t feeling great – a little pukey, and I knew like something terrible wouldn’t feel good.  So I thought about strawberries and Cool Whip, and decided on them with whatever I could throw together for dinner.

Two things.

12592627_10100746746176653_2348929080728815207_n.jpg

Shopping for these two things, pregnant and hungry, I thought of every single snack scenario that I could possibly find myself in this week.  And that resulted in the purchase of:

  • Strawberries
  • Cool whip
  • Reddi Whip
  • Peanut Butter
  • Bananas
  • Pop Corn
  • Trop 50
  • Grapes

Heaven help me…I solemly promise that I will not shop again on an empty/pregnant stomach.

Or go to Target.

What I Buy at Whole Foods

| cheriarmour

I make no secret about this…I am really into Whole Foods.

The first time I went into Whole Foods, I was in my second year of graduate school, and looking for a place to get food that wasn’t Jimmy Johns or Dunkin’ Donuts (the two places that were directly across the street from my school at NC State).  I stumbled into Whole Foods, and it was one of the first times since I returned from fat campthat I felt like I’d found my people.  Weird folks.  Who wanted a salad.  Just like  me.

Following my grad school graduation, when I couldn’t find a job, but needed to pay bills, I took a job in the Whole Foods bakery and coffee shop, where I blended, latte-ed, and packaged baked goods with some really cool people for a few months until I could find something a little more in line with what I wanted to do.

Working there, I was absolutely immersed in the culture, and tried foods I’d never imagined trying.  Kombucha, chia seeds, vegan treats, natural remedies for common ailments….the whole shebang.  I went from a diet of subsisting primarily on Lean Cuisines and Yoplait Light to more “whole” (tee hee) foods, and saw a real change in my body and my energy (I started running pretty regularly around that time too).

So, despite the fact that Whole Foods can be pricy, and sometimes grates on peoples’ nerves, I’m pretty loyal, even as some of the other chains branch into organics, because Whole Foods, in my mind, was one of the first that made good food accessible to idiots like me.

Want to see what idiots like me buy on our trips there?  And mayyybe get a little explanation as to what all this crap is?

IMG_7044

//Frozen fruit + Trop 50. I use this for my smoothies in the morning. Typically I do a red solo cup, fill it with fruit, add a scoop of protein, some chia, and some Trop 50 to cover the fruit to make my smoothie. It’s quick and painless, and doesn’t require much prep at all. Plus it’s WAY cheaper than ordering a smoothie, and easier to control what goes in it.

//Cedar Roaster Red Pepper Hommus.  Their spelling, not mine!  I like hummus, but I have yet to find hummus as good as what I had at fat camp for my alternative vegetarian meals.  This hummus ended up being okay, but really didn’t change me.  It was pretty cheap for hummus though.

//Noosa.  This full-fat Greek Yogurt is absolutely delicious, and because it’s so calorie-dense, an entire container can serve as a meal in the morning, or half can serve as a snack after lunch or something.  Again, pricey at first glance, but two servings in a container softens the blow.

//Lettuce.  Pretty straightforward.  Sometimes I eat green things for lunch.  Not too many though, cause holy fiber these days!

//Bulk dried mango.  This one is a treat for me.  I LOVE dessert, but it doesn’t love me back so much.  The bulk dried mango is probably one of the cheapest sources of dried mango you will find without any added sugar.  Added sugar and chemicals are usually the trap with things like Craisins and mango.  This is more like fruit leather, just cut up and dried out for a few days.

//365 Black Chia Seeds.  Chia has been this pregnant lady’s best bud as of late, but it can be super expensive.  Whole Foods has an in-house brand, which is a whopping $3 cheaper than the other brands.  Great source of soluble fiber, protein, and a little burst of energy as well.

//Fruit mixes.  This one is a pricey luxury because I wasn’t loving any of the prices on produce anywhere this week and I need fruit.  So I ate like half for dessert the other night, and brought the other half in to supplement my lunch.

//Grape Leaves.  This baby can deal with Mediterranean food for sure.  These are a great snack, and delicious!

For a grand total of about $81.  My priciest items were definitely the fruit and the chia, and I escaped without kombucha or a cookie that would have driven the bill way up randomly – so I should be set for a while, minus the more perishable things (fruit and lettuce), which I will need to make a run for next week again.

Do you have any special foods needs?  (Veg, Gluten Free Options)?

Where do you do your shopping for fruits/veggies?

 

If you shop on Thanksgiving, I’m judging you.

| cheriarmour

This will be my only post/rant on the issue, and then I will drop it and we’ll move along and all be friends.

On Thanksgiving, i will be doing two things.

  1. Going for a run so I can enjoy indulging without much guilt.
  2. Cooking.
  3. Enjoying dinner with my family.

So that was three things, but you get what I’m saying.  Nowhere above did I say I was going to go to Best Buy, Target, or Macy’s to stock up on some crappy deal, when I really need to be saving my coins (my car just decided it needed about $600 worth of help, so I really can’t be spending money all willy-nilly anyhow).  And the reason for this is that, after working in retail, Whole Foods and Fleet Feet, there is no way on God’s green earth that I’d get up from my dinner table, run out, and make someone else’s life really mis on that day.

Let me explain something to you about working retail during the holidays.  I truly didn’t experience this as much with the customers from Fleet Feet, however, the Whole Foods schedule, and the customers made me resent them and resent the holidays, a feeling I hated having.  I felt myself starting to hate holiday themed food, answering people’s dumbass questions regarding some weird food we have never carried, and hating people themselves, especially those who took out their holiday-induced stress on us.

Here’s an example.  One Thanksgiving-Eve, a woman called the bakery and screamed at me because she hadn’t realized that the Yule Logs were like chocolate inside when she bought them.  First off, I don’t care.  If that is your worst worry at the holidays, consider yourself lucky.  There is poverty, hunger, genocide, and racism in the world to scratch the surface – none of which take a break on the holidays.  And furthermore, it is not my fault that you didn’t realize that the yule logs were chocolate inside.  Now, if she were actually nice to be, I might actually feel inclined to fix her problem or offer her something of her choosing in the vanilla family, however, she was unkind, and therefore, I didn’t feel too pressed to correct her issue.  Especially, ESPECIALLY given that she seemed to have no concern that while I listened to her yule log lamentations, my family was wondering where I was, and getting started on all the cooking without me.

But I digress.

You can try and slice and dice it any way you want to…

-Those people volunteer to work. (And really, the way it works is that the folks that want to work volunteer first, and then your manager fills the rest of the holes with other folks who may not particularly care to work.)

-These folks make a TON of money in this season. (No on is getting rich on a retail salary.  If they’re making time-and-a-half, that is absolutely wonderful, but a really temporary fix for the anger and resentment that builds up towards folks around the holidays.)

-If they don’t like it, why are they working retail.  (Now, I know jobs are extremely easy to come by ::cough::, however, sometimes folks don’t have a whole lot of choice.  Or sometimes, they actually LIKE their retail situation during months that aren’t November and December.  However, that doesn’t mean they want to get screamed at about your yule logs on Thanksgiving Day.)

…But the fact stands.  You don’t need to shop on Thanksgiving.  And I’m judging you if you choose to do so.

I almost started a bikini line yesterday…

| cheriarmour

So yesterday, this bikini that I ordered finally arrived at the house.

I’d been in need of a new bathing suit in forever – the last bikini I bought was this adorable pink number that I’d managed to randomly snag at the Target like two years ago.

My stepmother-in-law gave me a gift card to Victoria’s Secret, and after I searched high and low, I picked this:

Bralette

It seemed like the suit would offer me adequate coverage, all while being really cute.  Plus, I was able to pick a pretty big top, and the color was fine.  So it finally showed up, and I put it on and it was HORRIBLE on.  Absolutely horrible.  The bottom was cute, but the top wasn’t supportive at all, and my boobs were literally hanging out of the bottom of the suit.

I live close enough to the mall that I was able to run over with the invoices, and browse what they had in-store.

VS Dude: Hi, welcome to Victoria’s Secret. ::motions to the package in my arms:: Do you have an exchange for us?

Me: Yeah, I bought this online, but the top isn’t supportive at all!  I want to look around to see if I can find something.

VS Dude:  Well this stuff isn’t that supportive.  But we have stuff in the back.  You should check there.

Me: Ok cool, I’ll do that.  Do you mind hanging on to this package for me while I shop? (I figured I wouldn’t be as much of a shoplifting suspect if I wasn’t carrying a bikini around in a big empty mailing envelope.)

VS Dude: Uhhh.  Yeah no.  Will a bag work?

Me: Sure!

VS Dude: ::Disappears, never to be seen again::

So for the better part of an hour, I wandered throughout the Pink room in VS, and in this back room where all the big-boobed swimsuits hide out.  I wandered near and far.  And I found nothing.  Finally, I left in an angry huff, with no bathing suit, and feeling distinctly as though something was wrong with my body.

I know rationally that there’s nothing wrong with my body, but in those moments, I was really tempted to call a good plastic surgeon and let him or her just chop my chest down to a size that would fit a little better into a VS swimkini.  But, I’ve seen Botched, and I really shouldn’t have to hack my body, a body that can run 26.2 miles, lift, dance, and swim, to fit into a suit that rivals one I had when I was a flat-chested 12-year-old.

What I do need however, is to find a suit.  A suit that I can wear a S/M on the bottom, and like a DD on top.  Is that too hard to ask?

Where do you find your bathing suits, large-chested women? 

 

 

I went into Target for like, one thing.

| cheriarmour

I hear this happens to other people.  But last Friday, I went into Target for one thing, and walked out with $100 worth of things.

How did this happen?  What did I buy?  What did I even go for in the first place?

photo

I’m lead to believe the reason that I was in there in the first place was to grab a cheap pair of earrings for the photoshoot last Saturday.  Okay, that’s innocent enough, right?

Wrong.

Here are all the things I purchased, and an explanation of what the hell I must have been thinking as I walked through the store.

  • Backs for earrings.   
  • Cheap earrings for photoshoot.  Okay I got what I needed.  We can leave, right? 

Well, while I’m here, I might as well go down the cosmetics aisle. :/

  • Neutrogena transparent beauty bars.  Cause they’re the tits.  It’s not fancy at all, but it will get the job done on your face.
  • Neutrogena makeup remover wipes.  Cause I’m trying to make a better effort to not sleep in my makeup and have pretty skin for our wedding 🙂
  • Dove Deodorant.  Cause I’m getting like dangerously close to the end of my deodorant and I hate when it falls on the ground and you’re like 😦
  • Colgate Whitening Mouthwash.  It tastes like literally cat poop, and I’m not sure I can tolerate the 60 seconds they tell you to swish it around in your trap.
  • Colgate Optic White Toothpaste.  My secret weapon for a white smile despite the red wine and coffee I consume.
  • Crest 3D Whitestrips <—this item gets most improved.  They fixed the strips so they stick to your teeth and don’t slide around all over like they used too.  My only caveat?  Don’t overdo it, these things will make your teeth really sensitive.
  • Those flosser stick thingies.  I was running out when I thought about it!
  • Goody Hair Bands. Mama was running low.  There was nothing I could do.
  • Rubbing alcohol.  Makes your nail polish stick better to your nails cause it removes all the lotions and gunk that would cause it to chip.

And THAT is how I managed to spend $100.65 at the Target.

What’s the worst damage you’ve done at the Target?  

 

Shopping on Thanksgiving Day. Don’t do it.

| cheriarmour

Christmas Eve 2011, I was working at Whole Foods Market, in the bakery.  It was nearing 6 pm, and the store was doing what was called a “soft closing,” where you sorta close, but you let anyone who comes screeching up in the parking lot come in, for fear that they will write you a bad review on Yelp.

I peered over the counter, wearing my antlers as a pretend signal of good tidings, when really, I wanted to murder everyone who was shopping, including a woman on the cell phone, who was leisurely strolling through the aisles.  Like it wasn’t 6pm on Christmas Eve, like simply because I was being paid an hourly wage, that I didn’t deserve to get to go to Midnight Mass with my family, sleep in, and wake up leisurely to open presents with my family.

Instead, around 6pm on Christmas 2011, I was hauling a clear bag full of old bread and bagels to the dumpster in the ran, and shivering in a chefs coat while last-minute Christmas shoppers milled about.  Close to 7, I finally filled up on gas, and I’d made it to my parents’ house by 10:30 pm. On Christmas Eve.  My parents were already asleep, and I only had a few hours the following day with my siblings before I had to head back for my shift in the coffee bar.

If you shop on Thanksgiving Day, you are a jerk.  Plain and simple, I’m not sorry to say.  I have had the unfortunate opportunity to have to work on holidays, on holiday eves, and on the day after holidays and it always sucks.  Each time I had to show up at my parents’ home at an ungodly hour, or each time I left while my siblings were still sleeping or spending time with relatives, I began to resent my work, and swore that I would quit my job the next day.  I never did, I needed the money while I looked for full-time work in my field, but it made me resent my job and truly hate people more than I care to admit, temporarily.  The “hate” feeling returned with each holiday I had to celebrate by doling out lattes to stressed party hosts.  And I really do dislike it when I feel so angry towards others – it’s not at all healthy.

“Well if you don’t like it, just make sure you ask for that day off! Target said on TV it’s only the employees who really want to work that day/night.”

First off all, no one, even the person who lives only with his or her cats,  wants to bundle up so they can stand on their feet all night and serve you.  It’s barely fun on a regular day, and super unfun on a chilly holiday.  And that’s not exactly how it works.  When I worked bakery retail, and in the coffee bar at Whole Foods, and the same went for when I worked in a restaurant for my stint in graduate school, you’d get your choice of which holiday you want off.  If you get the days around Thanksgiving off, you won’t get days around Christmas off.  Maybe you’ll get the days at New Years.  It’s all a trade.  But the choice is only which holiday you’ll work.

Please, please, please, before you leave your plates on the counter and run out on Thanksgiving night, think about the folks who are having to leave their families to ring you out.  Not only did they have to leave their families, they hate you, and they’re hoping that you slip and break that flat screened television you dragged them out to purchase.  The employee break room is intermittently filled with folks snacking on lame, stale holiday treats that management put out for them as an attempt to boost morale, but guess what?  It isn’t working, and they’re seeing red with every e-reader you buy.

So regardless of what some of these retailers choose to do, don’t make it worth their while – avoid shopping on Thanksgiving and let them know that our families are a little more important to us than cheap electronics.  That’s what shopping online is for, anyways.

If you’re one of those girls who’s been planning your wedding forever, cool.

| cheriarmour

And if you want to pretend like you’re not, don’t forget, I can see your Pinterest posts publicly. (But helpful hint, you can privately Pin stuff so your future boyfriends don’t get scared off.)

But I’m not one of those girls. Sure, I’d toss around ideas like, ooh maybe I’ll wear this! Maybe I’ll invite such and such. I have to make sure to learn to Dougie before I wed! You know, stuff like that. But to say I know what I’m wearing, what colors would be featured, what the decor and set-up of the room would look like, I have no idea.

And for those of you who think you know what you want. I won’t say you’ve wasted your time, but hear me out. You may want to just start fresh with ideas when your time to plan comes cause….

I went wedding dress shopping yesterday. Oh yes, this part, I had in my head. I saw myself, a tall, leggy model like the ones in the magazine. Flowy. So chic. Yet so relaxed. So innovative! No one had ever seen a dress like mine before. So I took my bestie, Michael, and off we went.

I put on at first this lace number that was supposed to look something like this.

lace-low-cut-wedding-dresses

And when I put it on, every person in the room gasped in horror. Michael. The woman helping me. And the two women that were there for the moral support of their bride-friend. It was awful once I got it on my body. It didn’t move. I had no hips. They even tried to sash it to make it manageable. And no dice.

Maybe I’ll look good in a gauzy destination gown, I thought to myself. So I popped a champagne-colored, chiffon number on.

Less horrid, but still pretty bad.

“Do you have anything mermaid-y?”

Again, I winced. The dress made me look like I was going for my 5th wedding, and like I was trying to recapture my youth.

After a few of these, I found one. Obviously, I’m not going to tell you what it was, because you’re just going to have to wait, like everyone else, but here’s my advice, as an almost-married lady. Try it on. Go visit these places. What you have going on in your head? Not necessarily what the deal will be in real life. Good luck, brides 🙂