A day in the life...

This morning I had to skip exercise class to take Molly to the clinic.  In the past few days, we thought she'd been bit by a mosquito on her forehead.  Then one bump became three, and then she had 6, and they didn't look exactly like mosquito bites.  She mentioned that one of her friends at school had bumps all up and down her arms this week, so I decided to take her in, in case it was something contagious.  We saw a Dr. that we've never seen before, and neither Molly nor I were very impressed by him.  He said they're ant bites. <insert skeptical eyebrow raise>  I've never seen a single ant in our house, and I'm quite sure that my highly sensitive child would notice ants CRAWLING ON HER FACE, but ok, we'll wait and see how this plays out.

After dropping Molly at school I went back home to get ready for grocery shopping with JoAnn.  I tried to check my email, but since the workers came to 'upgrade' our internet service yesterday, our internet isn't working.  Not so much of an upgrade!

JoAnn and I had heard that a new store had opened about half an hour away, so we hopped in my car and headed out.  It ended up taking around 40 minutes, but once we got there, we were giddy!  First exciting thing - new(ish) shopping carts!!!  Hot dog, usually you're lucky to even find a cart, and then it's covered in mystery sticky stuff and steers itself off into random directions.  So - a clean, mostly straight-steering cart just made our day!  The store was really big, and had WAY more choices than we're used to.  Don't get me wrong, it's still an Angolan store - I found scotch tape, a three-pack, for $17 - but it was still mighty thrilling to see something other than the same old junk that's in all the other stores.  Among the best items found:
           * Chicken Nuggets (haven't seen these since we left the good old USA)
            *Tortilla Chips (I've found these ONE other time, and didn't stock up - so now I will!)
            *Cheerios (these are sometimes found in one other store, but for a higher price)

We made our way to the checkout stand, and there were NO LINES.  Unbelievable!  But wait, it gets better!  My cashier bagged some of my stuff for me!  Usually the checker just tosses your groceries down to the end of the stand and you get to hustle and bag your stuff before someone else grabs it....so this was a big deal!  (Related oddity - even in a brand spanking new store like today, the stores all have conveyor belts at the checkout stands that DO NOT WORK.  You can load your stuff up on them, but then you have to keep scooting and sliding them along to the cashier.)

 And then my good fortune seemed to stall out, because the pencils I had bought for the boys didn't scan.  Unlike America, if a price doesn't come up, you're out of luck - you can't buy that item.  But today was a golden day, and my checker actually called someone to find out the price!!!!!  So I got to buy the pencils, and the miraculous shopping trip will be talked about for weeks.  Yes, this is what my life is like, people - a completely average experience at an overpriced, understocked store has become the high point of my week.  And I'm absolutely fine with that....mostly because I have these people waiting for me at the end of each day.