I won! Twice a week I take my own bags into Trader Joe's so I can add my name to the drawing. The winner gets $25 worth of groceries. I knew as soon as I saw the caller ID. I told y'all I'm a winner. It only took a year and half. And it's aaallready spent.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Have you ever won anything at a carnival, arcade or midway game?

When I was six, my family went to our school's fall carnival. This was the only one we ever had. I won three cakes at the cake walk. After the third, my mother pulled me off the line. (Oddly, musical chairs has always made me really nervous. Even though it's similar to the cake walk, I might not get a chair!)

Since then, I've been routinely winning things, not all the time, and I don't gamble, but party raffles, drawings at work... I've resolved to win the weekly raffle at Trader Joe's, and I've been trying for a year :( But I still think like a winner! Bring your own bags and enter each week to win $25 worth of groceries. I go twice a week. I would think those would be decent odds.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Valrhona

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Has anyone tried the ginger spread (suggested use is with cheese) or the citron spread (suggested use is with toast or bagels)? I will eventually try them myself, but we go camping tomorrow, and I didn't want to bring something new home today from TJ's and then forget about it. They can be found with the apple sauce and jellies.

Send to a friend

Trader Joe's Gelato Tiramasu with broken madeleines. yum.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Today in Trader Joe’s, Seth caught me in a yawn. I was tempting myself with those little single serving apple dumplings. Seth said, “I just saw your gold tooth.” Which reminded me that I’m finally finished with the dentist for a while. Because of baby sitting issues, and a pinch of laziness, I let a filling turn into a root canal. After crowning that, my dentist, who is a perfectionist, also gave me a white porcelain crown to replace another gold crown that had gotten damaged. He’s been trying to get me to replace my second gold crown. (But it only showed up in one photo from 3 years ago.)

My dentist likes a perfect smile, and of course, he has a living to make. He’s pitched the teeth whitening, but after my covering what the insurance wouldn’t pay for, I’d much rather pay $15 at Target for whitening strips. Well, I’ve been waiting to do that because I was afraid the dentist would notice I’d gone the layman’s route. I didn’t want to be scolded.

He set my last crown, hopefully forever, two weeks ago. I looked over at him. He pulled his goggles down and whipped out the tooth shaver to give me an even bite. I saw the cord swing around, very Tarantinoesque. I have a lot less tolerance for the dentist. They look at me in the chair, and they seem worried. They can tell I hate it, my face scrunched in a permanent scowl, flinching at those metallic sounds and strange smells. They’re very apologetic.

I like my gold tooth.

I also scratched someone’s car in that rotten Trader Joe’s parking lot. Arrrggh. I left a note though.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Well, I just ruined my supper by scarfing down 1/3 of a bag of those veggie chips from Trader Joe’s, on the hunt for other Georgias on VOX, and finding them, getting a lot done in my house, painted and hung a shelf (spinach green) and even added some chachkies to it, which I typically use sparingly. I’m in a nesting mood, which is hard when you refuse to pay high prices for everything. I can be cheap sometimes. But at the same time, I love good quality. That’s a problem. I’m going to get a newspaper soon, and look for yard/estate sales. I like the idea of haggling; I learned some of that in Connecticut.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend