Grocery Shopping on Empty

For weeks, I have had gallons of energy. Buckets even.  This is not normal for me, and I love it!  Summertime with its' warm weather and outdoor activities somehow turns off the lupus machine.

But today, the switch toggled over to "on" and wouldn't you know it?  My tank was on "E" for hours.

So naturally, it's grocery day.  Whee!!


Basically, I feel like I have to flu.  Not sickness-wise, but fatigue-wise.  Kind of like the first or third trimester of pregnancy, when all you want to do is sit on the couch and wait until normalcy returns.

So the troops and I headed out to the grocery store to see what we could do about restocking our pantry.  Even if I was having a bad day, we still needed groceries.

Yup, it was one of those suck-it-up-and-go kinda days. 

Thankfully, my oldest daughter, Aryn, loves to take on new responsibilities.  I handed her a quarter and she went and picked out the cart (or "buggy") and met us at the door.  She insisted on pushing the cart through the store (another energy saver) and helped load up the cart.  Gotta love the drive for independence!

Bram wanted to ride in the cart, so he took up two-thirds of the basket, but we just piled the food around him.  There was no way I was going to carry my 40-pound boy through the store.

While checking out the eggs and milk, I happened to spot a little black bug crawling on Bram's sock.  It looked just like...A TICK!!  Ack!  Tick bug!  I quickly snatched it off his ankle and threw it on the ground, stomping it with my tennis shoe for good measure.  Unfortunately, I had forgotten I was gardening in those shoes yesterday, so when I stomped, dirt exploded onto the floor.  Well, at least the bug was dead.

And then I heard, "Hi, Karen!"  Oh boy - someone saw me stomping on the bug and spraying dirt on the floor, and heard me yell, "Tick bug!"  I must've looked like a total crazy person.  Good thing the voice belonged to one of the kindest people I know.  She didn't mind a bit.  And she didn't make note of the mess I made, either.  Then she hugged me.

I needed that!

In fact, the last time I saw this same person at this grocery store was my last really bad lupus grocery shopping day.  Here she was again, giving me something to laugh about and encouraging me.

It's as if God sent her at those exact times in answer to my prayer for strength and energy to get through the grocery chore.  Neat, huh?

So, to finish up our grocery trip, we had to carry them all into the house.  On a day like today, the side walk seems like its a million miles long.

I told the girls I'd pay them if they would help me bring the groceries in, and this is what we did:

Anything with wheels that could carry groceries was put to use.  And made it fun, too!

Aryn with the gardening cart (she also took whole bags),

Kylie with her tricycle (speedy delivery!)

Bram as the enthusiastic doorman

Some days, I need all the help I can get!  When I ask them to help, the kids learn how to work hard, be responsible and earn money for a job well done.