Monday, Monday...

What a happy little weekend this was.  We spent our day Saturday in Cincinnati with Sweet Maggie, shopping, as usual, but not buying anything, which is not usual.  I've got money burning a hole in my pocket, but I can't bring myself to spend it - there's nothing I want badly enough to justify laying down the cold hard cash.  More than likely, an unexpected expense will present itself and I'll have to use my mad money for that and I'll be mad that I didn't get to buy anything fun but I'll be glad I had the money on hand.  Such is life.  La di da.

We'd talked about getting a hotel room and staying overnight in Cincy, but in the end, I couldn't justify the expense or the extra trouble it would cause for Stacy and Jessie to have to keep the dog for an extra night.  And I didn't want to wake up and have to drive home - I really like my house and waking up here each morning is one of my favorite things.  So we drove home, picked up the pup, and we were home well before midnight.

Yesterday we went to Whole Foods to buy some bulk quinoa.  Do you know about quinoa?  Apparently, it's the new pomegranate, one of the new "super foods".  It's a vegetable that is eaten/tastes like a cereal grain, and it has like 14 grams of protein in a 3.5 ounce serving.  That's what they say, at least...I've not tried it yet.  Jimi swears it's going to be our new favorite breakfast food.  Anyhow.  So we went to the Whole Foods, and can I take a minute here to tell you how much I love that place?  I know everything they sell is marked up by at least a dollar compared to stuff at the Kroger, but it's like a hippie grocery-shopping-lover's wet dream.  (I love grocery shopping.  Hate all other forms of shopping.  Go figure.)  I love the beautiful, varied, unusual flowers that smell so good when you walk in the front door.  I love that their grocery carts have a built-in vase to hold your fresh flowers.  I love that they have every variety of everything, in organic and why-do-you-hate-the-Earth?! (regular, I mean).  And Oh My Gosh the Bulk Grains Aisle?!  Holy smokes, I want to live there.  I was so in awe of the place that I bought 2.5 lbs of split peas.  WTF?  I don't even like peas.  (I do like split pea soup though, which is why I bought the peas, I guess, but still - I've never actually made split pea soup, so who knows how this will turn out.  I just had to buy something from that aisle other than the quinoa.)

And then Jimi rushed me through the rest of the store because he knew I was well on my way to wandering aimlessly up and down every single aisle, spending minutes ogling the teas and tomato sauces and different-shaped noodles.  But the cheese!  He couldn't divert me from the cheeses, mainly because they live next to the food bars where we were planning to pick out our individual selections for lunch.  The cheese makes me happy.  I decided to splurge on a selection - I raided the $3 and under sample bin and came away with 8 cheeses of all colors and smells and tastes (one has cranberries in it, another has black olives; be still my heart!) for under $30.  (I don't actually know how much I paid - Whole Foods is one of those places where I can't look too closely at individual price tags - I just try to keep my total under a pre-set dollar amount.  I managed to keep my budget on this trip, so it's a win!)

While I perused the cheeses, Jimi made a discovery of his own - they sell beer!  Not just any beer, either; good beer.  Gumballhead beer.  Jimi loves the Gumballheads.  You can get a pint, 32 oz., or a 64 oz. growler.  The time it took to fill his growler allowed me the time I needed to pick my cheeses.  We were both happy.

And then it was time for lunch.  They had eight (8!) soup selections.  I'm such a sucker for a good soup.  They also had sushi and bbq pork and fresh green beans and salads and all sorts of delicious-looking things.  I wanted to eat it all, but I only have so much room, you know?  I decided on tomato bisque and crackers and a piece of my cheese...and a California roll.  Of course, I only ate the soup and such - I had two pieces of my roll, but I liked the soup better, so Jimi finished the sushi for me.  (He'd counted on this - it's pretty common - so he'd only selected a veggie sushi-style roll.  He's so smart, that man of mine.)  The Whole Foods has a little dining area there in the front of the store - making it officially my favorite place ever.  The cashier said they could arrange to have a cot set up in the back if I was really serious about wanting to live there; if Jimi ever kicks me out, I'll take the guy up on the offer.

After lunch, we went to the Guitar Center across the way.  I thought we were going to look at guitars; turns out, Jimi was serious when he said Saturday that he thinks I should spend my mad money to buy a full-size keyboard, and we were there to see what they had to offer in the way of portable electric pianos.  I'm not prepared to drop $300 on a keyboard.  It would mean I'd have to sign up for lessons; I've forgotten nearly everything I learned from the four years of lessons I barely tolerated as a tween.  And while I'd love to have a piano sitting around to plunk away on when the urge strikes, a keyboard is not a piano, and there is not room in the house for a piano right now and I don't know that I want to spend money on an electric one when I sort of feel like electric would be cheating or disappointing to my expectation and history with the traditional upright.  But Jimi's suggestion was so sweet, so sincere, and his line of "I thought then we could sit around and make music together" was just too heart-wrenching to not seriously sway my opinions.  But still, it's a lot of money...

So I walked away from the Guitar Center without a new instrument for me...but Jimi bought himself a ukulele.  He strummed all the way to Rick's house, who fed me homemade chocolate peanut butter cheesecake and shared a Gumballhead with Jimi.  He strummed all the way home, and then he hijacked the computer to look up chords and songs and sat here strumming until I lured him away with the offer of...

*ehhem*  So anyhow, he took over the computer last night, and that's why I'm regaling you with this awesome story now instead of then.  That, and I don't have anything else to talk about.  Except that when Jimi got home tonight, he took his ukulele to the bathroom with him, saying he was going to play while he pooped.  He said it's called "dookulele".

Gosh, I'm sorry I had to create that image for you, but it's funny, right?  Dookulele.  I'm still giggling.

Our friend and former roommate, Jen, called last night.  She's going to have her baby girl any day now, and I'm glad to find that I'm genuinely, without hesitation, happy and excited for her.  I'm not feeling those jealous pangs I felt when she first learned she was expecting, and I didn't have a single "why can't that be me?" thought.  This is progress, people.  And now I need to go find her registry and send that woman some baby towels - she said she's gotten dozens of little washcloths, but not a single bath towel for her little peapod.

Happy Monday, Friends.  I hope you have a lovely week.