about grocery shopping

I had coffee with a really sweet friend this morning at Kennedy Coffee. I have lived here for 4.5 years and this was my first time there! I was able to have a drink made with almond milk! I was so happy to have that option! Her and I had such a great, long talk!

I had to do grocery shopping after our coffee date. My average shopping trip is about 1 hour and 40 minutes. It exhausts me, mostly because I spend a lot of time reading labels and locating the best and healthiest products while also trying to stick to our budget. Stores do not always make it easy to find exactly what you are looking for- I stood looking at the shelf for a certain item for 2 whole minutes today until I finally spotted it. AND I was only looking at a small section! Don't get me wrong, I love grocery shopping and I get a weird satisfaction making a meal plan and shopping for our food. I want to choose the best choices for us and it really does take time and effort!

I once again did not feel great tonight. I'm just so fatigued and so full feeling in my abdomen with pain as well.  It subsided a bit as the evening wore on and I was able to make a cake and do the dishes.

I'm so, so very ready for my GI appointment tomorrow where we will discuss treatment. I'll have that update tomorrow.

Friday randoms

TGIF!

I'm so glad it is the weekend!

I was able to have my weekly catch up with a sweet friend yesterday during piano lessons. Her son has lessons during the same time.

Yesterday evening, some ladies in our Sunday school class met up at the home of Susan Goss. Susan is a wonderful, beautiful and extremely funny woman who goes to our church. She is also a faith based counselor. Over the past year, we have had a few "sessions" with her. She has tremendous knowledge and shares so much good stuff with us.

Last night, we discussed prayer.

Somehow, the words came out of my mouth about one of my deepest shames in my life- 

I have never prayed out loud around other people in my entire life.

She gave so much Godly advice and I feel such peace about where all of this is leading me.

I'm thankful for friends who do not judge when you confess/share. Although, my friend Kacy almost killed me on the drive over! Just kidding! She will get it!

Susan is also the childhood friend of someone that a lot of people might know:

This morning, my friend Berkli came over for coffee and our weekly "catch up." We usually walk weekly, but it is way too cold for me right now! It's fun to sit in our robes with coffee and just chat!

I ran some errands today. One of those errands was to pick up a Redbox movie for tonight. We got a digital gift card for Christmas. The way you use it is to register online, pick your location, pick your movie, and then take the credit card on file with you when you go pick it up. I *thought* I had picked a certain location, but apparently I wasn't thinking that there were two Neighborhood Markets on this specific street. You would think that wouldn't be too big of a deal, but it was 30 minutes round trip out of my way. I will definitely be more careful with that process in the future!

A friend posted this recipe for a homemade chai latte recently and I made one today. It is so delicious and easy to make! I halved the recipe to make one serving, used a vanilla chai tea bag, steeped the tea instead of using a coffee pot, and used 1 tsp. of vanilla extract in place of the vanilla creamer.

Tonight, we are going to have dinner at home and watch Rio 2!

I went to the library today to get some good old fashioned fiction. I also got the sound recording for the book, Wild: From lost to found on the Pacific Crest Trail. It is our January book club book. We are going to dinner and to see the movie next weekend.

I haven't listed to an audio book in years and I'm kind of looking forward to it!