What Do You See Outside YOUR Open Window Today?

What Do You See Outside YOUR Open Window Today?
Remember: "When God closes a door, He always opens a window!" You never know what might be out there waiting for you!

Tuesday, February 24, 2026

Tuesday 4~ Grocery Shopping

 Grocery Shopping


Hello friends and welcome to Tuesday 4 in honor of Toni Taddeo.
Here are some questions for you on the topic of shopping.


1. Where do you like to buy your groceries and do you buy by the day, week or month?
We mostly buy our every day groceries at our local grocery store here in our little town. They have just changed ownership, and the new owners are improving things little by little.  We also pick up things like milk, bread and eggs at our nearby Dollar General, as it is right at the entrance to our neighborhood and very convenient to stop there as we come and go by it all the time.  For bigger items we often make a trip to the next city over, about 15 miles away, and go to Walmart.


2. What foods would we always find in your kitchen?
All the basics...milk, eggs, butter, bread, coffee, tea, canned vegies and beans and fruits, frozen meats, fresh vegies and lettuce and fresh spinach, cheeses, bologna and deli ham and hot dogs. Of course, also things like flour, sugar, rice, pasta, spices, all the basics for baking. Oh, and mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, pickles, salad dressings. Also onions, potatoes, carrots, and cabbage are usually kept on hand.

3.Do you buy anything online and if so what kinds of things are you most likely to buy there?
I sometimes make an order to Walmart for larger items that can be delivered, or things they may not have at the local store. I also order some things on Amazon as needed.  

4. Do you shop with a list on paper, on your phone or do you just shop without a list and maybe come home with things you never planned to buy?
I make a written list and try to always remember to take it with me to the store. I especially use the list for things that we may have run out of that I don't buy every week, like laundry detergent or paper goods or items in the pharmacy section of Walmart.  I keep a magnetic notepad on the refrigerator that is used to write things down as we run out of them.

Bonus question: What will you be cooking in the coming week?
Good question! I do not necessarily plan meals ahead that much. I keep a variety of meats in the freezer when I see them on special, so that I have different things to choose from throughout the week. Then I discuss the meals with hubby to find out what he feels like having. Since it's usually just the two of us we can be pretty flexible, depending upon what our mood is! Tonight we had hamburgers. However, if the ground beef had not thawed out enough for hamburgers in time, I was going to use it to make either sloppy joes or a one pot dish that I can either thaw the meat in the microwave or in the pot as I cook it. Like I said, we are pretty flexible.  Thankfully hubby is not a real picky eater.  If I know we are going to have company (like the kids) here for a meal, then of course I plan a regular menu ahead...and often we put our food together to cover all the basics.

I know you already saw this picture in my last post from the anniversary party at Cook's Buffet on Saturday.  But I purposefully took a picture of this particular section of the salad bar because I was focusing on that congealed gelatin salad on the left front corner. No, I don't plan to make it this week, but I have made one similar for Thanksgiving and/or Christmas dinner before.
That is a cranberry/orange jello salad, with whole berry canned cranberry sauce, pecans, oranges and pineapple, and maybe some other things thrown in there too. I LOVE this salad, and I took a picture of it because I wanted to remember it. As I did so, I said out loud, "Nanny, this is for you!"  "Nanny" is my husband's mother, who of course is in heaven now...but years ago when we used to go to another one of these same restaurants together (when it was called "Holiday House"), she and I would always get this jello and talk about how much we loved it. We also both would always get the leg of lamb.  So, as I said in my previous post, going to this restaurant was a very nostalgic experience for me in so many ways.

Also, for all of you who asked in my last post if my sister Doris and I were "twins", well, no, we aren't. We are several years apart (and I am the baby, so don't go asking which one is older, okay? LOL!)  Here is how we looked 60 years ago at her wedding.  It's too bad this isn't in color, so you could tell that I was a redhead and Doris was a brunette.  I was about 5'8" and she was about 5'2".  Doris had a complexion that tanned nicely, whereas I would burn and freckle.  
L to R: Yours truly, Doris, Art, and our brother Clifford. Art was in the Army, and Clifford was in the Air Force. This was Feb. 11, 1966.

Doris and me. I was her Maid of Honor.

And here's how we looked as little girls...so you can really see we weren't twins.
Lto R: our brother Russell (R.I.P.), Clifford, Doris and me, "the little redhead". Our Dad and Mom on the back row. (R.I.P.) This was around 1953.

Somehow as we've aged we've just kind of melded together, and sometimes we scare each other by saying and doing the same things. 
And wearing the same outfits...

And automatically responding the same way to someone sneaking up behind us to take our picture while we were out for a walk with our Daddy...
That's our sweet Daddy in the middle of our silliness. 

And unbeknownst to us, we both wore the same outfit, (see below) even down to the white sweaters, at my son Matthew's wedding rehearsal party. That's our parents on either side of us, and Matthew is hugging his bride to be, Nicole, in the background, and Nicole's parents are sitting in front of us. This was way back in 1993...so many sweet memories.

Interestingly enough, (below) our brothers even got into the "act" of dressing alike now and then...again,  this was not planned...and sadly this photo was taken at my son Matthew's Celebration of Life in 2014, just 21 years after that happy occasion above. Little did we know then that in 2019 our brother Russell would also be entering heaven after a battle with leukemia:



So anyway, after all that, I just wanted you to know that we're still definitely not twins! LOL. Just sisters, with apparently some very similar characteristics...

Okay, that's enough silly stuff for this post.

You can join in the Tuesday 4 meme HERE, and also see what others are writing about.

Here's some words of wisdom from the book of Romans 15:5-6 for today:

"5 Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, 
6 that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."



 


18 comments:

  1. I like that jello salad too but my favorite is orange jello with mandarin slices in it. My mother used to make jello mixed with ice cream. You have to time the mixture just right for it to be done right.
    Wonderul photos and memories. We are so blessed to have photographs.

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    1. Oh yes, Annie! My mother used to make the jello and ice cream mixture sometimes too! It was SO good!! And yes, I love the orange jello with mandarin slices in it as well. I think this restaurant actually had that on the salad bar as an option, but I went for this other one for "old time's sake".

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  2. I love all the photos. You and your sister really do look a lot alike. I have 2 sisters and a brother. One sister and brother look alike and act a lot alike. My youngest sister and I are often told we look alike. We also finish each others sentences and have also come to things dressed alike, so I laughed when reading that you did that too.

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  3. I loved seeing these photos of your family, Pamela. I knew, of course, that Doris and you were not twins, but it doesn't hurt to clarify that for your newer readers. I think it's amazing, though, that you are so much alike in dressing and expressions. Wow! Have a wonderful day!

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  4. I just answered all of the questions over on Mary's blog so I won't go into them all again, except to say again that I detest shopping in any form. Hubby doesn't mind so he does all of the grocery shopping since he retired.
    I absolutely loved all of these photos Pam. It's amazing how often you two dress the same and do the same actions. You must be twins at heart! I loved seeing Matthew's smile on this happy occasion. Happy, happy memories.
    Blessings and love,
    Betsy

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  5. Your dressing alike especially ,at that rehearsal dinner, is quite amazing. You two are beautiful both in looks and in spirit. It just oozes from you in those photos.
    To answer a few of the questions ... I really don't like to shop and only do so out of necessity. Groceries are mainly from Walmart, Costco and occasionally Safeway.
    I tend to be a fly by the seat of my pants meal maker. We too are very flexible in our eating habits. I guess being retired does that to us. Last night we just had a HUGE artichoke for dinner and later had some brownies for dessert. Tonight its "Glop". Clean out the fridge night ... ground beef, onions, kidney beans, green beans in a golden mushroom and seasoned tomato sauce over mashed potatoes. I make enough so we have leftovers for another meal when I don't feel like cooking.
    Its simple and hearty meals for us.
    Sue

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  6. Such a delightful post, Pam! I just love the pictures of you and Doris at her wedding. As I've commented before, the styles back then were so much more flattering than they tend to be these days.

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  7. Love all the family photos. My mom and aunt get asked all the time if they are twins. My aunt is taller than my mom and younger too, but s they have aged they do look much more alike than when younger.

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  8. I loved to see the photos of you and your sister. You do look a lot alike and i love how you dressed a like.
    I go shopping just like you do.

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  9. I smiled throughout this whole post. How incredible the matching outfits are. LOL! I love it!!!!!

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  10. I Pamela, I enjoyed reading your post. I sometimes make my mom's cranberry Jello salad. The sister under me looks like me and we are both short. My younger sister is taller than us. I like the picture of the 4 of you towards the bottom. Glad that you have so many sweet memories!

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  11. Pam, this post was hardly "silly" stuff as I enjoyed seeing your family photos and it is amazing that you and your sister wore similar outfits for several occasions.

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  12. I LOVED this post. It made my morning. Thank you for sharing your heart, your family and all the silly. Thank You!!

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  13. I always enjoy your family photos, how blessed you are to have a sister and a friend all in one.

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  14. What a fun post. I enjoyed all the photos of you and your sister 🥰

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  15. I enjoyed, so much, these pictures of you and Doris!! My sister, Patti, and I look alike but are 6-years apart. She has red hair to my blonde/now gray. Always fun. You can tell we are sisters, but not twins. Looking forward to seeing you in a few weeks!! xo

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  16. Enjoyed your post. You definitely look like you could be twins.

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  17. A lovely trip down memory lane. I love looking at photos, especially old ones, and hearing tales of yesteryear. What stylish young folks you were (and are)! And you seem like such a close, happy family. (I'm intrigued about the gelatin salad...)

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