. I've had a few more grocery price surprises. Today, I managed to get out, drive the 15 minutes or so it takes to get to BJs, and get home by a little after 9 am. Trying to beat the heat, which will reach 95 degrees today.
The "surprise" is discovering that Stop & Shop charges MORE than Whole Foods for organic oranges. Oranges are heavily sprayed, so I like to buy organic. They are currently $5.99 for a 4 lb bag at Whole Foods and $6.99 for a 3 lb bag at Stop & Shop.
Here's another example: 1 lb of baby bok choy is just $2.79 (organic) at Whole Foods, but costs $6.99 for 1 lb (not organic) at Stop & Shop. That's a crazy difference!
At my BJs trip this morning, I noticed they LOWERED some prices since last time I shopped. I know this is routine as summer approaches and fresh produce becomes "in season," but it was the Wellesley Farm brand of Greek yogurt that also dropped.
The masonry crew finished the basement walls yesterday. I was SO glad when they left. Even though they were in the basement, I could clearly hear them talking (in Spanish) from my 2nd floor office, with various noises, etc. What really upset me was that in the process of cleaning up, one of them chose to use a gas-powered blower on my driveway. They did create a lot of dust with the cement mixing out there, but they cleared the whole driveway. I had 2 small parsley plants out there with baby black swallowtail caterpillars. The caterpillars were literally blown away and I'm sure died. The other thing was, they cleared a whole lot of groundcovers that were growing along the edges of the driveway, against my stone walls, plus some beautiful ground phlox that took many years to grow into a large clump. I liked the way they softened the look of the stone walls and paver driveway. All blown away. Very upsetting.
Continuing the tradition of contractors always causing some kind of damage or work for me, this crew splattered concrete on my brand new hot water heater, the oil furnace, my water tank, my kayak and even the pump for the water tank, plus copper piping. There was dust everywhere. Concrete smeared on my outdoor faucet handles, one of which is now hard to turn, I think becus concrete dust got inside the mechanism.
I spent a lot of time wiping a lot of concrete and dust off stuff, but I'm not done.
Now that I am cat-less, I would really like to make the basement as clean and dust-free as possible, partly to protect the new hot water heater, which has a filter at the top that i clean every month, but also just to be cleaner. I need to think about how best to reduce the dust. I think a household vacuum with hepa filters would still be ruined by vacuuming up fine dust. (I learned that once and had to have the vacuum repaired.) I do have a shop vac but is that going to blow the dust around? I think it would. I guess wiping with damp rags would be best; i don't even own a mop, but maybe I'll get one at $ store.
Remaining projects for 2025: I ran a load of wash at the "normal" spin cycle setting and it still seemed to be vibrating too much on its new stand. The clothes were still extremely wrung out of water, though, which is good. Next I want to run a load on the "low" spin cycle to see if that noticeably reduces the vibrations. If not, I'll ask the handyman to return and help me slip a half-inch foam yoga mat i no longer use under the washing machine. I may also call Samsung and ask for suggestions. I mean, I love the new stand the handymay built for me, and I want to be able to use it!
Also need to call an appliance guy about a possible leak with my dishwasher, which i haven't used for over a year.
Then there are my father's projects. I have to bring him back out to the notary at library again to redo notarization on his letter cus bank said i left off a "0" that appeared on his statement with a space after it, so I didn't think it was part of his account number. Notary has not called me back yet. He was on vacation, but i think that was just last week.
The talking watch i got my father a year or two ago is talking very faintly now. It needs a new battery. Rather than me fiddling with it and just getting frustrated, I want to bring it to a jeweler, who will charge $15 to do it, although i have purchased the battery for it.
I made a reservation for myself next week for a guided walking tour of Historic Heugonot Street in New Paltz, over an hour's drive for me. I've passed through that area and the homes are beautiful. The area was originally founded in 1894 by descendants of the first settlers. The tour includes going inside 5 or 6 of the houses, settled by French/Dutch, I believe, and also a 1717 French church and cemetery. It should be interesting.
There are a lot of things of interest to me within a 2-hour drive that I have never gotten around to seeing, so I plan to start making "fun" daytrip stuff more of a priority. There's more to life than grocery shopping and home projects.
June 26th, 2025 at 01:22 pm 1750944147
June 26th, 2025 at 01:41 pm 1750945300
Good plan on doing some of your close to home things of interest. I think we often forget these places.
June 27th, 2025 at 01:55 pm 1751032555
June 27th, 2025 at 02:16 pm 1751033807
I won't be doing this forever, but I find it illuminating to see how prices change, not only seasonally, but "just because."
June 30th, 2025 at 07:11 pm 1751310717
July 1st, 2025 at 01:50 am 1751334605
On dairy items, other stores beat them on the same brands.
July 1st, 2025 at 11:38 am 1751369936
I'll have to check them out again for frozen organic fruit, another staple at my house; for years I've bought the 3 or 4 lb bags at BJs, Wellseley Farms brand, which is really a great price.