Grocery delights.

I've been surfing around reading a few other people's blogs this afternoon, and I feel like mine is BOOORING!

Then again, my life is pretty boring, so that doesn't give me much blog fodder.

How boring is my life? Well, I made a trip to our new grocery store this morning and it was definitely the highlight of my week.

We have a plaza with a bunch of empty storefronts just up the road, and an effort is being made to fill the plaza and spiff it up some. So Farm Fresh put in a new store in one of the empty sections. We have a couple Farm Fresh stores over in Newport News, and I go to the one every so often, but this is great to have one right up the road.

Here's how truly boring our lives are--Todd ran over to the plaza to pick up Chinese food a couple weeks ago, and called me all in a tizzy because the Farm Fresh had just opened. We weren't expecting it to open so soon, since the sign had just gone up, and construction in Virginia seems to take about five times longer than it did in Ohio.

The conversation went:

"Hey, guess what? That new Farm Fresh is open!"

"REALLY?!!"

"YEAH! I'm in here right now!"

"REALLY?!!"

"YEAH! It's so cool!"

Weep for us poor thirty-something homebody losers, gentle reader.

Anyway, I finally made it over to check it out for myself, and it's quite nice. I'm a bit of a food snob. I don't really like to cook, and I don't eat right, but I like to have the option of cooking and eating right when the desire hits me.

I like seeing fancy spaghetti sauces and whole-grain breads and cheese with names I can't pronounce. I adore seeing well-lit, beautifully arranged produce and ethnic food sections that encompass more than just Italian and Mexican. I like finding foods from companies other than General Mills and Kraft.

And I don't mind paying a little more for the experience, either. Our other neighborhood grocery store is a Food Lion, and it's about the least-inspired grocery store I've ever seen. It's nice to have a pretty grocery store finally. I don't care if that makes me shallow.

Because I was there mid-morning, it was just me and a handful of senior citizens, so I walked right up to the smiling waiting cashier who said, "I can take you right here," had my groceries bagged in paper bags by a lovely girl, and then had a very nice gentleman wheel them out and load them in the car for me. I can't remember the last time I was attended by three whole people at a grocery store. I felt like Queen Elizabeth surrounded by courtiers.

This Farm Fresh also has a program where you can shop online, send in your order, then drop by and pick it up. The fee is only $4.50. I can't begin to tell you how tempted I am by this feature. It seems incredibly decadent to pay someone else to do my grocery shopping for me.

But you know, everything was so bright and pretty, I think I can suck it up and shop for myself for a while longer.