"On this day..."

I'm a little bit of a Facebook addict. Actually... that's not being entirely honest.

I am a HUGE Facebook addict!

I have recently been enjoying the fact that Facebook have started accessing older statuses and showing them in the side bar with the heading "on this day..."

Last week there were references to 2009, including the day that I cooked my first ever lamb roast. This brought back memories of a horrific Sunday lunch that I tried to cook friends, where unfortunately my second ever lamb roast was a bit of a disaster. I got it out of the oven too early and it was pink. Everyone was saying "that's okay", but they were just being nice as it was practically raw! Unbeknownst to my guests I had just discovered I was pregnant, so eating raw meat was a big no-no. I ended up cooking my portions a bit longer while my guests endured their undercooked meat and put up with me pouring drinks and forgetting to serve them! (One visitor eventually stood up from the dining table and got said drinks off the kitchen bench!)

Baby brain anyone?

Today's reference was such a mere male moment I had to share.

This one brought back memories from when Mark went grocery shopping for the first time at the age of 30. Mark had lived at home with his mum until we moved in together, and had never had to do grocery shopping before! Unfortunately during the house move I bulged a disc in my spine and was therefore out of action for weeks. It was Mark's job to do our first ever grocery shop, and I sent him on his way with a list I'd written.

2 hours later there was still no sign of Mark and it was not a big shopping list. I was starting to get worried so I rang him - he was still at the supermarket, but only had a couple more things to get. I wondered what on earth he had been doing the entire time.

When he got home I discovered the problem. I don't still have the original shopping list, but here is an example of something similar:

Can you see the problem yet?

When I write a shopping list I simply write the items as they occur to me, in no particular order. This works for me - I just work through each section of the supermarket and cross the items off the list as I get them. I didn't explain this to Mr Methodical though, who proceeded to get each item on the list in order of how they were written!

SO, he looked at the list, saw carrots, and got the carrots. Where most people would then look through the list and get all the fruit and vegetable items, Mark simply crossed off the carrots and went onto the next item - which involved a trip halfway across the supermarket to the dairy section to get Milk. He then got the loaf of bread, then went back to the fruit and vegetable section to get the Apples and Bananas... and so on down the list.

Following this experience I learnt to group the like items together, and also, where possible, list them in order of the supermarket aisles! After 4 years of practise though we actually don't need to do this anymore. I am pleased to report that Mark has gradually progressed from Grocery Shopping 101 through to his recent graduation as an Experienced Grocery Shopper .... "Big Leeks" included!