1. Stop & Shop.  Elizabeth, Diggory, and I recently discovered one of the stores near our house, and have begun frequenting it as of late for our grocery shopping needs.  It’s not quite as close as the Pathmark, which is about 100 feet from where we live, but the experience at the Stop & Shop is quite a bit nicer.

For one thing, rather than waiting in line at the deli counter, we can just go to the computer they have there and punch in our order, then go do the rest of our shopping and they’ll page us when our order’s ready.

And yesterday, to my wide-eyed delight, we discovered that the store has portable scanners that you can carry around with you as you shop.  As you put items in your cart, you scan them in with this hand-held device, and it keeps a running tab of what’s in your cart.  When it comes time to check out, then, you just walk up to one of self-service checkout lanes, scan one final bar code, pay, and leave.

I was babbling like a teenage girl at a Jonas Brothers concert.  This is technology at its finest.

2. In-line skates.  More commonly referred to as Rollerblades, though Rollerblades is actually a brand name and the Rollerblades company gets grumpy if you refer to all in-line skates as such.  Sort of like Kleenex or Jet-Ski.  Yesterday, we went to the gym and then went rollerblading / in-line skating / defying death on tiny wheels, which was both tiring and rewarding.

It was much bettter than my usual forays into fitness.

3. That Elizabeth does not like the Jonas Brothers.  I can grit my teeth and endure John Mayer piping through our sound system, but I really think listening to the Jonas Brothers would kill me, or at least do permanent psychological damage.

photo credit: Phil Romans