I usually keep Campbell's Cream of Chicken on hand but I used it up this weekend and thought that making it from scratch couldn't be that difficult. It was super easy, but the boullion bag was written in characters and unfortunately after 6 months of language study I still cannot read.
David was out at one of the 4 stores he visited tonight, all in a effort to buy: hamburger buns, whipping cream and milk. His first stop was Walmart - the place to get anything and everything you need, right? nope. They had NOTHING. Not one item on this list. SO he headed off to the two trusty import stores. One had one item, the other had the other item. Neither carries the milk we like. He finally came home at 7:30 only to sit down to this nasty dinner. Poor guy. He's really taken up the slack with this pregnancy. He does ALL the shopping now. After dinner he told me he was going out to HoMart to see if they had milk. Sure enough - of ALL places - they had the High Calcium, Low Fat milk we like!!!! This is also the place, if you'll recall, that carries my powdered creamer occasionally. I am lovin' me some HoMart!!!
As I was reading to Hannah David came in the room and I told him I was so frustrated that we cannot just go to one store and buy everything we need. He said he was frustrated that we couldn't just go to one park and play on a single patch of grass. I thought that was ridiculous! If I had to choose between and SuperTarget and a patch of grass, guess which one I would choose! I offered that scenario to him to which he replied, "The grass, of course!" .....WHAT?!?! Is he crazy?!
No, he's not crazy. If a patch of grass means as much to him as a superstore does to me then I totally get it. We all have things on this side of the world that really get to us; that if it just wasn't this way life would be SO much easier. For me, it's the shopping. For David, it's the grass.
As I was pondering this I realized: how selfish am I? Some people live in a world where they don't have to plan their trips to 4 different stores to buy what they need because they don't HAVE 4 different stores to choose from! Some have one. Some have none. Some buy everything they need at the market. Some people make cream of chicken soup, sour cream, coffee creamer, butter, cheese and syrup from scratch ALL.THE.TIME. And some don't even have electricity to do it. Or internet to write blogs to complain about it. How selfish am I....
I am thankful for where I live. I am thankful that moments like these cause me to step back and reevaluate my thinking. I am thankful for my 4 stores. I am thankful for my amazingly selfless husband. I am thankful for internet and electricity. I am thankful for perspective.
As long as I have access to Campbell's I'm not sure I will attempt the "from scratch" kind again, but I wouldn't be surprised if one day I find myself in the place I described above: only the market to shop from, no electricity to cook with and no internet to tell you all about it. Would it be worth it? You bet. And you know what? I bet we'd have grass instead.
