Good Idea...Bad Idea: Grocery Shopping!

This week I went to the grocery store with my reusable bags and my list of things and was in and out in a flash. I realized I go to a lot of grocery stores so here is the rundown of my favorite and my least favorite grocery stores.

Good Idea: Shoppers Food Warehouse

If you want to save money while still having a great selection of products, this store is great! It's just like Safeway, Giant, and Super Fresh but much cheaper! Some of them are better than others. You have to check them out and see.

Bad Idea: Sav a Lot, Aldi, and Bottom Dollar

While they do save you a lot of money, the stores are cramped, I've found more dirty stores than clean ones, and they don't have the variety I'm used too. They have mostly generic brands so you probably won't see the brands you're used to.

Good Idea: Harris Teeter

While a little expensive for some items the quality and selection is great. If you are looking for some sort of exotic produce, high tail it there! I was in there just touching everything, I had never heard of this stuff. Bright, clean, nicely spaced aisles. Good times, man.

Bad Idea: Safeway

This store is too daggon expensive!

Bad Idea: Magruder's

I think this store is only around the DMV and while the sales paper looked promising OMG the quality of the produce was terrible! Y'all the broccoli was brown and limp, all the apples were bruised, the store was cramped, the people made me hit them with my cart because they were rude, and I was scared to buy meat, lol

Bad Idea: Whole Foods

I'm sorry but I can't afford this darn store. I pass it right on by.

Good Idea: Trader Joe's, Giant, Food Lion

Basic stores. Nothing special.

Best Idea: My Organic Market

Sorry but you can only shop here in the DMV. This store makes me smile! Great quality, non expensive, organic foods. Ohhhh how I love it. And they bag and carry your groceries out to your car. Everybody was friendly, I got some banging apples for .99 a pound. If you live in the area you must go to this store!

Good Idea....Bad Idea: Let's Eat!

I was going to do my favorite cleaning stuff this week, but eating is so much more fun! I am a very picky eater but I like to try all different types of restaurants. If we are driving past some little hole in the wall then I beg to stop! When we are going out of town I refuse to eat at any place that we have back at home. This week I ate out a whoolllleeee lot. So here we go, Good Idea, Bad Idea the restaurant files.

The Fish Market- It's located in Old Town Alexandria on King Street. The ambiance is very nice. My mom and I ate outside and while the quarters were cramped the people at the table next to us were very nice and the people out walking were very entertaining. The food was excellent....EXCELLENT I say! Seriously I got Combination seafood pasta which was shrimp, scallops, fish, and broccoli in a light cream sauce. The only thing that would have made my meal better was bread to help offset the buttery sauce. My mom had the broiled seafood trio which was scallops, shrimp, salmon, hush puppies, roasted potatoes and cole slaw. She would not stop eating! It was really good. It wasn't expensive at all, our bill was $40 and I still have half of my dish left.

Houlihans- The place looked cool and I thought I read somewhere how good it was (maybe I was dazzled by the website). I think it is overrated. I prefer Fridays, lol. I felt as though it was overpriced. I had Fried shrimp and french fries. Ehhhh, take it or leave it. The fries were dull as can be. I am a fry junkie but those weren't even as good as the ones I make at home. They didn't even throw on any Lawry's or pepper, or garlic, or old bay, or something to make it unique. The Count had stuffed chicken with green beans and mashed potatoes. To me the chicken was bitter as crap but he liked it. The green beans were worse than the fries. It was definitely a bad idea.

Pasta Blitz- It's just like 3 brothers. My cheese pizza was good but that may be because I thought the garlic was Parmesan cheese and didn't realize it until I had spread it all over my pizza! I love garlic so it was cool. The Count had stuffed shells. He seemed to enjoy it. Not a bad idea, but it's not a place I would beg to go back to.

Krispy Kreme- Tuesday was my first time ever going in a Krispy Kreme. I had to see what the hype was about. I still don't know, lol. We had a donut that was hot off the machine and yeah it was soft and stuff, but I guess that's just not my thing. I won't be breaking my neck to get there and get some. I like my home made donuts better.

Rocky Run Tap & Grill or Berts (depending on where you live)- Yuummmmyyyyyy. There menu is so diverse and the food is good. I had Old Bay Pasta which is shrimp and scallops in this old bay type sauce. It was seriously delicious. I've been with The Count, my momma, and my best friend. Each time I was satisfied. This is one of my must returns! It is a very laid back saloon type atmosphere, so if you're looking for romance or class, you won't want to be there, lol. It's also 1 mile from my new apartment so you can be sure over the next year I will be tearing it up!

That's it for now. I'm holding off on blogging from work for a little while. The IT man told me to be careful because they are watching the network due to excessive you tubeage, lol. I still read everybody's blog in my google reader though and I'll try to still comment at night.

Good Idea, Bad Idea: The Beauty Edition

One thing MamaTM and TheCount are always fussing at me about is my willingness to try anything.

Me"Ohhh I saw this thing in the store the other day, I'm going to get it."

Them:"Well, what is it?

Me: "I don't know but it sure looked cool."

I think I have an addiction. Of course I've found some really great products, restaurants, food brands, and other things from my willingness to try things, so here is some of my best ideas and some of my worst:

Band-Aid Blister Block is the BEST. Seriously if you have to wear heels to work and they are uncomfortable just spread this stuff on the uncomfortable area and it makes it all better. Don't wait until your feet start hurting. While you are getting ready in the morning apply it. It's like wax for protection. I love it!

I just tried this. Check out the website for more details on it. I really can't say whether I liked it or hated it. Flexi-Strand is where the cornrow the weave into your head instead of sewing or gluing it. I will say this, if you get it, get a partial weave and not a full head. The top piece is like a wig cap if you get the full head and it doesn't look natural. It was very fast though and not very damaging to your hair at all, which I like. It was quite expensive and I only left mine in for a week because I hated the top piece so much (well that and I need to find a wedding hairstyle ASAP!) If you are a weave wearer, I think it would be worth checking out. If you live in the area, I can give you the lady's info, but she does not cut or style (which for $250 I would expect that she would be able too) but she is very nice!

Carol's Daughter hair products. Womp womp. They did nothing for my relaxed hair. I will say the leave in conditioner did work well with TheCount's niece's hair which is curly and natural. Perhaps it's just my hair type, but that was a royal waste of money. My hair started breaking off and everything! Just a sad sad time :(

This line is the BEST! Prior to me trying this line I always found myself scratching my scalp like crazy after shampooing. Eventually I realized I was probably allergic to something in the shampoo. I switched to Aubrey Organics and I love it! My sister who has very very thick hair doesn't really care for it, she says it doesn't lather enough (I will interject here that she is very lazy and if you don't stand over her and scream at her while she washes her hair it is still just as filthy as when she started) so her opinion probably shouldn't be taken into consideration. The conditioner is a protein conditioner and I really think this line has helped my hair get much healthier.

That's all for now. I have a ton of new cleaning products that I'll be trying out when I move TheCount into the apartment tomorrow so next week will be the cleaning files.