Passing on Tradition (of OCD!!)

Sunday night, nothing would do Lane but to accompany me on my trip to conquer the grocery purchases. Knowing it was going to be a chore, not a zag thru the toy section, I did my best to encourage him to stay home but he REALLLLLY wanted "to go, Mom!" Off we went, list in hand. Hoping to ward off the dreaded experience of saying "No, we're not buying that" a zillion times during the trip, I warned Lane that he was to stay with me in the store, do his best to be helpful and to not, under any circumstance, lobby for cookies, ice cream or the latest kid-marketed product. He happily entered into this verbal contract, eager (whattt??) to be my helper for the evening. (Later I came to suspect that it might have been because he got to stay up well past his bedtime) He was, to my delight, an ENORMOUS help in the grocery store. So much so that I used the opportunity to teach him a bit about comparative shopping, store brands and all that jazz. He lapped it up eagerly.

It was also an opportunity for me to pass on something else to my precious offspring --- my OCD method of loading a shopping cart. I justify my obsession by saying that there is no way that we could force all the groceries we need into one cart if we simply chunked everything in. Truthfully, a random cart, makes me nuts. I took this picture of Lane just before we checked out. You can't quite appreciate the organization of the items with the last few resting on top, but trust me, there is no void space anywhere in the cart. In fact, this was $250 worth of purchases and we didn't purchase any meat other than lunch meat and hot dogs!

Before you ask, yes, indeed this obsession carries over to my pantry and fridge. Everything has its place and I cannot rest unless it is in the right place. No grocery run passes without my saying to my husband "you know I like to do it myself" if he attempts to put away the groceries. Of course, he knows where they go but it's not as important to him that they get there. Close is good enough. I've heard it said that men tend to do things poorly in order to get out of doing them at all. Hmmmmm..... What do you think, ladies? Care to defend yourselves, guys?

We All Have Something in Common

Over the summer, our family has made Arkadelphia the destination for quite a few of our "day trips." We enjoy taking the boys to the Arkadelphia Aquatic Center. It's a great little "get away" that doesn't cost too much. We have also happened upon floating the Caddo River this summer. No matter what our activity may be there is no doubt what our other stop will be.

I am a die-hard Taco Tico fan. No, I'm not kidding. I know there is a lot of food in the world. Trust me, there's a lot of it that I like ---- waaay more than I should, but Taco Tico is among my favorites. Honestly, I thought I was alone in my passion, but it didn't really matter to me. In fact, I believe I forced my husband to take me to Magnolia to eat at Taco Tico when I was HUGE pregnant with Lane. Magnolia's Taco Tico has since closed, but the excitement I feel for Taco Tico is still going strong.

Strangely enough, I found that many of my friends share my love for Taco Tico. I know that Facebook has its critics, but I have found more long lost friends and learned more about my closer ones than I could ever imagine. On one particular Arkadelphia trip, I updated my Facebook status with my phone to reflect that I was about to eat at Taco Tico. The amount of comments on this one little blurb was astounding. If memory serves me correctly, there were 44 comments all having to do with Taco Tico.

Today, we went to Arkadelphia to float the Caddo. We had a great time and, of course, ate at Taco Tico! I knew it was a great blogging opportunity, so I captured a photo of my taco (10 for 7.99, by the way) to share with you all. Long live Taco Tico!!

A Story About Everything

Sometimes I think I have a story about everything. Perhaps I do. Indicators are favorable since I'm about to blog about spinach pizza.

I have to begin with a little history on myself since I'm not sure if you're a reader who's known me my entire life, just a little while or maybe even not at all. I'm a beauty queen has-been. My mom entered me into my first "pageant" when I was 3 or 4 years old. I think they called it an "Easter Parade" and my mom didn't actually tell me that it was any kind of competition. All I knew was that I was going to get to dress up in my pretty Easter dress and show it off to a bunch of people. Lo and behold, I won the "pageant" and the rest is history. Actually a melt down when I missed nap-time almost ended my pageant career. I did a few little local pageants (no Toddlers & Tiaras kind of stuff) and always enjoyed myself but one particular pageant held rehearsals in the afternoon before the competition that evening. It was too much for my little sleepy head to take and by the time it was my turn to take the stage that evening, I was in full meltdown mode! My poor mom vowed that she would never again enter me into a pageant until I was old enough to ask to enter myself. She kept this vow and I was out of the pageant limelight until I decided I wanted to enter a pageant when I was 12. Bless my momma's heart for supporting me at that age too! It seems every child goes through an awkward stage some time between childhood and adolescence. 12 years of age was definitely mine! I was the ugliest little thing. Perhaps it was a sort of "Ugly Duckling" story of sorts because with a little time and experience, I began to do rather well and actually captured a couple titles when I was 16.

As that wee little pageant girl I had the opportunity to meet Miss Arkansas on stage one night. She was easily the biggest celebrity I had ever encountered in my 4 years of life and I was smitten. She was the epitome of glamour and grace and I never forgot it. From that point on, it was my goal to compete in the Miss Arkansas pageant. As that little girl, I'm sure I wanted to BE Miss Arkansas, but as I grew, the dream evolved and I decided I would be thrilled just to be able to say that I did well enough to win a preliminary that would allow me to take the Miss Arkansas stage. Quite a few years passed after that night on stage with Miss Arkansas, but I did finally realize that dream -- two years in a row, in fact.

So, what on earth does all this terribly long story have to do with spinach pizza? I admit I was an atypical pageant girl. I ate and I liked it -- a lot. I've always been a grocery girl. Then a skinny grocery girl, but still a grocery girl. Of course, when you're competing, you have to keep things to a dull roar so that you don't embarrass your director when you take the stage in your swimsuit. Very little food is consumed during the week of Miss Arkansas. Not that it's an eating disorder convention or anything like that. Don't buy into that stereotype! You have to keep a handle on things, but there is no mass exodus to the ladies' room after dinner. Truly, the week is so busy that even if you weren't conscious of your intake, it would still be substantially less than a week kicking around at home. By then end of a day, after practice and activities and prelims we were exhausted and starving. The wonderful people of Hot Springs were great to provide us with snacks each night after competition. I'm sure it's the only way some of us were able to stay alive. I remember having chips and salsa one night, sandwiches one night... but we were all jazzed about the night we knew we were getting Cici's pizza. Yum!

So, here's where you should know something else about me. I'm persnickety about food. I really like food, but tomatoes, onions, peppers, certain things like that are a no-go! I'll just go hungry... sorry. So back to the Miss Arkansas pizza. It arrives. It's a beautiful moment until I realize that the two choices are -- veggie and spinach. Whatttttt!!?? Oh, and I was so hungry! So hungry that I tried one little piece of the spinach. I was instantly hooked. Who knew? That day, it became, hands-down, my absolute favorite pizza of all time. Still is to this day. So I had some for supper and it just made me want to share.