Doing it Private Sector style.

I went grocery shopping yesterday. It's hard with two kids, but it's better than doing it on the weekend where I'd have Thak and his impulse buying along for the ride. (Bringing Thak grocery shopping with me saves me from heavy lifting and child wrangling, but makes our bill an average of $100 more. It's definitely well worth my patience, sanity, and energy to drag the kids along, and deal with their shenanigans on my own to get out of there $100 richer than we would otherwise.)

Anyhow, I asked Thak if I had to go to the commissary, and to my surprise and delight, he said no!! I was thrilled! I hate going to the commissary so much that I actually didn't grocery shop last pay period. I just fed us off whatever I had in the freezer and pantry and pocketed my grocery money. Nobody knew any different. I keep a huge stockpile of food (in rotating stock) in preparation for the months between Thak getting out of the Army and graduating from school, so it was really easy to get two weeks out of it. The ENTIRE reason I didn't shop last pay period, other than small trips to nearby stores for odds and ends, is because I am just so DONE with the commissary. I'm just done with it. It's crowded, if you don't get there within half an hour of opening you can't get what you came for, and half the time, I run into people I cannot stand. I'm also sick of being stopped every 30 seconds and being asked to make somebody a purse. (I carry the diaper bag I made for myself. You can imagine...)

I find that I'm so much more relaxed when I shop off post. It's much less crowded, and they seldom run out of stuff, and the places I like to shop are not very popular with military people, plus I live in the least military part of the city. I just enjoy it so much more to shop off post. Plus, it takes so much less time! Going to the commissary is an all-day affair. Going to any of the off-post stores is like a couple hours, max. It's far easier to schedule around nap times, and stuff like that.

The only problem is that now, I have to go to more than one store, and they're on opposite sides of town, but that's not too bad. Awesome enough, Super Target on my side of town has a lot of good stuff, and a generic brand of organic foods that's really good, so that helps a lot. For what we can't get there, we go to Sun Harvest, which is the health food grocery on the other side of the mountain. It's a long trip, but at least the kids enjoy the drive through the mountain pass on our way to get some tahini, wild rice, fresh mint, and organic lamb (no, all these things are not for the same dish!)

We're doing it Private Sector Style for the rest of our lives! The only exception may be when they have a case lot sale at the commissary, but Thak has said he wants to join Costco instead, because their prices are as good and they have more organic foods there, so maybe I really have set foot on post for the last time. I hope so. Actually, probably not. I fully intend to go with Thak when he goes to his Final Out briefing on the day he turns in his ID card and receives his discharge papers. The reason I plan to do that is because I actually want to SEE Ft. Bliss in the rear-view mirror, and know that we are done with it forever.

I swear, we have more than one foot on the outside. This last year is so hard. Everyone always says it is because you're just so ready to be done with all this garbage, and you've done everything you can to set yourself up to live well on the outside, and you just want to get out into the real world, but the Army's not going to let go until it's time, and they're going to give you hell all the way there. I'll be so glad when that little red ticker in the left sidebar drops below a year. The months have been going by SO fast ever since we dropped below a year and a half. I hope this next year goes by just as fast. It needs to. It's time to be done with this stuff. In fact, when we drop below the year mark, I may go take the post decals off my car! (They're expired by a year and from Ft. Stewart anyhow, so they're no good.... It's the principle of the thing!)