Nerdiest thing i've ever done

Okay here is my final Wegmans vs. Tops showdown. I did it. I went to Wegmans and Tops on Niagara Falls Blvd. They are practically next door to each other and I went to one store right after the other at 10pm on Friday night. THAT is how lame I am 10pm on Friday and I am out grocery shopping. I made an honest effort to control any variables so I chose the items before finding them in the store so I did not purposefully pick sale/non-sale items. I chose 12 items that I regularly purchase. I chose mostly name brand items so I can be sure that they would be exactly the same at both stores. I did throw in store brand dog food just to say I compared store brand items as well. I also selected some non-food items.

Here are my items:

1. Juicy Juice-Berry 64oz.
2. Cheerios 14oz box
3. Pop Tarts Frosted Strawberry
4. Skim Milk one gallon
5. Yoplait Yogurt Orange Creme
6. Weight Watchers Smart Ones frozen meal
7. Labatt Blue Light 6pk bottles
8. Clorox Green Works cleaner tangerine scent
9. Libman Wonder Mop refill
10. Store Brand dog food (Paws-Tops/Bruiser-Wegmans)
11. Doritos 12oz bag
12. Diet Pepsi 24oz 6pack


I tried to cut and paste an excel chart here, but it didn't work perfectly. Red prices indicate sale prices.

	Tops	Wegmans
Juice	$3.29	$2.49
Cereal	$3.29	$2.50
Pop Tarts	$1.99	$1.99
Milk	$1.88	$1.78
Yogurt	$0.79	$0.60
Frozen Dinner	$3.49	$1.99
Beer	$5.99	$5.79
Cleaner	$3.79	$2.89
Mop Head	$7.49	$5.99
Dog Food	$0.69	$0.60
Doritos	$3.00	$1.99
Soda	$2.75	$3.00
Total	$38.44	$31.61

Wegmans wins in the price department clearly. The regular prices for Wegmans sale items were still cheaper than Tops. If you coupon, you can possibly save some money on certain items on certain weeks at Tops, but Wegmans clearly lives up to it's "consistently low prices" motto. It is kind of like Wal Mart in that they offer less sales, but lower prices on everything. The huge difference between Walmart and Wegmans, is that Wegmans treats their employees like human beings. Wegmans is currently ranked 3rd on Fortune Magazine's 100 Best Companies to work for. According to Wegmans website, they have been on the list since it was first published in 1988.

Wegmans wins hands down on the durability and strength of their reusable shopping bags. I LOVE THEM and they also come in pretty designs like tomatoes, grapes and peas.
I love the line at the bottom about wedding gift bags. How classy! Honestly, I would probably use these as gift bags they are so awesome and are also cheaper than paper gift bags.

Now that I have proven I am SO NERDY, I am going to give myself a wedgie now. Live long and prosper (pushing my glasses up on my nose).

Baseball pictures

First baseball game was tonight. I think Bailey is playing above average at the moment. Don't feel bad if you don't want to look through all 25 of my pictures. This is more of a "Grandma and Grandpa" post.

Click on the picture to view the album.
(I have to be very clear with the directions for my computer challenged friends)

First Baseball Game-Red Sox

My Buffalo friends don't get it

I am from Ohio. Available grocery stores include Kroger, Meijer, Food Town (scratch that), Giant Eagle, ALDI and now Super Wal Mart. When I was growing up, it was basically only Kroger, Food Town and Broadway Food Center. I threw in Broadway Food Center (formerly Kroger) for my South Side of Toledo peeps.

I moved to Buffalo and I had to choose from Tops, Wegmans and Super Wal Mart. WalMart is out because they are (as my brother says) a shit hole and it is too far to drive. I was left to choose between Tops and Wegmans. Many many of my friends around Buffalo say they hate Wegmans and are very loyal to Tops. I have done a comprehensive study and have found that Wegmans wins in every category of price, quality, atmosphere and re-usable shopping bags. Tops only wins in the category of least crowded. You do need to take some tranquilizers before shopping at Wegmans on a Sunday. It is a mad house.

I don't think that the Western New York community knows what a gem they have in Wegmans. It is fantastic. It is even better than KROGER. Yes, I said it. . . Wegmans is better than Kroger.

Here is how Alec Baldwin's mom feels about Wegmans: click link here It is from the Late Show with David Letterman. Be patient, you have to watch an ad first.

I have always wanted to do a random price comparison between the two stores.

Maybe I will do that. It would make for a mind numbingly boring blog post.

Baseball Season Begins!

Due to highly crappy weather last weekend, opening day for baseball was postponed until this weekend. Now we have games on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Let's not forget the super cool parade at the break of dawn on Saturday morning. Now Bailey's first game is against her "rival" the Red Sox. She has 5 kids in her class on the Yankees and 2 kids on the Red Sox. Bailey is really really excited about this action packed weekend. I am worrisome that I will forget to wash her uniform.

Last weekend we had 60 mph winds, butt cold temperatures and light snow. This weekend it is going to be close to 70 degrees and sunny. What a difference a week can make.

Now I have to remember to charge the camera and the video camera (curse that thing!). I can't promise any videos. I hate that thing. Filming things sucks and watching the videos suck even more.

Sugar Bombs

I'm sure this was much more funny in person. This happened about 30 seconds ago. Bailey was giving me the run-down of what is going on at school. She is in a great mood and had so much to tell me. She was feasting on a small baggie of Lucky Charms. I decided to put some dry sugar bomb cereal in baggies as her afterschool snack. Please note: Bailey has probably NEVER eaten Lucky Charms in her entire life. Obviously a big hit.

"Joey going to get glasses tonight. . . Kevin is going to a WWE wrestling match . . . and I get Lucky Charms!!"

Funny how a bag of sugary cereal seems better than seeing the Undertaker wrestle.

Update: I went ahead and surprised the kid with WWE tickets. She was gushing about what a good day it was. Her art was picked to hang in the hallway at school, she gets to see WWE tonight , and she got to eat LUCKY CHARMS for her snack!

Garage Sale Hell

We have never held an honest-to-goodness garage sale, but with the BIG move to a small house coming up. . . we have to purge. Our current home is 1320 square feet and the new place is 1176 square feet. A difference of 144 square feet. This worries me, but I do believe that the basement is not counted as livable space in the new place and we are probably coming out about even because we can hang out down there.

I am slowly filling the garage up with garage sale crap. Some of it we will try to sell, some of it we are going to donate to a rummage sale or goodwill.

I asked Bailey to take some stuff in the garage and put it on the table with the other sale stuff. She made price tags for the items and put really great prices on them like $30 for a 2 Cup Food Chopper with chipped lid. Wow.

Graduation Season

I am so happy and insanely jealous of my graduating friends!! Yay for Susan and Joana and Tutsy and Philip. Some days I dream about going back to school. I honestly loved college but unfortunately my undergraduate degree is in Environmental Health with a concentration in Public Health??? Dang it! I think I forgot that part. Maybe it was Public Health or something similar. I know it wasn't administration or industrial hygiene.

All of my dream jobs have been tainted by my actual experience in the real world. I really wanted to work for the EPA or the CDC or FDA until I got the chance to work with some of these agencies. I am not a fan of government red tape and you start to feel like a hamster running in a wheel.

Oh sigh. . . I guess there will probably be no title for this chapter in my life. Hopefully in the future I can start something much more interesting than slinging sloppy joes and tater tots. In the meantime, I should sit back and enjoy sitting at baseball practice and cleaning litter boxes.