It is really a fun thing to serve those around you.  Sometimes it can be a problem to serve the wrong thing too much, but in cases like the covid lockdowns, it is nice to go out and get a nice treat for the family.  The existence of many things is now gone and part of that is dining in at most restaurants.  The change has brought about a new way of life and a new way to experience it. This week I learned that lots of people still want the things they wanted a few months ago and are willing to wait a long time for them.  This was made prevalent on my trip to the dairy queen with my wife last night. We were under the impression that a trip to get some ice cream would make the end of our evening a fun time.  one great thing to do is to get in the car and head to some place you know you both will love. 

One thing that is not so great is when there are a lot of people in line, but wating outside is not as bad as being at home.   It turned out that the light was ia lot of other people with the same idea as us..  It was strange because technically the inside of the store should have been open but it was not. This made us a bit sad because we knew we would be waiting for a long time.  Since the inside was closed we imagined that the line would go very quickly. Unfortunately, it did not and was a very poor waiting process. Not all things that seem bad are.  It was actually nice to spend some extra time away from home. 

We had tons of time to talk and decide what would really be good and tasty for the night. The upside is that we got to go through the entire menu on our phones for a long time and talk about the best items to get.  Many were based around our favorite candy box candy. I mean is there much better than getting your favorite type of candy box in your ice cream? I am honestly not sure and I sure love a Reese cup-filled treat. The chocolate brownie was definitely had by my wife.  I almost went for the warm cookie and ice cream.

Waiting was actually part of the problem though.  We ended up spending as much in gas as we spend on the ice cream and honestly being behind someone shooting exhaust fumes for an hour was not the best thing for us. The big issue was that we waited a very long time and the order we received was shoddily put together and an extra topping was missing.  That was a bit of a bummer to be honest.  It really showed a very poor lack of management.  A store that was being staffed with so many people should have had that line flying and orders should be correct considering that you are only taking one order at a time and not the 4 to 5 when the store is running at normal capacity. I wish we had a better after the experience, but at least we got out of the house and spent some fun time together. 

There have been many changes in the last year or so and one of them is how our economy works in the United States.  We are now an eCommerce based country and that is because of all the local regulations due to COVID-19.    It is 2021 and we are just passed our state lockdown laws. But as always they are saying they should come back.  Clearly it didn’t work last time and yet that is the first thing they want to do again?  Work has mostly gone back to normal but it is still stressful to out and shop.  There are many rules and regulations that have happened and that are still in place.  This means that with it being so crazy outside we are buying more through online retailers.  E-commerce is becoming our main shopping center and it has caused some extra areas of stress that we didn’t have last year.  Now we have so many packages piling up we don’t know what to do.

How many packages are getting delivered to your door per day?  We get at least two a day. This means that our goods are sitting outside in the heat and weather and even open to people simply walking up and taking them.  This leaves me and my wife with lots of stress.  It is hard to think about hundreds of dollars of items getting delivered and sitting unsafe outside our home for hours on end.  Really it does bother me and causes me a large amount of anxiety which makes working harder.  It is the little things like this that really make the whole situation simply awful.  I don’t like the regulations or being forced to purchase online. It has caused so much social anxiety in the country it makes me sick.

The change in our ability to get rid of the cardboard boxes is the real problem.  The purchasing habits that we now have are really unfortunate.  It costs extra in our neighborhood to recycle.  This is because our trash is private and not government-run.  The cost to recycle means extra money per month and also I have to purchase a 200 dollar trashcan or rent one.  Either way, it costs a lot of extra money and I simply do not want to pay it.  With the economy the way it is I am simply unable to pay for it.  So now our garage is filled with cardboard boxes because I am only allowed to use so many cans each week.  

What was the answer to this?  Really, I have to take extra time each week to go and break down the boxes.  It is partially unsafe because I am not able to do it by hand.  Some of them are very hard and simply I don’t want to strain myself.  This has led me to use knives in order to break them down and make them small enough to fit them into the bags.  I first used scissors but they dulled quickly and left blisters on my hand.  I had to move to a fixed blade knife to get through them all. 

This is not something I like doing either.   I know it is simply a waste to trash all these paper products and I am contributing to the waste our society is so well known for.  I hope the regulations in our State end soon because they seem to be just making our lives worse.

The change of our culture in this new year has been saddening.  We are living in a totalitarian world of fear where facts and science do not matter.  We have mask mandates that are based on 100% lies and they are proven to not protect against COVID-19.  Yet here we are forced to cover our faces and dehumanize ourselves for the sake of a political control game.  All I want to do is enjoy life and go out and get snacks without fear of getting arrested.  The phrases such as Pandemic and Essential have been played to death and are getting on my nerves.  The topic came up when I told a friend that I was going to the store to get snacks for the family. It is wild the rules in place in some states.  They immediately chastised me for putting lives at risk over snacks. Let me tell you that snacks are life and I am happy to take that risk in order to live a normal life and have a happy family. I want to let you know that the need for anything outways the risk of freedom and if you need to get some top of the line candy boxes for your family then go right ahead and get the things done that you need. Don’t live in fear and don’t get arrested either.  

Enjoying food is essential, and life, liberty, and the pursuit of justice are as well. It is when someone goes and tells me that any kind of grocery shopping is not essential that I must protest.  I live in the United States due to freedom and going shopping is part of that.  I take a massive risk of driving to the store. The risk of getting into a crash is always there and that is higher than any other health risk in the world. I say this to let people know that they are at risk of dying every day. But being at a store and getting groceries who have been touched by tons of people has always been a risk. 

Don’t give in to fear and the idea that food is something to be afraid to get. That is how I look at many things these days.  It is no one’s right to tell you what food is good and what is not. That is part of why we live in this country and that is the freedom that it brings.  Yes, that even comes down to the candy boxes we choose when walking down that lovely aisle. So indeed don’t let anyone tell you what food is essential or even come close to taking away the choice as to that. It could mean later on that some choices for food for your children may be limited. The FDA says aspartame and corn syrup are healthy. If they are soon the only options then we may all be dying of following the rules if they take away healthy alternatives. 

 The right to freedom is involved and even in 2021, we are seeing no real death rates beyond a normal common cold.  So do not fret, but go out and be free. Enjoy your astonishing groceries and don’t be afraid of news that is proven to be false all the time.  We are seeing now that it has all been a lie and still no one is in jail because of it. 

Each and every day the world seems to have some new change or some talk of how all the last year has been a lie.  It really is annoying and the fact is people are not in prison for all the lies drives me nuts.  But I crack-on and simply live with the fact that we are simply spending so much money online.  It is really getting annoying that my garage is filling up with packages.  We decided to start cleaning out our garage after the COVID-19 pandemic.  It has been a long time since our State got back to any kind of normal but since we are all able to go back to work just about as usual we are finding that going out and doing normal things again is happening too.  That means that housework is getting back to normal and we found that our garage was riddled with Amazon packages.  It was just wrong and it was filling up our garage.  Now we know we needed to organize and move a lot of things from our garage to our shed, and this was the time to do it. So this was time for me to take some pills to make sure my back didn’t give out on me either!

Luckily, we had time to get this going and it really all started out with us having to clean out a shed that we had never used.  Wow, was that a task and It was filthy because the tenants who lived at our home kept a dog in there and never cleaned anything. That was not a good sight or smell.  So with a shovel, broom, and pressurized hose, we went to town with bleach. What a task for sure.  It took a few hours to clean and to dry but once we were done we were able to start taking all the filled cardboard boxes from the garage and move them into the shed. This took many hours to get it all sorted and filled up but it left us with a good amount of space in our garage.  Then we had to decide what to do with the insane stack of Amazon packages and how to best get rid of them. 

We first tried to fill them with things and move them to the shed.  We did this for what we could but we still had a pile several feet long and many feet tall of cardboard boxes in our garage.  It was really hard to figure out what to do because we didn’t want to simply put these in the trash.  The next issue is that we are only able to recycle one trash can at a time and all these packages were simply not going to fit.  We tried just stacking some in the can, but that would literally take a year to recycle that way and we knew we were going to have to start breaking them down. 

So do the right thing and get a good knife and forget using scissors.  We had too many blisters to count.  A nice fixed blade knife and 20 minutes are all you need to break them down and put them in the recycling.  Be safe and keep our homes safe as well. 

This is a new world that we are living in and it is mostly for the worst.  But there is always a bright side to the worst parts of life even if our country changed into a totalitarian society overnight.  The fact is that life has dramatically changed over the last year.  The existence of many things is now gone and part of that is dining in at most restaurants.  The change has brought about a new way of life and a new way to experience it. This week I learned that lots of people still want the things they wanted a few months ago and are willing to wait a long time for them.  It really is amazing what we all want even when the worst is upon us.  It really comes down to comfort and memories of things past and the best of experiences.  This was made prevalent on my trip to the dairy queen with my wife last night. We were under the impression that a trip to get some ice cream would make the end of our night perfect.  So we hopped in the car after putting on some shoes and headed to the store. What a good idea, mentally and physically it was what we needed.

Now it was much less crowded on the road.  People are not as keen on being outside because of regulations and getting arrested. But that is something I am learning to simply set aside and not let the fear of others encroach on my joyful life.  Upon driving up to the Dairy Queen ice cream shop I noticed lots of lights near the store.  It turned out that the light was indeed about 30 cars lined up in the drive through.  It was strange because technically the inside of the store should have been open but it was not.  It was technically an environmental failure of all kinds considering all the people sitting in cars constantly polluting. This made us a bit sad because we knew we would be waiting for a long time.  Since the inside was closed we imagined that the line would go very quickly. Unfortunately, it did not and was a very poor waiting process. There was one upside to being forced to wait a long time. 

But having extra time is not the worst thing.  The upside is that we got to go through the entire menu on our phones for a long time and talk about the best items to get.  Many were based around our favorite candy boxes of candy. I mean is there much better than getting your favorite type of candy boxes in your ice cream? I am honestly not sure and I sure love a Reese cup filled blizzard. 

It hurt that our order was a bit messed up in the end.  It really showed a very poor lack of management.  A store that was being staffed with so many people should have had that line flying and orders should be correct considering that you are only taking one order at a time and not the 4 to 5 when the store is running at normal capacity. But we all have to learn and I am sure they will get better.