Namaste for breakfast?

My mother and I did our usual run to Sprouts this morning, thinking we better go early enough in case they close due to it being New Years Eve. 

We didn't buy as much as we usually do (not that we buy a lot), because we're planning to try to use up what we have in our house (hello... it's the first of the year tomorrow... we all know what that means) and I also don't have work until Tuesday. Why buy stuff now, when there's still so much in our pantry and freezer?

Therefore, as per my typical browse and compare in the vitamin aisle, I saw that OM has some blend packages in this store. I've only ever seen it in Sarasota, so it was nice to know Sprouts carries it. 

However, like I've been finding lately, the cost per item in the store is slightly higher than the cost online. 

For example, the Om Mushroom Superfood Master Blend Plant-Based Protein Powder, 19.26 Ounce (chocolate) is $39.99 in Sprouts, where as Amazon has the same thing for $29.40 (or $26.46 as Subscribe & Save). 

Sprouts price per ounce, according to the shelf sticker is $2.08, it really should be $40.06 if I did the math correctly. 

If you look at Amazon, they are pricing it in two ways: 

* Subscribe and Save ($26.46), where the price per ounce is $1.37

* One time purchase ($29.40) with the price per ounce is alsoless ($1.53). 

The other win with the one time purchase is, again, if my math is right, it should really be $29.47 (round up, since it was $29.467). 

Add tax to the Amazon order and you are still under what Sprouts is selling it for, by at least $12 if you do a one time only purchase. Subscribe and save would net you roughly the same amount because again, you have to figure tax in on both businesses. 

The only challenge with Amazon is if you do the one time purchase, you need to spend $35 in one shot to get free shipping if you're not a Prime member. So decrease the savings and swap in shipping/handling. 

I'm sure if it were slightly less pricey at Sprouts, I'd pick it up to try it and see how long it lasts me (there is an estimated 14 servings ("2 heaping scoops") in this bag, which is a lot more than the itty bitty tiny bag I had bought a few years ago for close to $25... if I'm thinking this is the same product. I don't remember it being flavored). If I like it enough as a big bag, I'd probably purchase it routinely.

Because I don't really like chocolate flavoring, the good note for this product is the fact there is a vanilla version. 

Sprouts is selling it for the same price as the chocolate, even though the price per ounce is higher. 

Looking closely, the vanilla is smaller than the chocolate. The bag is 18.27 ounces with the same 14 servings.  

Cost on the A to Z site is that they are supplying the vanilla from third party sellers. This means you're apt to get a little less in cost ($24.80) but who knows where it's coming from and how many they have in stock ("5 left" at the time of this writing).

In all honesty, it's really a matter of literal taste when it comes to what you want to spend. Which is also why this shows you've got to pay attention to what you're buying and what the amount per product really is. Side by side, you can't see much of a difference when they're next to each other. 

Unfortunately, I don't have a side by side of the bags together and the pictures I took aren't even of a line to stitch the two to one photo. 

I like Sprouts for their fresh fruit and vegetables, the quick sales and my mom is keeping an eye on the big fillets of salmon ("it's cheaper than Costco and just as large of pieces) for the times she knows we may have company. The salmon is big enough that it can easily feed 4 people and that's how many people usually are at our table when we have company. Another win for the books, if you ask me. 

So yeah... all my crazy rambling... if you kept up with it... is just another excuse to watch what you're getting and seeing if you can find it somewhere else. Coupons or not, sale or not, you have to know what things cost and if it's easy on your wallet (think of the gas / wear and tear on your car to drive around finding this stuff. Or, if you live on a decent public transportation line, think of how you're going to get groceries home from the bus or train).

At the end of the day, it all goes to the same place: money out of my pocket and food in my belly (or clothes / cleaners on my body). Will I stop shopping at all these places? No. Will I continue to see if I can find an item for less money somewhere else? Yes, especially since the coupons site I was using (I had the app to boot) shut down, I'd like to be able to continue to save a little. You never know what's around the corner...

Cheers; 

Looks like snow, but it's raining instead

Woke up this morning, not to a rising sun, so "no thanks" to the trio of birds a reggae musician sings about. It is grey and gloomy out, and even though it looks like snow, Florida hasn't gotten that in decades. 

Rather, it's drizzly out today for being the day of a certain carpenter's birth. 

This is what happens in "the tropics" (as Tay calls America's Wang) - there is no such thing as winter fluff down here, unless you count the sandy beaches as something to compare to (which I don't). 

Gone are the days when I'd dress up in what felt like a million layers, go outside with a beer (and put it in a mound of cold hard white stuff) and start shoveling the driveway. It would be pitch black by 7pm and I'd have nothing better to do during Christmas week, so I'd have myself a party since most vacations I was alone in the house. 

Occasionally, I would simmer homemade chili for dinner (which I made to have over the course of a few days), watch what was coming down from the sky, debate about going out, end up starting a movie and finally getting my stuff together to go into the cold to create clean lines in the driveway. At some point I would need get out with my car. Whether that be to the store, to work, or to just get out of the house for a bit.

And to further the "what am I doing?", there was also a need to internally curse out the city plow guy for pushing everything back onto the edge of the driveway from the street because it was just my luck I'd be out side in the dark long enough, someone would come by and ruin it all.

The other challenge would be if he came by twice while I was out there (because we had an 8 car driveway), thus making me have to push all that street crud to the edge of the yard. 

But here in Fort Myers? No one knows of that icy white stuff that the clouds poop out. Especially if they're one of the "Flogrown" people who have never left their corner of the state. 

The northern Florida people don't count - the ones closest to the Alabama and Georgia lines. 

Although the there is less room for error, the states that touch the Sunshine one, actually get a couple days of snow a year, if they're lucky. I've heard stories about areas in the south getting a some centimeters, but it won't reach the area I'm in. 

Unless you happened to be here "that day in 1977". Something stuck long enough for people to wonder what it was, but it didn't last but a few minutes on the ground. According to Google, an "event" happened again some more times in the 1980s and 1990s, but no one ever talks about that. The aughts brought more "events" to the northern border areas, however, it too didn't last long. 

We are talking about a place in the United States where it's too humid to for cold to last, and it's not in Nevada. Maybe the adage "a snowball's chance in hell" is wrong since snow can't last in this version. 

So... on a spitting water day, I was outside taking pictures. Nothing really to talk about; just a gecko I think is dead (he didn't move once I got him onto the paver block from being stuck inside the lanai screen door), the back "yard", the front street, and the decorations Ed and Joann need to take down next week.

As an aside, while transferring the pictures to my computer, I hooked up a 1994 Sony Speaker System set that seems to be only available on auction sites. I had to get rid of the speakers I've been using on my computer for the past 10 years because they were starting to show their wear (and it didn't help I spilled coffee on the wire about 2 years ago and stupidly never found a replacement. I just kept using it until this morning when I was trying to listen to a podcast on my phone and the audio kept buzzing). 

I haven't used these speakers in so long, I forgot that it has a "bass boost" option. 

(The speaker photos and video were taken with an iPhone 11)

Wow.. it packs a punch. 

It's hard to tell in the video that I switched on the boost, but trust me it's there (around the 11 second mark I made the switch). I promise you I didn't "turn up the volume".

Yes, I used ICP's "Boogie Woogie Wu" (track 11 off The Great Milenko) as a reference point. Don't hate. It was the first thing I pulled up to test the speakers originally and figured I'd replicate it in the video. 

Whatever works, right?

Back to the original part of the story / reason for this long and crazy post:

The photos below were taken on a (now discontinued since there are newer models) Canon EOS Rebel T7i. Shot in Landscape mode and edited in Photoshop for some clarity and my name. 

The clouds look like they're fine. I know. I wish I had a better way to show off the feeling / thought of  "where's the beef snow?" but this is all I have since it was drizzling out and I didn't want my camera getting damaged. 

With my bedroom window wide open, it's so weird to look out and see water and not frozen water falling from the sky. It smells like a fall day, looks like the middle of January, and feels like something between. What a way to go through seasons! 

As we go trudge through the rest of the current one, have yourself a merry day off if you got it. If you're working, hopefully it goes smoothly. I've got off, but also have Friday as a half day. So three full days of office shenanigans and then four hours to round out the year. 

I hope everyone enjoys this moment in time and the world can calm down for a second so people can breathe. 

Until the next post... take care of yourself. 

Cheers;

*See also:

- Bob Marley's Three Little Birds (track 09 off Exodus)

- "Sony Speaker System" keyword search on Amazon (SRS PC30 doesn't exist from Amazon anymore) 

- If you liked any of these photos (or others I have taken), please show some support. Create a comment, Buy me a coffee, let me know what's going on. Support is appreciated. 

Still proving a way to save cost?

I happened to be in Sprouts (a grocery store) on Sunday and they had an end cap of reduced items. It was near the health department, so the things were mostly "all natural" items. There were organic candles in recyclable containers, essential oils and Pacha Soap Co. bath bombs and soap. 

The things weren't on a deep discount (they were $3.24 instead of $6.99), but there was enough of an assortment that I decided to pick up two soaps to try, since the chai one went off pretty well. I didn't want to try the bath bombs as I am not one to take a bath (I shower). 

I bought stuff on sale. So be it; don't judge.

The two I picked up were the Balsam and Pine Bar Soap and the Peppermint Twist Bar Soap. They are both seasonal items, which I think is the reason Sprouts put them on sale - possible to have people buy them as gifts for others since Christmas is this weekend. I could be wrong. 

Then again, there were people sniffing the bath bombs... 

One of the nice things was that the Dirty Hippy Bar was on this end cap, and unfortunately it was not on sale. I did get to smell it, and it actually smells like a dirty hippy (patchouli and cloves). I probably would have bought it if it was part of the clearanced items (oh, way to relive stuff from my youth...). 

Since this store is selling other bars at full price, getting the two at half off is a good thing, I suppose, as it allows me the opportunity to try out others in case I want to order it from the Pacha website or on Amazon... seeing how both places are selling it as normal ($6.99 a bar or $34.95 for a box of 5).  

As the Chai didn't have a barcode when I bought it at Detwiler's, the peppermint and balsam ones did. They have the ingredient list on them, which is great because you at least know what you're buying. It's nice to not have to guess what's in it, or use your phone to look it up online. 

For those who don't want to squint on the soap labels:

For the Balsam & Pine Bar Soap, the website states the key ingredients are:

Sustainably Sourced Palm Oil Harvested by small farmers using organic, ethical growing practices

Unrefined Ghanaian Shea Butter Rich in fatty acids that soften skin

While the rest of the ingredients are:

Elaeis Guineensis (Palm) Oil^, Water, Olea Europaea (Olive) Fruit Oil, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil, Elaeis Guineensis (Palm) Kernel Oil, Sodium Hydroxide**, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter, Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil, Fragrance (Plant-Based), Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil, Abies Balsamea (Fir) Needle Oil, Iron Oxide, Ultramarine, Titanium Dioxide, Beta Carotene, Tocopherol (Vitamin E) 

 ^Sustainable **Turns Oils into Soap

The Peppermint Twist key ingredients are:

Unrefined Ghanaian Shea Butter Rich in fatty acids that soften skin

Peppermint Essential Oil Natural antiseptic with cooling properties

Farm Fresh Goat’s Milk Naturally packed with lactic acid, which gently exfoliates the skin without irritation

And the main listing is:

Elaeis Guineensis (Palm) Oil^, Water, Olea Europaea (Olive) Fruit Oil, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil, Elaeis Guineensis (Palm) Kernel Oil, Sodium Hydroxide**, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter, Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil, Fragrance (Plant-Based), Mentha Piperita (Peppermint) Oil, Goat's Milk, Mentha Arvensis (Cornmint) Leaf Oil, Titanium Dioxide, Iron Oxide, Mica 

 ^Sustainable **Turns Oils into Soap

The funny thing is, Sprouts also sells the box of "Pacha Peaces", which is essentially a sample box of various scents (seven 1oz bars instead of five 4 oz bars). I would have thought "peaces" (or pieces depending on how you look at it) was going to be chips and dings since the bars aren't totally wrapped and aren't all created equal. 

Conversely, the Pacha site calls "Salvaged Suds" the oopsies.

Per the website:

Each bar of soap is hand poured by our skilled team of artisans...but we're only human! Occasionally, we have bars where the scent or color may not be right on the nose, or the bar has a ding or a dent, but the bars lather just the same.

Again, it's a matter of how you see it. 

Side by side, the two bars I got aren't straight but they are also not completely narrow. They do look like various pieces hot glued together, however. 

Given the fact I already finished the Chai bar and I take a shower once a day, I wanted to be able to start one of these new ones to see how it goes. 

The Christmas tree looking one (Balsam) really does smell like a pine forest as I'm lathering up. Unlike the last bar, there are no scrubbies on this, so it doesn't feel like I'm using a loofah to exfoliate / clean anywhere. It's smooth going on my body and smooth coming off my body. Although I don't find I'm smelling like I've taken a hike in the woods of New England, I don't feel dirty either. I feel clean with no after scent (it stays in the shower with the drain water). 

Which is a good thing, because sometimes the sniff is so strong, you get dizzy or nauseated after a while. I was sneezing my head off one day after I used something completely different - I could smell the fragrance on me for a couple hours and it wasn't a good feel since I didn't expect it to linger that long. 

It's like the time I ordered the three pack of Native deodorant and one of the three had everyone hating the strength of the stench (Cactus Flower and Poppy). You never know. 

I plan on starting the peppermint one when I finish the tree, so I'll make sure to give a review on that. 

Until then, keep it fresh.

Cheers;