Three most hilarious Instacart mini-stories

I've ordered instacart three times now since my very first instacart post, and I've procrastinated sitting down and actually blogging about it for a looooong while.

So instead, you get a highlight of the three most hilarious instacart mini-stories.

🍅 a mishap for a tomato hater

I hate tomatoes,

but as a scientist-in-training,

I am also MADE of curiousity,

so every 2 months or so

I will buy and eat tomatoes in a new form

just to see if a New Way Of Preparation

will allow me to enjoy tomatoes.

So far, I enjoy:

• pasta sauce

• tomato and egg

• curries made with majority diced tomato base

I do not enjoy in the slightest:

• raw tomatoes, eaten whole

• this includes grape tomatoes

So I ordered two (2) cans of diced tomatoes

from a the Wholesale Club

(which is like Loblaws owned Costco).

And boy

please,

learn from my mistakes here,,,

please CHECK SIZING IF YOU ARE

TO BUY

FROM A WHOLESALE GROCERY

I have two (2) x 3L of diced tomatoes

Which totals six (6) Litres

SIX GODDAMN LITRES of tomatoes

I do not want to see a goddamn tomato in my life again this is Cursed

---

🥛 bagged milk

I'm lactose intolerant.

Which means I consume about

1L of milk per month

kind of as a rebellion against my genes.

In Ontario, 1L of milk comes in cartons.

I ordered 1L of milk.

Because I went from drinking milk daily in my childhood and early 20s

to one day at the ripe old age of 23 years,

suddenly lactose intolerant,

My budget went from $6 for milk in bulk

to $6 for 1L of fancy organic delicious tasting milk.

I reasoned,

if I am to suffer the consequences

I might as well go for the best,

most delicious milk experience.

In Ontario, 3L of milk is packaged in bags of 1L each.

As someone who only drinks 1L of milk

which comes in cartons,

I do not own a contraption (a milk jug) for holding bagged milk.

I did not buy a milk jug when I moved to live alone because

as the Chinese saying goes

it would be like a bald man a comb.

It would be a tragic reminder of

a life that was.

So when my personal shopper

couldn't find my $6 fancy milk at the store

and swapped it for 3L of cheap milk,

I WAS NOT PREPARED.

LIKE, I'M NOT MAD ABOUT HAVING 3L

OF MILK

because now I am always in the comfort of my home

should, uh, side effects emerge,,,

BUT HOW

AM

I

SUPPOSED

TO

STORE

SQUIRMY

SQUISHY

BAGS

OF

MILK

ONCE

OPENED

?!?!?!?!?!?!?1

This is where my frugal life skills come in.

I firmly believe that

being cheap is the source of all my creativity.

I hoard glass jars because I use them

to store meal prep ingredients,

grow green onions/ other scraps, etc.

So I was able to just

pour each 1L bag of milk into

2 regular sized ragu jars and

1 tostito salsa dip jar

so I'm really hoping is that

the milk won't come out tasting like ragu and/or salsa.

⏳ only time will tell.

stay tuned.

📷 photo of bagged milk and jars, #OrganizedNeatly

📷 photo of tostito salsa jar of milk

---

🔃 the ultimate substitution

so I ordered one (1) box of 24 instant noodles

Now look,

before you judge me for hoarding

or stockpiling

please consider that

before the pandemic began

I already lived like this.

Which,

actually, I realize now, is an even worse thing to admit 😅

BUT, the story is,

I selected one (1) box of 24 instant noodles,

and the guy couldn't find the exact flavour that I had selected

and HERE IS THE BEST LOGIC 👇

he bought me one (1) single bowl noodle.

one.

just one.

not even a package noodle, but a small bowl noodle.

just one

(1)

.

.

.

.

.

So I ate that one (1) bowl noodle one day

and after I finished it

I wasn't even full,

I saved the soup

and dumped some leftover rice in it

and gobbled up that

sweet savoury spicy msg

and accepted that one day

I will regret my unhealthy life choices

but that specific day,

was not the day.

---

I'm making it a mission to blog more

because this is really fun!

I hope I can come back to these memories years later

and laugh over the dumb moments (like this dream about my ikea Tupperware),

reflect on the gains and growth.

If you want to hop on this weird life journey with me,

don't forget to subscribe below! 👇

my 3 takeaways from How To Be A Bawse by Lilly Singh

the book deets

• title: how to be a bawse*

• author: lilly singh

• rating: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ (8/10)

[1] VISION BOARDS/ VISUAL AFFIRMATIONS

For the longest time I've dismissed vision boards

and having "inspirational" wallpapers

because I thought they were lame.

But I think, along the lines of my recent read of Marie Kondo's books

the environment does impact how you feel, how you act, etc.

So I caved in:

1. new phone wallpapers

2. new desktop wallpapers*

3. monthly vision boards where I upload my fave pics into a google photo folder :)

*ALSO, desktop wallpapers are REALLY HARD TO FIND

even on Pinterest and via google search.

I've been making a few of my own but

if you have any suggestions for good ones,

please let me know!

[2] HOW TO SHIFT YOUR THINKING ft. tiramisu

She has a chapter where she talks about

shifting thinking so that it really gets at

what's going on deep down.

She explains it SO BEAUTIFULLY

as the three layers of a tiramisu:

• what are you telling other people

• what are you telling yourself

• what is really going on

One of my favourite chapters on there

because I've taken these three questions

to use as a part of some deeper reflection

in my daily journalling :)

[3] AMPLIFY VOICES YOU ALIGN WITH INSTEAD OF SHUTTING DOWN OTHERS RIGHT TO SPEAK BECAUSE YOU DISAGREE WITH THEIR MESSAGE

A dilemma I have often is:

a. I value the freedom of speech because I have been in the minority voice in a place where freedom of speech is not as strong

b. I also find it incredibly important that social media plays a role in content moderating

I think b. is really hard of a position

and I'm glad I'm not in that situation of being in that role

because I honestly don't have answers.

What I think Lilly hits on is the idea that

as individual human beings,

what we CAN do,

is instead of taking away someone's right to tell their story,

to take up their space in the world (i.e., cancelling),

we instead amplify and give power

to voices that we agree with and think are important.

I think that

a) aligns with my value of freedom of speech and freedom of expression, including for those who disagree with me and my values

b) and I'm putting energy behind really supporting people that I truly value instead of spending that effort tearing down someone I dislike

---

other weekly deets

• currently reading: The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin*

• currently watching: Blackpink House vlogs

• currently eating: organic apples and surprisingly less mad about it than anticipated

*asterisk includes affiliate links,

meaning I earn a percentage of the earnings

if you buy this product :)

the 3 lessons I learned from Marie Kondo

I read/ listened to two of her books,

and they were the first things I turned to

almost as a coping strategy,

when social distancing measures were first rolled out.

After all,

this home I'm in is going to be where I am

for the next 2 weeks?

next month??

the entire summer???

What I read:

In true Lucy fashion I read them out of order*,

reading the second book first before the first.

the original book:

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up**

the second book:

Spark Joy**

Lesson #1: What is joy?

Ask yourself, what is joy to you?

To me, these books gave me

a deeper understanding

of what joy is,

what it looks like,

and how it feels.

Seems silly, doesn't it,

like shouldn't you, a whole ass adult,

know what joy is?

No.

Not entirely, anyways.

I felt like before I read this book

I had a more superficial understanding of happiness and joy,

one that was tainted by advertising and marketing,

which consistently and implicitly inserts itself into our beliefs

of what is good, what is happy, and what is healthy.

But we're all different after all,

and those $olution$ work for some,

but not all.

In her first book, she MANDATES that

HAVE to follow her order of cleaning categories:

clothing >

books >

papers >

komono (miscellany) >

sentimental items

And the meaning behind is that

you slowly develop this skill of discerning

what is love?

what is neutral?

what is not so great?

And when she teaches her clients to define what

"sparks joy",

she literally demonstrates it. (see gif above)

She lifts upwards entirely.

The concept "joy lifts you up" was always abstract to me,

but in her Netflix show she directs her clients' attention

towards signs of joy in the body:

• eyebrows unfurrowed

• shoulders lightened up

• breath smooth

• overall, posture doesn't tense up in reaction to item

These are all signs from our body

that we've all learned to ignore

so we can be adults and complete our responsibilities.

Like after sorting my items I recognized the same

feeling of joy in my body when I message certain people,

or when I make a new recipe and it turns out really well,

that lifting sense of enjoyment.

I also noticed which things gave me

the same physical reaction as that one specific sock with a hole

that was really cute when I got

but has become so mangled it is now more monstrous.

Some of those things I can make changes to,

some of those things I still have to do (dishes)

but have learned to pair with something fun (podcast).

Take home #2: Making decisions using visuals

K, I've always conceptually KNOWN from class

that your working memory can only hold so much

and that having a visual (e.g., pros + cons list) helps with making decisions,

because honestly you can only hold a few of those pros/cons reasons

in your head before your thoughts swirl to the next set of reasons.

That's how I end up ruminating anyways.

Similarly, Marie Kondo makes use of this tactic.

Her first step is to get you to hunt down EVERY last item within a category

and place them into one place.

This looks like ONE GIGANTIC pile of clothes

in the living room

in every one of her Netflix show episodes.

Only when she's absolutely certain that you have all your options out

that she gives the green light to begin decision making.

In some ways I'm adapting this concept

(now tangibly and eternally visualized as a huge mountain of clothing options)

with things like emails, to do lists + scheduling meetings also.

I set aside one time at the end of the day

where I gather all my tasks,

emails that I've held on to because they had actionable items,

and ongoing projects (and their bite sized subtasks)

and make sure I make decisions when considering ALL of these.

Too often I've run into the problem where

I'm scheduling meetings on the fly

and agreeing to doing URGENT tasks

that I'm not giving enough time to those ongoing projects

with moving deadlines.

This, I realized,

was equivalent to

cleaning out all my books in the bedroom

and already putting them back on to the shelf

to realize that I haven't touched the books in the living room

or in my bag

and now there's no room on my shelf.

Take home #3: Letting go***

Probably the biggest thing I took from this book

is the concept of letting go.

My biggest flaw is I literally keep EVERYTHING,

from emails,

to the brunch receipt that said "e-muffin"**** from

my 102nd date with my bf.

She puts sentimental items last,

because you're not only letting go

of that drawing your child drew when she was 3,

that ticket to a concert you went to see as a teen,

or that receipt of the e-muffin,

you're letting go of an emotional connection to a past event.

And those are the hardest.

But her most comforting words are,

that these are the things that made you who you are now,

to thank them, the item and the memory of experience

for helping you shape who you are today.

And there you are,

the three lessons I took from Marie Kondo's books.

Note: I still don't know how to end these blog posts

because I feel like I should have a conclusion paragraph

So here are some words

thank you for reading???

Also recommend me books to read, especially books that have changed your life

👇👇👇

• Tweet me?

• Drop into my Discord Server where the only active channel is a channel where we count upwards to infinity (at the time of writing we are at 1312) ???

• Comment below!

---

Here are the footnotes because I'm the Queen of Tangents

*tangent #1

I read Harry Potter out of order as a kid

just because the next book was checked out

and I couldn't wait to hear more about Hermione

because Hermione was the embodiment of the

little nerd that I was.

Needless to say it was R E A L LY confusing.

**affiliate links

this means I earn $$ if you specifically purchase from this link

I've been trying out Amazon Affiliates for the 3rd time

because the previous 2 times the strategy I was using

wasn't generating enough sales to meet their min thresholds

so both times I never cashed out and they closed my account.

Starting this for a 3rd time so I can try out some new strategies,

blog about what worked + what didn't

because experimenting is what I love doing, shhh :)

Keep an eye out for a potential blog post ???

***Unrelated distraction and tangent

I was going to write this all in one go but I wanted to document

that before I wrote lesson #3,

I was deeply distracted by looping this specific video

for at least 6 times.

Please watch it and get it to 10M views thanks

****the e-muffin

bf: what's an e-muffin?

bf: like an electronic e-muffin?

bf: are they gonna email me the e-muffin?

bf: I didn't get a muffin where is it

me: there was an english muffin under my poached egg this was my order thanks