Around town

With The Boy safely at school and The Girl safely deposited at Mother's Day Out, I spent some of my mainly kid-free time today running errands in Lincoln Park. First, I returned to the scene of the crime for a little shopping. This time, I brought in only cash in my pocket, my cell phone, car keys, mei-tei, and The Baby. No great scores today, but found a few name-brand things for both The Baby and The Girl, including most of what I had to dump last week, and a $3 cashmere Banana Republic sweater for me.

Because I never remember to eat breakfast and because The Baby always to nurse at some point during the morning, I was starving after my trip. So we went to Sunflower Market to pick up lunch and groceries. To my great disappointment, the store is closing. To be fair, I am not terribly surprised as they were competing with the big boys of Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and Treasure Island all right down the street, and they were constantly running promotions on the goods. Those promotions were part of what I loved about Sunflower Market (also liked that they came from the Minneapolis area, which just seems like a fun, quirky, middle-America kind of place [although I've only been to the Twin Cities a handful of times]), but I could see how discounting your sales could seriously hinder your ability to make a go in a market. That place was never busy or crowded. I picked up a little of this and that, but was still starving by the end.

I still had a bit of time before I needed to get The Girl from MDO, so The Baby and I got back in the car and headed a few yards south to Trader Joe's. While I was there, I ran into a neighbor, a lady I remembered seeing at the Recycle Center yesterday, and Bethany Souza, from HGTV's Designed to Sell (who was really nice and told me that they always need people to be on the show from the Chicago market -- hmm, if only I could convince The Dad!). I'm such a nerd, seeing her at Trader Joe's was really cool. She told me that she's not really that mean!