When You Have Nothing To Do, Read Labels

I love collecting journals, that’s a fact. I have at least a dozen more  blank pages to fill up. Of course when you love writing, you also love having so many writing materials at your disposal right? I won’t say, it is a love affair with tech pens, colored pencils, Sharpie  and Stabilo markers. It all started when I was in my junior year in college majoring in Economics. I was fascinated with graphs. I don’t know of any other course that uses more graphs than Economics. Theories are presented in pie charts, bar graphs, curves, the X and Y points and the like. Using graphs means using different colors of pencils/pens to make it more understandable (at least in our time).  I am digressing again so let’s go back to paper and pen.

Just this morning I noticed that I was half way through a thick journal that I started almost two years ago, when Nate was born  and I scribbled some notes while we were at the hospital. It was followed by several recipes  and baking tips culled from the internet. Lately it has become a hodgepodge of thoughts and  ramblings, friends’ contact numbers and mailing addresses, quotes taken from recent reads, books I want to have on my shelves and some scribblings that I haven’t published on WordPress. Haha, this is really funny 🙂  A friend gifted me with a Pilot tech pen labeled .7 so I asked Josef if the print is smaller than the three tech pens he bought me with a .4 mark. He looked at me as if I have forgotten to do simple Math or Arithmetic, hay!

Last Saturday, we were at the mall and first stop was at a bookstore. I was looking for a fine-point marker that I could use to label my grocery purchases. You might find it weird that despite the expiry dates written clearly but finely on each can and box of grocery items, I still write them in bold letters and arrange them in  the pantry by expiry dates. OC? Probably.  Sometimes, I get confused by the words Best By, Use By, Best Before. What do they actually mean when you see these words? When it says the expiry date is 12/14, will it expire right at the start of December or by month-end? Packing codes which are a jumble of numbers in a particular product  are mostly found in cosmetic  items, shampoos, detergents, toiletries etc. I  asked a shop assistant once in a grocery store how they know when an item like bars of soap are already expired. He told me that the dates displayed on the box is the manufacturing date and  the expiry is normally three years after  if they stay unopened.

Do you read nutrition facts on grocery items? I do, although at times even if you know that it is not that healthy, still you buy it. Junk food is plenty in grocery stores. It is your own look-out to feed yourself with such unhealthy snacks just because you are tempted  to grab them at the grocery shelves.  This  Christmas, I  am planning to cook my own home-cured ham, a healthy alternative to store-bought ones that are sometimes too salty for my liking.

Advertisement