I’ve tried many, many things to combat my anxiety and none of them work. It’s tough to hear how other people take to a certain herb right away whereas I feel absolutely nothing. Currently, I’m taking something called Good Days which is a pill containing a few different feel good, anti-anxiety herbs in it. I’m on day two and can’t really say I’ve noticed a difference in my mood or anxiety. It’s a 30-day program so if it doesn’t work after the 30 days, I’ll stop using it. Otherwise, I can get another 30 days worth for $3.95. Yes, I’m the idiot who spent $30 on pills that can be bought for $4. Oh well. If it works, it works. Not to mention that I’d have to buy it online for $3.95 and I don’t have a credit card so I wouldn’t have it in time for my trip.

If the Good Days doesn’t work, I’ve heard a lot of good things about magnesium. And if that doesn’t work, I bought a book on half.com about combating anxiety. I’ll be reading it at the airport and on the plane. If the supplements don’t work, I can always practice the tips that are talked about in the book.

As I’ve already mentioned once on this blog, I’m flying to New Hampshire on Wednesday. I’ll also be spending time in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. These are some of my plans:

Get a cinnamon stick at Honey Dew Donuts.

Get a plain cheese pizza at Town Spa. Hopefully we’ll try to go there on a busy day.

Get a chicken finger platter at Old Country Pizzeria.

Eat breakfast at Peppercorn’s. I’m not a big breakfast fan so I’m unsure what I’ll be ordering.

Get ice cream at Friendly’s.

Visit my elementary school, my middle school, and high school. Maybe we’ll even be able to take a tour around the school one day.

Visit “Casa de Bruxa” (which means “Witch House” in Portuguese). Casa de Bruxa is a house located close to my elementary school that has a lot of mystery surrounding it. It appears that someone lives there (as sometimes we find clothes hanging on the clothes line) but it’s near impossible to get INSIDE the house because the staircase is missing. More on this later.

Visit 7 Up. I used to go here as a kid and get slushies and other snacks.

My older sister wants to visit my old church. I’ll go just because but I have no real interest in visiting it.

Visit the house I used to live in as well as my neighbors.

Go to Fall River and get a fairly inexpensive plate of chicken, rice, salad, eggs, and fries. YUMMY! I’ll be paying for my mother’s steak as part of her Mother’s Day gift.

Visit Cumberland Farms and get ice cream. Maybe I’ll get Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough just for old time’s sake.

Possibly visit the New England Aquarium with Sofia.

Attend a friend of the family’s baby shower. She’s having twins.

Possibly visit Salem.

Attend a Portuguese feast where we’ll participate in the games and eat Portuguese food.

Visit the Stoughton cemetary to visit my aunt and grandparents.

The last time we visited Massachusetts, my cousin took my sister and I to a restaurant in Randolph. It was really nice inside and the drinks were interesting. Maybe we’ll go back again.

My older sister wants to take her fiancee to the Randolph Theatre to show him how nice it is. Maybe we’ll catch a movie there.

Go to the Christmas Tree Shoppe. No, it’s not a Christmas store. It has really inexpensive trinkets and it’s fun to peruse.

Next to the Christmas Tree Shoppe is a furniture store that is pretty cool itself. The different rooms have different themes and different smells relating to the rooms. Aside from the actual store, there’s a ride that we are mainly interested in called MOM. It’s a motion simulator ride and it’s super fun. I’ll also be getting Dippin’ Dots here.

CAN’T WAIT!

Although this may come as a surprise, I’m not the biggest fan of ice cream. It’s not something I get cravings for. I don’t really like trying weird flavors and I tend to stay away from chocolate and strawberry ice cream. If I’m with some friends and we decide to get ice cream, I’m the boring one who either gets plain old vanilla or chocolate chip cookie dough.

A few months ago, my sister decided she wanted to try every flavor in the Ben & Jerry’s line. I thought, hey, I’ll try one for myself. Upon perusing the shelves at the grocery store, I decided on Americone Dream. And it wasn’t because Steven Colbert created it. I wouldn’t say I’m a huge fan of his show but I think he’s funny. Regardless, I bought it because it sounded really, really good.

And after my first bite, I was in heaven. Wow. The actual ice cream is vanilla, of course. I wouldn’t want it any other way. And you know how a lot of vanilla ice cream just has a “frozen” taste to it? Not with this one. You can actually taste the vanilla. It tastes almost… forbidden. There are also caramel swirls mixed in. And it’s not just a little here and there. It’s spoonfuls of caramel after every other bite. The best part, without a doubt, is the chocolate covered waffle pieces. Oh. My. Yum. I enjoy spotting the brown waffle pieces mixed in with the creamy colored vanilla ice cream and digging them out like little pieces of treasure. It’s safe to say that this ice cream is magical.

As usual, Ben & Jerry’s scores huge points in the quantity and quality columns. They only make ice cream in pints and it’s fair to say that I can eat the entire pint in one sitting if I choose to but I set some limits so that I have something to look forward to at the end of a long day of work.

Average Price: $3 (on sale)

Where bought: Publix

I always buy stuff for dinner at work. I guess it’s easy when you work at a grocery store. So a couple of days ago I grab a couple of my cheap and easy favorites-salad, a bottle of flavored water, and I figure I’ll try some apple cinnamon snack cakes-and take my things to the register, debit card in hand. I swipe my card and to my horror, it says that my card is declined. I try again. Declined. I try as credit. Declined. That’s weird, I think to myself. I can see debit getting declined because maybe I put my pin in wrong a few times and it stopped letting me use it. But credit? Credit should’ve worked. So I’m all pissed off and embarassed and a friend of mine offers to pay for dinner and I feel like an idiot and everything.

I called my bank yesterday and find out that they cancelled my card. There have been a few things in the news about a competitive grocery store and how their employees were hacking into customers’ credit cards so even though the last time I used my card at this grocery store was in February, they cancelled my card and I had no idea. They offered to send me a new card which I’ll get in 5-7 days. The problem? I go on vacation on Wednesday.

Yep, I’m going to Massassachusetts on Wednesday for 5 days and I won’t have Little Debbie with me. The horror. The reason why I like Little Debbie is because it makes me think about if what I’m buying is worth it. If I have cash on me, I’ll just look in my wallet and think “Hey, I have the money. Let me spend it!”. So now I’m all upset that I have to use cash on this trip but I figure, hey, I got paid on Thursday so I’ll just cash my check. That means I won’t be taking any money out of my bank account so I won’t have to worry about spending more than I want to. Well, my paycheck is for just under what I wanted to spend on the trip “just to be safe”. So now I have to take another $100 out of my bank account AND I have to try not to spend any of the cash on anything besides the trip which is hard considering my only other form of payment is a check. I still have to pay back the friend that paid for my dinner that day. I also have to buy three cards, a few giftbags and tissue paper, and flowers for my mom for mother’s day.

All this just to say that cash makes my anxiety worse and I can’t wait until my vacation starts so I don’t have to worry about what I’m going to do for money while I’m at home.

So a couple of days ago I was at work, at my fifth or so day of cashiering since I stopped being the official leveler (or the person who fixes the products on the shelves so they are presentable). When it’s not so busy up front, they allow a cashier or two to leave their register and help the leveler. I’m out in the store, fixing some bottles of salad dressing, when I get called up front to check my register. Where I work, if a customer is “sticking out” of a line (meaning if they’re visibly sticking out in the main aisle), the front service people call up all cashiers to get the lines down some. So I see a couple of customers sticking out and say loudly “I can take someone on register 4″.

Of course, in my line comes what I can best describe as a crack whore. She was so jittery and she had a bad case of meth face. I start ringing up her things-hair stuff, body wash, etc.-until I come across a toothbrush that won’t scan. I type in the UPC numbers. Nothing comes up. Since I’m relatively new to cashiering, I don’t know what the heck to do so I ask a bagger to go to the toothbrush aisle and get me another toothbrush. Now, the entire time crack whore is huffing and puffing and muttering under her breath that she’s going to be late. I ask her if she knows what the price of the toothbrush is and figure if she’s in such a rush, I’m just going to type in the price for her. I tell her her total and the transaction is finished and the bagger isn’t back yet so she asks me if she can run back and get the toothbrush because she wanted the white one and she’d be mad if the bagger brought back a different color. Whatever. I was just happy to be rid of her.

Yesterday morning, while doing my normal daily computer things, I stopped by my county’s police department website. I wish every county had one of these. It’s fun to look up random people you know to see if they’ve ever been arrested. So I check the day before’s list of arrestees and as I’m perusing, I see a picture of someone I think I know. I look at the name that’s next to the picture and it’s not a name I recognize. Upon clicking on the smaller picture so that I can see a bigger version of it, I recognize the girl as the crack whore that was in such a rush the day before. The reason for her being arrested? Failure to appear. I think I made her late.

As I mentioned in my other T.G.I Friday’s review, I got hooked on the brand when I tried the mozzarella sticks. I wouldn’t say that they’re the most amazing things in the world, but they’re darn near close.

First let me say that I’m a lover of most things tomato. I love ketchup, tomato sauce, marinara sauce, you name the tomatoey goodness, and I probably like it.

I’ve tasted quite a few different mozzarella sticks so what makes this one different? It’s all in the marinara. It’s rather tangy but spicy as well. T.G.I. Friday’s includes a good size portion of marinara sauce but it’s so good that I always wish for more.

The actual mozzarella sticks are a different story. They’re breaded with a different kind of breading compared to typical mozzarella sticks. The breading on this particular product is a bit more flavorful than others. The cheese is gooey yet stringy. And another thing you must know about me is that I’m not a huge fan of cheese. So the cheese in these sticks is not overbearing. Good. One thing I have to point out, however, is that they tend to fall apart. Just picking one up can cause the thing to crumble.

You receive 7 mozzarella sticks and 1 bag of marinara sauce. As with most T.G.I Friday’s products, it’s advertised as an appetizer but it fills me up. To heat, you must place the sticks in the oven for 7.5 minutes and warm up the marinara sauce (I use a microwave).

Average price: $2.50 (on sale)
Where bought: Publix

I love, love, love T.G.I Friday’s products. I’ll admit that I’ve never eaten at any T.G.I Friday’s restaurants but I have tasted a few of their frozen foods. I was hooked after eating their mozzarella sticks. I work at a grocery store so I get to see every food item we carry and I found myself staring at this box of popcorn chicken everytime I passed by it. So when I found out they were on sale, I of course had to score myself a box.

One thing that annoys me about T.G.I Friday’s products is that a lot of them require you to heat them in the oven. Like I have time for that. With these, you just place them on a microwave-safe plate and heat them in the microwave for 3 minutes. It doesn’t get any easier than that.

So let’s talk about the taste. Sweet? Not so much. Smoky? Maybe. Upon taking my first bite, I realized that although it tastes a lot like chicken, the texture is a bit off. The “coating” is crunchy and perfect but the inside is just plain weird. Instead of flaky chicken, I got gobs of fat (or something else with a rubbery yet liquidy texture). As for the after taste, you can definitely taste smoky barbecue. Not a problem to most but I’m not a huge fan of barbecue. So I had to whip out my usual let’s-mask-the-taste condiment-ketchup. The imperfections (the texture and barbecue taste) were completely gone after that.

Bottom line-These aren’t bad by any means but I wish the texture was improved. Would I buy these again? Only if they’re at a reasonable price.

Average price: $2.50 (on sale)
Where bought: Publix