January 10, 11

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Well, the dental appointment went well. No cavities so all I needed was a cleaning. We decided to do our grocery shopping since we were out anyway. I skimmed my Facebook feed and saw one the posters had an entry concerning egg prices that shocked me. He showed a picture of a shelf in his local grocery where the eggs were priced between $7.75 and $9.50 per dozen. I checked the prices at our supermarket and they ranged from $4.50 for the store brand and $7+ for a commercial brand. We get our eggs from the little local dairy which gets them from local farmers. I don't remember what we paid but we aren't planning to change our buying habits right now. Found this first thing this morning on CBS to explain the situation.

I am still somewhat shocked to see how many shelves are either empty or sparsely stocked. Over the last three years we have developed a habit of buying 2 of any item we use regularly--our stock items. If there is a good sale and we have the space to store it we will buy more. That doesn't alway mean that we will have what we need when we need it. This week we found the store sold out of the brand of yogurt we use and the smaller carrots (they had the humongous variety which we really can't use easily.) We decided to go to a different store that is a bit further away where we found the carrots and got the last two cartons of yogurt. That is also a habit we have developed--finding multiple sources for what we need.

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California has received between 4 and 6 times the normal rainfall with the latest rounds of "atmospheric rivers". CNN has this article and I know they write that the rainfall is 400% to 600% normal. That translates to what I said above. Another round is supposed to come in by tonight. However, all that water hasn't done much to relieve the drought. Look at this comparison between the Drought Monitor maps for December 27 and January 3. This cycle of storms might turn out to be the first $1+billion storm. We had 15 last year. A reporter on a news feature yesterday was shown waist deep in a flood street recounting his story.