@vaporvac Those varieties sound cool, we don't have Menards in Richmond yet. Southern States gets some interesting potted roses. The wally world roses are now $3 from $6.44. I planted one called Love last year, that sitting out in the sun, in the middle of summer, in a body bag-but still alive! Figured a rose that survives that much mistreatment deserves a chance:) It was $2- that is the only rose so far (after Canary, sugarmoon, First crush, lemon fizz, alcymist) that was not affected by our intermittent freeze and warm ups. For its first year putting out many new growth and no fried up leaves. Wicked Thorns on it though. Duchess Brabant might have died-looks dead. I covered her with straw for insulation- but the tops all gone. still, I will leave her alone and see if she lives. Aldi-Also saw st josephs coat, elizabeth, gold medal, olympiad, easy red rose, some kordes hardy shrub rose (can't remember name)pink peace, peace, Heirloom, sunsprite (my favorite yellow so far), don juan, america, iceberg, jfk, westerland, love(hard to kill rose), pinata (i think). and more.. home depot- had the usual same ol same variety. Christmas tree shop-lily pons (potted) @7$. Other varities were sub zero ones bred by dr. brownell.

I got one from Penny's several years ago that works for us. Its a digital; runs on a 9 volt battery; one battery lasts for a year or more. The scale is about 15 inches square and 2 inches high. You tap it with your toe to turn it on; the display will cycle a few times while it waits for the vibrations to die away and zeros itself. When the display glows steady, step on and stand still. When it thinks everything has settled, your weight is diaplayed. Read it and step off. It'll turn off in about 3 seconds after stepping off. It seems to be accurate within 1 lb at 230 lbs. No tenths of a pound. Displays only to the nearest Lb. It has worked well for 10 years. It is a bit quick in automatically shutting off. You have about 3 to 5 seconds to step on the scale after the dispaly becomes steady. Go beyond this limit and it auto-shuts down. HINT: Weigh yourself soon after you get up and after you have used the toilet and before you slake your thirst. Weigh with no clothes. A good time is just before you step into the shower. This will be your minimum weight for the day unless you engage in extreme hard labor. Your weight can change by a couple of pounds during the day. Differenct in clothing weight can mask a trend. I have found this produces the most consistent measurement and that is important if you are graphing your weight on a daily basis.

Welcome to the forum, Jeff. Hope to see more of you around here! Johnliu, I used an old spring scale up until about a year ago. Love having a digital scale. Use it a lot for 'scaling' dough when I make hamburger & brat buns. Nice to have a uniform size so that they all bake evenly and that I get the X amount of buns that I'm sposed to get out of a recipe. (I note the weight for whatever bun I'm making on the recipe card.) Also comes in very handy when I make a layer cake...for getting the same amount of batter in each pan. Another use I have for it is checking the weight of a prepackaged food item...does that 2# sack of pinto beans really weigh a full 2 pounds? Hint: Sometimes they don't. Bonus factor is that the digital scale takes up a lot less room than the old spring scale. I tend to use mine quite often so it lives on the counter. Last thing is that I made sure that the scale uses common batteries, i.e., AA's. First scale that I got used some not so common (and expensive) batteries. Turned out to be a defective scale that went thru a set of batteries every couple of weeks! We returned that scale to the store & ordered a different one from Amazon.

arkansas_girl, and I only say this because I care, they have decaffeinated brands now that taste just as good as regular! :) lydia1959, While they don't carry Fritos® *brand*, they do carry corn chips, their generic/store brand is Clancy's. And no they don't carry Diet Rite® brand cola, again, they have their own diet cola. They have very few brand name items however quite regularly have Oscar Meyer® bacon, Miracle Whip® salad dressing and a few other name brands at times but the whole point of the store is that about 95% of the products are generic/store brands. One rep said they will get a brand name if they can't get the quality or price they want or they just won't carry it. They guarantee the items so if you don't like it, they'll refund your money and replace the item on most items. Since you want brand name items, discount stores like these are not for you. I've found some of their products to be better than brand names, most are equal to and a few are not as good IMO. But I'm not a brand-loyal person on too many things so I find Aldi and the comparable type stores to be great. Keep in mind the average Aldi carries about 1400 SKUs so they're obviously not going to have as big an assortment of major things. They also go for items they get the right price and the right quality so produce can be hit and miss. Aldi is a store you shop first then go to another store to pick up the things like zucchini. Onions will vary. Sometimes they'll have red but sometimes they'll have white or yellow. Again, it varies. If you want a *guarantee* they'll have a particular type, then it's not for you. But then, no store can guarantee it! LOL (I see more out of stocks and perpetual OOSs at Malwart than any other store.) I'm surprised about the salsa. Around here they always have it and it's usually in the aisle as you come into the store, by the chips. Casa Mamita is their brand name, however if you're going to look for a variety of "heat" and a variety of flavor, don't expect it. Generally they carry one of each types. Green onions are hit and miss. Generally I think it's because they spoil quite quickly so I seldom see them there. Shredded cheese is in the cooler, most stores it's against the back wall with salads, sausage, milk, eggs, sour cream, etc. You need to get used to what they *have*, and know they will *not* have 50,000 to 80,00 SKUs as a large grocery store nor 100,000+ SKUs like a super center to cover all needs. (In fact, that's one of their advertising bits You don't have to search through aisles of camping gear to find your ketchup.) Nor will a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods for that matter. People that shop these stores realize they're not going to get *everything* in one stop. They're specialty stores. Whole Foods for "natural" stuff, TJ's for yuppy stuff and Aldi for low priced staples. I'm not surprised you didn't find green onions, red onion, zucchini and canned green chiles. They do carry a substitute "Rotel" tomato and chilis though. And of course your brand names are pretty much a given, though they do carry diet cola and corn chips, though not the flavor you were looking for. Frankly you could simplify your trip for those two things by picking them up when you get gas and you're not really doing an additional store. Most gas stations carry Diet Rite and Fritos. I'm very surprised you didn't find salsa and shredded cheese. I take it you didn't ask someone about it? I started making a list of things they have that I would buy. I check my Aldi List before going there, then do an Aldi trip. Although I pretty much do the same for any other store. I keep a price log so I know which stores have better prices on certain things. Keep in mind, Aldi is about a 10,000 square foot store with about 1400 SKUs as mentioned. They cannot physically carry the variety an 80,000 sq ft common grocery store would nor a 130,000-150,000 sq ft "super store". Their model is to carry bargain basics and some special things. An air conditioner for $60, cast iron pans for $30 and under, flash drives cheap, lawn chairs, and more. But they won't have it all the time. I consider it garage sale shopping in that you never know for sure what you can get, just like I experience at Malwart for that matter! LOL All stores run out. Not all stores carry "everything". They can't. No one store is for everyone, that's why there's so many. And as I mentioned earlier, rumor has it that Aldi gets its pop/soda from Dr Pepper Snapple Group, who make Diet Rite. Can't verify this yet, but wouldn't surprise me. BTW, while they don't carry a 100' aisle of various breads, they carry white, wheat, a few buns, and they also have a 12 grain bread that I really like and it's about $1.69. Considering the comparable bread at any other store is $3-$4 there's times I'll make a stop just for a few things that they have that I like better or save me lot. I don't like having to stop at multiple stores to get what I want, but unfortunately these days it's nearly a requirement. I can't get decent produce at a Walmart here, they just don't have it in stock or the quality is SO poor I wouldn't feed it to farm animals. (They don't get anything locally.) Cub and Rainbow are hit and miss. When Aldi has produce, I've had 95% good luck with the quality and of course the prices are substantially less. I got used to the Aldi concept long before Aldi came into this area. We had a store called Save-A-Lot owned by Nash Finch and it basically was the same concept. No frills, bag your own, store brand mostly and closeouts/special purchases. Again, not the place to buy everything but a great place to save money. I was saddened to see them close but I understand when they saw Aldi moving in, they gave up and closed the doors.