Operation Cream Cheese

We've reached the point where we have to start buying everything we've been meaning to buy before Brazil. We got pictures of our new apartment, which necessitated a trip to Ikea this week, followed by one of several trips to Costco.
Penny has been sick for a week now, and after so many days of being cooped up, I decided to take the girls to Ikea. We had a list of stuff to get, and Penny feels pretty good in the mornings, so we headed up. We shopped a bit, ate some meatballs, played in the play place, then shopped a bit more. Penny started fading during the second shopping spree, and pretty soon she was trying to rest her head on the cart handle while sitting in the little basket seat telling me, "I want to go in the car and go home." We bought everything on our list-- plus some toys for the new baby and some new Christmas ornaments. I couldn't help myself; this WAS restraint.
I got to go to Costco by myself, and while doing grocery shopping, I also stocked up on tons of stuff to bring to Brazil. Now, we don't get a separate "consumables" shipment this time, but even last time we didn't use ours. We just bought some things and put them in with our Household Effects. We'll be doing the same this time. The only difference, though, is that we've never been to Brazil. I have no idea what they have or don't have. I've heard they don't have peanut-butter, so I bought enough to elicit comments from the receipt-checker at Costco AND the random guy in our elevator. What, I like peanut-butter okay?! I bought a whole flat of canned pumpkin and a good dose of all the medicines we regularly use. It's fun to buy a whole bunch of stuff, but it's always a gamble as to whether A) you'll actually use it in Brazil, and B) you'll show up in Brazil only to find these same things being peddled on every corner. I've heard that everything in Brazil is more expensive than what you'll find here, so I've erred on the side of buying too much. But we'll use it.
Speaking of which, I bought a 3-lb tub of cream cheese.
I've seen that tub of cream cheese leering at me from its little shelf there in the fridge every time I pass it to buy string cheese. And I snub it every time. There's no way we could/should eat that much cream cheese before it goes bad. And I'm just not really ready to fork over the dough for something that's just going to waste. But now that we have one month left in Virginia, I realized that I'd been buying the 1" tall tubs of cream cheese for $2.99 each. It kills me that stuff here is so expensive, but that's what it costs. Finally (a month before our departure date, mind you), my mathematical genius turns on the light-bulb and realizes, "Hey, this gallon vat of cream cheese costs about as much as two of those 1" ration tubs. If I buy this and use as much as two of those little guys, I'll have gotten my money's worth-- and then some!"
My mathematical genius loves a good bargain. And not only that, but the more of that cream cheese tub we eat, the better the bargain is! Hence commences Operation Cream Cheese. It lasts from now until we leave Virginia-- or until the mold decides to invade. Let the race begin!