Conference, Thanksgiving and Black Friday tl;dr
(Side note: I don't think I said so before, but if you have a chance to see the new Disney movie, Big Hero Six, GO. It's heartfelt and adorable and funny, all at once. You will never fist bump the same way again. :D )
The beginning of this week feels like a million years ago, sheesh. Kids had half days at school Mon/Tues; right after school on Mon, I took Two to gender therapy, and MiniPlu was a cleaning machine. I was in the school library nearly all day on Tues, doing both library work (a.m.) and book fair work (p.m.). We also had Two's parent-teacher conference that afternoon. All told, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. The "minus" grade for "behaves appropriately" was because he's been giving all three teachers (and the reading specialist) a hard time sometimes, not trying to be deliberately disrespectful, but, unfortunately, sometimes resisting their efforts to help him or remind him to focus or use certain accepted tools for improved performance. Not exactly backtalk, but not quietly accepting their help and following through on it, either. So, yeah, hence the grade. Not happy, but it could have been worse. We're going to try to lean on him to do better at school, since this is the first trouble of the sort and hopefully we can keep it from worsening.
Wed, it snowed. They were forecasting this for days, but the threatened amounts varied hugely, making us wonder how long we'd have to wait for it to taper enough so we could shovel our sidewalks before we headed to NJ for Thanksgiving. In the end, though, it wasn't too bad - we got 4"/10cm or thereabouts, and the main roads were mostly just wet, not problematic. Kids had routine orthodontist appointments in the morning. This was MiniPlu's first time at the new office, so Two gave her a tour. Meanwhile, I plopped down in the seating area, only realizing after the fact that I was sitting with the middle school principal! (He and the handful of male teachers on staff are participating in No Shave November, making him look rather different at first glance!) Anyway, he recognized me as someone he'd seen before, although whether that was from visits at the middle school or when he recently spoke at the elementary school, I have no idea; still, we had a nice casual chat before his own daughter (4th grade) finished up and he left. We sloshed through the snow to run a few errands and such on the way home, then spent the rest of the day with laundry, packing, cooking some things I was bringing to NJ for Thanksgiving, that sort of thing, and we headed out around 6:45pm. But the big news was, just as we were finishing packing, I dug through my knitting bag looking for a needle I'd dropped, and in moving around several skeins of yarn ... I found my Kindle!! I have absolutely no recollection of putting it in there, but, yay, found it!!
When we got to R&K's house, however, K really needed to vent over family drama involving Will and Rob's younger brother, his wife, and their older daughter, whom I've written about before. In the process of ranting, Karen ended up imbibing most of a bottle of wine on her own and got - unsurprisingly - rather tipsy. Had rather a lot of fun witnessing a tipsy!Karen, since we don't normally see that. Also helped Rob with a little bit of the pumpkin pies, although the graham cracker crust had inexplicable issues. I finally crashed around midnight, with the others coming to bed later than that. (Rob had to stay up for the pies to finish baking and cooling enough to refrigerate.)
Thursday was Thanksgiving, of course. Helped Rob make apple pies, although our tempers flared a couple of times as we were both kind of stressed, and his ranting over the family situation didn't help. We had aimed to eat at 3pm, finally sat down at 4:30pm. But the food was very tasty, and everyone behaved themselves, and we were safe and warm, which was all that really mattered.
Gray Thursday/Black Friday shopping: I'm a casual Black Friday shopper. Until my kids were preschoolers, I didn't go Black Friday shopping at ALL, feeling there was nothing I wanted so badly as to wait in line in the dark for hours, then claw my way through the crowds, etc. However, the first year Will had to work, I wanted a way to pass time with young kids, so I picked a single department store (Kohl's), we went mid-late morning, browsed for nothing in particular, buying something if we loved it, and not worrying about them running out of anything especially choice. When we'd had enough, we went home. No stress.
However, starting last year, when I felt bad about my SIL not having her BFF to shop with, as she usually does, I went along for a little bit late on Thurs (which proved to be unexpectedly fun - but we were only after two things, one at each of two different stores, one of which was MiniPlu's cell phone), and again mid-late morning on Fri to Kohl's. Not a big deal. This year I felt compelled to accompany her again, but this time for a more "traditional" Crazy Shopper experience. Not in an attempt to be there when doors opened and to beat a path to choice items, but still - to be out for longer, and possibly later. MiniPlu begged to come along, and after some consideration, we allowed it, with one caveat: Karen, Will and I went out alone around 6:30pm (Will under duress, but I really felt more comfortable having our Tech Guru with him to evaluate models in person, and it's not like it was late at night), first, to see about getting MiniPlu a low-frills (but not junk) laptop for school, which we succeeded at, although it took Best Buy AGES to find the box with our chosen model, and to bring it to the Customer Service counter. I also picked up the first two Hunger Games DVDs for a grand total of $14, also for MiniPlu.
We got back around 8pm (store was 25 mins away each way), then spent an hour eating dessert, and Karen went to take care of the neighbor's cats, whom she was tending in their absence. It was then that I noticed my Kindle was missing AGAIN. I'd taken it with me to Best Buy, in case of long lines (which turned out not to be an issue), but I was pretty sure I'd left it on the Customer Service counter when we were waiting. Didn't remember carrying it once I had the box in my arms, anyway. GAH! I was annoyed at myself, but not really stressing too much. I'd called the store but their recording stated they weren't even going to TRY to answer the phones in person until 8am on Fri, so I figured I'd wait until then to go back and get it, even though Will was insisting I had to go RIGHT THEN to get it. But then Karen figured out that the stores we wanted to hit (Kohl's, Penney's, and a few others) could be found at a mall very near that Best Buy, so we might as well go to that one instead of the one we'd initially planned on, and swing by and look for the Kindle.
Finally left at 9pm. MiniPlu climbed in the back seat of Karen's car and ... found the Kindle. Apparently I'd carried it around with the laptop box without realizing it, and it did, indeed, make it back to the car. Phew! (But, since I hadn't anticipated that, I had finally taken the time to download the Android Kindle app for my phone, so I could still read during lines or whatever, and I was far less likely to lose my cell phone. And I'd brought my backpack along to hold MiniPlu's book - so my Kindle went right in there, too.)
We were out shopping until 2:30am, getting home at 3am. By the end, MiniPlu and I were pretty tired and ready to quit but it was fun, nonetheless, we got some great deals, and I'm glad we kept Karen company. I'd like to say we bought tons of gifts, but the reality was that most of my list has been shopped for already, and most of what we found were deals for US. *sheepish*
We were at Kohl's (a store we all like) for AGES, just browsing. Ended up with some brown riding boots for skirts/dresses, $85 marked down to $30, and a pair of gray cords; MiniPlu got a body pillow (she was given a body pillowcase a couple of years ago but didn't have anything to put IN it), some warm house socks for Will, who needs more, and a spill-proof water tumbler. Karen got stuff mostly for her household, as well.
MiniPlu was dying for her Starbucks iced peppermint mocha at this point, so we drove over to the mall, where we did the rest of our shopping; it was after midnight already, by this point. Got a parking spot RIGHT up front (although we'd been startlingly lucky with parking spots all night). Once MiniPlu had her caffeination/sugar, I bought Two two pairs of jeans at Children's Place (he's finally starting to need a 10 in their jeans - I gave him the jeans right away, because he really could use them now), and we browsed Victoria's Secret awhile, meeting up with our niece and her BFF in the process. MiniPlu had never been in VS before, and was admiring all the pretty (albeit overpriced) lingerie. She's nowhere near ready to need it yet, but she has FINALLY just just started some hints of physical puberty - although she was joking that she probably wouldn't "qualify" to shop at VS until she was fifty. :P
They were having a BOGO 50% off sale for all their bras, which I don't normally care much for (on principle), because it really just means 25% off each item. However, K was planning on buying a particular bra for herself anyway, and was offering to let me use the 50% off benefit. I've only recently splurged on one of their bras - there aren't too many that fit someone my size, regardless of their ridiculous prices - but they are pretty nice. Anyway, she finally coaxed me into getting a second one of the same style (different color). There was a nice fleece hoodie I'd admired in their catalog, the sort with thumbholes near the wrists, so you can pull the sleeves over your hands to warm them if you want. It, too, was ridiculously priced, but I tried one on to see if I'd like it, just out of curiosity. Karen offered to let us go ahead and get a soft pretzel for a snack, because MiniPlu - who had decided in the end to share the rest of her mocha with me - was hungry, but I KNOW Karen. You walk away from her in a situation like that, and the next thing you know, she's bought the thing you were admiring and refusing to let you reimburse her. Caught out, instead Karen decided to see if it was on sale or would be going on sale; end result: not on sale that night, but the manager said it would be on sale on Sat, so I might - MIGHT - swing by our local VS to see if the price is any more decent tomorrow.
Alas, the soft pretzel place had closed for a few hours (sign read: we will re-open at 3:30am, which just seemed so incredibly random), so MiniPlu and Karen got snacks back at Starbucks, instead. It was 1am and a good chunk of the mall was closing up for the night, but a number of stores were going to be open all night, as was Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts - you can only imagine the brisk business they must do on Black Friday! Also picked up new snow boots for Two at Sears to replace nearly-outgrown ones. (He'd tried on the previous weekend at another store but they didn't have his size then.) Those will be a gift; he can squeak out a few more weeks in the old boots.
From there, it was on to Penney's, where K wanted to look at the men's Big & Tall section for Rob, and also had some things she'd bought a few days ago and staff had said she could get the price adjusted on Black Friday but found out that she had to have them with her and they were back at home. She did get a few more items for Rob. Meanwhile, I got some new flannel sheets for our bed, a long-sleeve green t-shirt with a sort of Middle-Eastern inspired print splashed on it, and an infinity scarf for MiniPlu. The check-out line was slow and MiniPlu was pretty wiped by this point, but still claiming she'd had tons of fun. She fell asleep almost instantly in the car, and we arrived home around 3am.
Of course, MiniPlu and I went to bed quickly. However, in all the chaos, I hadn't remembered my usual evening meds, and there was no point in taking them at that time. Still, I don't sleep well without them (a side effect - they're not meant for sleep purposes), AND I'd had some of MiniPlu's peppermint mocha, which meant that instead of falling asleep instantly, I lay awake in bed for the rest of the night. My eyes were closed, but I wasn't sleeping. Karen, meanwhile, had gathered Rob's new clothing and headed back out to the mall (remember: 25 mins each way) to get the price adjusted because it was a really good deal. Around 6:30am, when I was feeling like giving up and getting out of bed, I figured I must've dozed at least a little because I hadn't heard her come in. And then I heard her come in. Yep, she stayed out ALL night.
Once she'd disappeared into her room, I got up, grabbed a banana, and went out to the bookstore around 7:15am, which was advertising a huge pile of autographed books as their Black Friday special. Turned out they weren't opening until 8am, so I browsed Five Below (a discount shop) for some stocking stuffers while I waited. There were about 10 people at the door when the bookstore opened, and, lol, we all made a beeline to the autographed-book shelves. These being books, however, and not big-screen TVs or the latest "It" toy, there was no pushing or arguing or anything, and only two books disappeared quickly (neither of them being ones I wanted). In the end I chose "Four" for MiniPlu (being given to her by a friend, actually, not me, but I think she'll appreciate the fact that it's signed - I bypassed a few Two-appropriate books because I know that he wouldn't value it nearly so much) and Neil Patrick Harris's "choose your own autobiography" and Cassie's/Holly Black's Magnus Bane chronicles for myself, which I'm handing over to Will with "Give this to me for Christmas, I'm going to conveniently forget all about it now" instructions. :D
I was, of course, totally wiped at this point, so I went home, chatted a little with Will, slept for 2 hours, at which point MiniPlu and Karen were just getting up, as well. (Though tired, MiniPlu maintained that she'd had a blast shopping and was delighted to have stayed up her latest ever.) We had lunch, I walked the dog, helped K rearrange furniture to make room for their Christmas tree (although we didn't put it up as we then got sidetracked by a massive "fix a broken down sofa" project), napped another 2 hours - at which point I finally felt human, and then puttered around a bit more while Will helped with said sofa project, and I packed up our stuff plus the leftovers we were being given. We didn't leave until 6:30pm, later than I'd hoped, but oh well. (Kids stayed behind to help decorate their house a little; we'll get them back on Sun.) And now I should go fall into bed, because 4 hours is oddly not enough. :P Will has to work for much of tomorrow, so I'm hoping maybe I can spend time with my Yuletide fic. And maybe the fleece hoodie; we'll see.
Sorry this got so ridiculously long. :P
The beginning of this week feels like a million years ago, sheesh. Kids had half days at school Mon/Tues; right after school on Mon, I took Two to gender therapy, and MiniPlu was a cleaning machine. I was in the school library nearly all day on Tues, doing both library work (a.m.) and book fair work (p.m.). We also had Two's parent-teacher conference that afternoon. All told, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. The "minus" grade for "behaves appropriately" was because he's been giving all three teachers (and the reading specialist) a hard time sometimes, not trying to be deliberately disrespectful, but, unfortunately, sometimes resisting their efforts to help him or remind him to focus or use certain accepted tools for improved performance. Not exactly backtalk, but not quietly accepting their help and following through on it, either. So, yeah, hence the grade. Not happy, but it could have been worse. We're going to try to lean on him to do better at school, since this is the first trouble of the sort and hopefully we can keep it from worsening.
Wed, it snowed. They were forecasting this for days, but the threatened amounts varied hugely, making us wonder how long we'd have to wait for it to taper enough so we could shovel our sidewalks before we headed to NJ for Thanksgiving. In the end, though, it wasn't too bad - we got 4"/10cm or thereabouts, and the main roads were mostly just wet, not problematic. Kids had routine orthodontist appointments in the morning. This was MiniPlu's first time at the new office, so Two gave her a tour. Meanwhile, I plopped down in the seating area, only realizing after the fact that I was sitting with the middle school principal! (He and the handful of male teachers on staff are participating in No Shave November, making him look rather different at first glance!) Anyway, he recognized me as someone he'd seen before, although whether that was from visits at the middle school or when he recently spoke at the elementary school, I have no idea; still, we had a nice casual chat before his own daughter (4th grade) finished up and he left. We sloshed through the snow to run a few errands and such on the way home, then spent the rest of the day with laundry, packing, cooking some things I was bringing to NJ for Thanksgiving, that sort of thing, and we headed out around 6:45pm. But the big news was, just as we were finishing packing, I dug through my knitting bag looking for a needle I'd dropped, and in moving around several skeins of yarn ... I found my Kindle!! I have absolutely no recollection of putting it in there, but, yay, found it!!
When we got to R&K's house, however, K really needed to vent over family drama involving Will and Rob's younger brother, his wife, and their older daughter, whom I've written about before. In the process of ranting, Karen ended up imbibing most of a bottle of wine on her own and got - unsurprisingly - rather tipsy. Had rather a lot of fun witnessing a tipsy!Karen, since we don't normally see that. Also helped Rob with a little bit of the pumpkin pies, although the graham cracker crust had inexplicable issues. I finally crashed around midnight, with the others coming to bed later than that. (Rob had to stay up for the pies to finish baking and cooling enough to refrigerate.)
Thursday was Thanksgiving, of course. Helped Rob make apple pies, although our tempers flared a couple of times as we were both kind of stressed, and his ranting over the family situation didn't help. We had aimed to eat at 3pm, finally sat down at 4:30pm. But the food was very tasty, and everyone behaved themselves, and we were safe and warm, which was all that really mattered.
Gray Thursday/Black Friday shopping: I'm a casual Black Friday shopper. Until my kids were preschoolers, I didn't go Black Friday shopping at ALL, feeling there was nothing I wanted so badly as to wait in line in the dark for hours, then claw my way through the crowds, etc. However, the first year Will had to work, I wanted a way to pass time with young kids, so I picked a single department store (Kohl's), we went mid-late morning, browsed for nothing in particular, buying something if we loved it, and not worrying about them running out of anything especially choice. When we'd had enough, we went home. No stress.
However, starting last year, when I felt bad about my SIL not having her BFF to shop with, as she usually does, I went along for a little bit late on Thurs (which proved to be unexpectedly fun - but we were only after two things, one at each of two different stores, one of which was MiniPlu's cell phone), and again mid-late morning on Fri to Kohl's. Not a big deal. This year I felt compelled to accompany her again, but this time for a more "traditional" Crazy Shopper experience. Not in an attempt to be there when doors opened and to beat a path to choice items, but still - to be out for longer, and possibly later. MiniPlu begged to come along, and after some consideration, we allowed it, with one caveat: Karen, Will and I went out alone around 6:30pm (Will under duress, but I really felt more comfortable having our Tech Guru with him to evaluate models in person, and it's not like it was late at night), first, to see about getting MiniPlu a low-frills (but not junk) laptop for school, which we succeeded at, although it took Best Buy AGES to find the box with our chosen model, and to bring it to the Customer Service counter. I also picked up the first two Hunger Games DVDs for a grand total of $14, also for MiniPlu.
We got back around 8pm (store was 25 mins away each way), then spent an hour eating dessert, and Karen went to take care of the neighbor's cats, whom she was tending in their absence. It was then that I noticed my Kindle was missing AGAIN. I'd taken it with me to Best Buy, in case of long lines (which turned out not to be an issue), but I was pretty sure I'd left it on the Customer Service counter when we were waiting. Didn't remember carrying it once I had the box in my arms, anyway. GAH! I was annoyed at myself, but not really stressing too much. I'd called the store but their recording stated they weren't even going to TRY to answer the phones in person until 8am on Fri, so I figured I'd wait until then to go back and get it, even though Will was insisting I had to go RIGHT THEN to get it. But then Karen figured out that the stores we wanted to hit (Kohl's, Penney's, and a few others) could be found at a mall very near that Best Buy, so we might as well go to that one instead of the one we'd initially planned on, and swing by and look for the Kindle.
Finally left at 9pm. MiniPlu climbed in the back seat of Karen's car and ... found the Kindle. Apparently I'd carried it around with the laptop box without realizing it, and it did, indeed, make it back to the car. Phew! (But, since I hadn't anticipated that, I had finally taken the time to download the Android Kindle app for my phone, so I could still read during lines or whatever, and I was far less likely to lose my cell phone. And I'd brought my backpack along to hold MiniPlu's book - so my Kindle went right in there, too.)
We were out shopping until 2:30am, getting home at 3am. By the end, MiniPlu and I were pretty tired and ready to quit but it was fun, nonetheless, we got some great deals, and I'm glad we kept Karen company. I'd like to say we bought tons of gifts, but the reality was that most of my list has been shopped for already, and most of what we found were deals for US. *sheepish*
We were at Kohl's (a store we all like) for AGES, just browsing. Ended up with some brown riding boots for skirts/dresses, $85 marked down to $30, and a pair of gray cords; MiniPlu got a body pillow (she was given a body pillowcase a couple of years ago but didn't have anything to put IN it), some warm house socks for Will, who needs more, and a spill-proof water tumbler. Karen got stuff mostly for her household, as well.
MiniPlu was dying for her Starbucks iced peppermint mocha at this point, so we drove over to the mall, where we did the rest of our shopping; it was after midnight already, by this point. Got a parking spot RIGHT up front (although we'd been startlingly lucky with parking spots all night). Once MiniPlu had her caffeination/sugar, I bought Two two pairs of jeans at Children's Place (he's finally starting to need a 10 in their jeans - I gave him the jeans right away, because he really could use them now), and we browsed Victoria's Secret awhile, meeting up with our niece and her BFF in the process. MiniPlu had never been in VS before, and was admiring all the pretty (albeit overpriced) lingerie. She's nowhere near ready to need it yet, but she has FINALLY just just started some hints of physical puberty - although she was joking that she probably wouldn't "qualify" to shop at VS until she was fifty. :P
They were having a BOGO 50% off sale for all their bras, which I don't normally care much for (on principle), because it really just means 25% off each item. However, K was planning on buying a particular bra for herself anyway, and was offering to let me use the 50% off benefit. I've only recently splurged on one of their bras - there aren't too many that fit someone my size, regardless of their ridiculous prices - but they are pretty nice. Anyway, she finally coaxed me into getting a second one of the same style (different color). There was a nice fleece hoodie I'd admired in their catalog, the sort with thumbholes near the wrists, so you can pull the sleeves over your hands to warm them if you want. It, too, was ridiculously priced, but I tried one on to see if I'd like it, just out of curiosity. Karen offered to let us go ahead and get a soft pretzel for a snack, because MiniPlu - who had decided in the end to share the rest of her mocha with me - was hungry, but I KNOW Karen. You walk away from her in a situation like that, and the next thing you know, she's bought the thing you were admiring and refusing to let you reimburse her. Caught out, instead Karen decided to see if it was on sale or would be going on sale; end result: not on sale that night, but the manager said it would be on sale on Sat, so I might - MIGHT - swing by our local VS to see if the price is any more decent tomorrow.
Alas, the soft pretzel place had closed for a few hours (sign read: we will re-open at 3:30am, which just seemed so incredibly random), so MiniPlu and Karen got snacks back at Starbucks, instead. It was 1am and a good chunk of the mall was closing up for the night, but a number of stores were going to be open all night, as was Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts - you can only imagine the brisk business they must do on Black Friday! Also picked up new snow boots for Two at Sears to replace nearly-outgrown ones. (He'd tried on the previous weekend at another store but they didn't have his size then.) Those will be a gift; he can squeak out a few more weeks in the old boots.
From there, it was on to Penney's, where K wanted to look at the men's Big & Tall section for Rob, and also had some things she'd bought a few days ago and staff had said she could get the price adjusted on Black Friday but found out that she had to have them with her and they were back at home. She did get a few more items for Rob. Meanwhile, I got some new flannel sheets for our bed, a long-sleeve green t-shirt with a sort of Middle-Eastern inspired print splashed on it, and an infinity scarf for MiniPlu. The check-out line was slow and MiniPlu was pretty wiped by this point, but still claiming she'd had tons of fun. She fell asleep almost instantly in the car, and we arrived home around 3am.
Of course, MiniPlu and I went to bed quickly. However, in all the chaos, I hadn't remembered my usual evening meds, and there was no point in taking them at that time. Still, I don't sleep well without them (a side effect - they're not meant for sleep purposes), AND I'd had some of MiniPlu's peppermint mocha, which meant that instead of falling asleep instantly, I lay awake in bed for the rest of the night. My eyes were closed, but I wasn't sleeping. Karen, meanwhile, had gathered Rob's new clothing and headed back out to the mall (remember: 25 mins each way) to get the price adjusted because it was a really good deal. Around 6:30am, when I was feeling like giving up and getting out of bed, I figured I must've dozed at least a little because I hadn't heard her come in. And then I heard her come in. Yep, she stayed out ALL night.
Once she'd disappeared into her room, I got up, grabbed a banana, and went out to the bookstore around 7:15am, which was advertising a huge pile of autographed books as their Black Friday special. Turned out they weren't opening until 8am, so I browsed Five Below (a discount shop) for some stocking stuffers while I waited. There were about 10 people at the door when the bookstore opened, and, lol, we all made a beeline to the autographed-book shelves. These being books, however, and not big-screen TVs or the latest "It" toy, there was no pushing or arguing or anything, and only two books disappeared quickly (neither of them being ones I wanted). In the end I chose "Four" for MiniPlu (being given to her by a friend, actually, not me, but I think she'll appreciate the fact that it's signed - I bypassed a few Two-appropriate books because I know that he wouldn't value it nearly so much) and Neil Patrick Harris's "choose your own autobiography" and Cassie's/Holly Black's Magnus Bane chronicles for myself, which I'm handing over to Will with "Give this to me for Christmas, I'm going to conveniently forget all about it now" instructions. :D
I was, of course, totally wiped at this point, so I went home, chatted a little with Will, slept for 2 hours, at which point MiniPlu and Karen were just getting up, as well. (Though tired, MiniPlu maintained that she'd had a blast shopping and was delighted to have stayed up her latest ever.) We had lunch, I walked the dog, helped K rearrange furniture to make room for their Christmas tree (although we didn't put it up as we then got sidetracked by a massive "fix a broken down sofa" project), napped another 2 hours - at which point I finally felt human, and then puttered around a bit more while Will helped with said sofa project, and I packed up our stuff plus the leftovers we were being given. We didn't leave until 6:30pm, later than I'd hoped, but oh well. (Kids stayed behind to help decorate their house a little; we'll get them back on Sun.) And now I should go fall into bed, because 4 hours is oddly not enough. :P Will has to work for much of tomorrow, so I'm hoping maybe I can spend time with my Yuletide fic. And maybe the fleece hoodie; we'll see.
Sorry this got so ridiculously long. :P