We had a good Thanksgiving this year - nothing big and fancy, just immediate family, which was nice.  I had dessert duty this year so I made a pie and at Kaiden’s request, because she does not like pie, I made some cheesecake brownies.  I wanted to choose something different for a pie instead of the normal apple or pumpkin, so I made a Hoosier Sweet Cream pie, served with whipped cream and toasted coconut.  It turned out pretty good and was super dooper easy to make.

Right after dinner I had to excuse myself and haul butt over to Nadine’s house for our annual Black Friday all-nighter.  We start planning for this weeks in advance, when the Black Friday ads start leaking.  We start making our lists and consulting with each other on game plans, which stores we want to hit, etc.

Here I am on my way over to Nadine’s house, looking all fresh-faced and in a great mood.  Ready to conquer Black Friday and all it throws at me.  Our first destination was Toys R Us.  They were opening up at 10:00pm on Thanksgiving night.  We showed up to get into the line at around 8:20pm.

We were actually quite happy with our placement in line this year.  Last year we were way in the back of the buildings, it was INSANE.  We waited in this line for quite a while - but did not mind at all this year, since the weather was actually cooperating.  It was almost 70 degrees and clear.  Last year it was in the 40’s and pouring rain.  Big difference.

Here we are in line… happy to be there and excited to be kicking off our night.  We had our lists in hand and had our gameplan down.  Nadine would take the cart and immediately get into the electronics line.  I would take both of our lists and run around the store like a mad woman, coming back every so often to make a dump into the cart, then we would switch, and so on, until we got into electronics to get the Wii and DS games we needed and checkout.  The big thing that Nadine wanted from here was a $79 netbook for Brianna, which we were too far back in the line to get a ticket for and that none of the Toys R Us employees were willing to try to get for us in exchange for a hand-job in one of the aisles (god knows we offered and offered)... but lucky Nadine “found” a ticket sitting on the counter as we were checking out and ended up scoring one.  I am pretty sure if I had kicked her any harder under the counter I would have broken her shin in half.

Next we hit the midnight opening of Old Navy for cheap jeans and leggings for the kids.  We thought we were going to have to go to the one in another city (25 minute drive), since it had an exterior entrance, unlike the mall location right behind the Toys R Us where we already were - like we had to do last year… but luck struck again and the mall was opening up for the sale.  WE WERE STOKED!

SO stoked that I ALMOST considered buying this hat for myself just to commemorate the occasion.  Then I got back to reality and remembered this night was not about me, it was about the kids.  The general public should let out a huge sigh of relief that I did come to this realization and am not walking the streets in that hat.  Nadine once again had a stroke of luck after searching the whole store for a certain type of jeans for Big Kev, we rounded the corner to the registers and there was ONE pair sitting out of place and just so happened to be the size she needed.  We couldn’t believe it!  After Old Navy we hit the 2am opening of Kohls.  There really was not anything we needed there, but we had to do something to stay awake until Target opened at 4am.

At around 3am we rolled up to Target, ready to wait in line again.  It looked like it had rained at this point… but being that it was our lucky night, we missed it.

At halfway through the night, we were not looking so bright-eyed anymore.  We were now relying on multiple cups of coffee to keep the momentum going.  We got through Target relatively quickly and painlessly, getting all that we could on our lists, and saving what we couldn’t get for Wal-Mart, where they would price match Target’s prices.

It was when we were almost done with Target that Nadine started going loopy and had me laughing so hard I almost wet my pants several times thanks to all the 20oz coffees.  After Target, we hit up the 5am opening of Wal-Mart where we crossed off the rest of our lists. 

We did have to make a quick trip back to Target again, but were in and out with no trouble at all - well, almost, I did collapse at this point from exhaustion.

In the end, we made out like bandits!  The kids will be very happy on Christmas.  We both stayed within our pre-planned budgets and saved a shit-ton of money.  My total savings were right at $497.55 - completely awesome and for me, was totally worth the night without sleep.  I probably would have done it regardless, because of how much fun Nadine and I have.  Time to start gearing up and planning for next year!  :coffee:

The other day, I saw the above book and mitt set called “Tickle Monster” on some website.  I thought it was the cutest thing ever and immediately added it to Ashton’s Christmas Wishlist on Amazon dot Com.  Is this something he wants for Christmas?  No, but it is something that I want him to have for Christmas.  Why?  Because seeing this product made me immediately think of my grandpa and the fifty million amazing memories I have from growing up with that man and the constant games of “Tickle Monster” or “Zombie” that he would play with us until he nearly collapsed from exhaustion.  What made me laugh about the Tickle Monster mitts, is that they would have totally SAVED us growing up.  My grandfather had nails… and would

chase you

hunt you down and tickle you until you bled (at least that is what it felt like).  You would be crying and trying to make it sound like you were laughing and it was hilarious.  As much as you hated it, you wouldn’t trade it for the world because he was just SO AWESOME!  But GOD… if he had only had these mitts.

This was my grandpa’s house in Springfield, PA, which is right outside of Philly, and is where I spent an ENORMOUS chunk of my childhood.  With my father being in the Navy and being out to sea every year of my life and us having no family in Virginia Beach, my mom would load us up in the car and make the 4.5 hour trip up to Philly as often as she could.  Weekend trips, birthday trips, holiday trips - we were constantly at my grandparent’s house growing up.  That trip became nothing to us, it was like a trip to the grocery store.

This is a picture of my mom with my grandpa, her father, James Vincent Wallace.  To look at him, you would never guess what an amazing man he was, but he was.  My grandfather attended Rutger’s University on a full football scholarship.  He also played baseball for them.  After college, he was offered a chance to play in the NFL, but he met and fell in love with my grandma and felt that was no career path for starting a family and family is what he wanted.  He joined the military and was a World War II veteran.  After his time in the military, he worked for a car dealership for 24 years.  My grandparents had 8 children - 7 girls and 1 boy (my poor Uncle Jimmer).  Because of the number of children they had, I was blessed with more cousins then you could imagine and some Aunts that weren’t much older then me growing up.

This is only a handful of the cousins that I have on my mom’s side of the family, in a portrait with my grandparents.  My grandparent’s house was like a madhouse 24/7 with kids everywhere, adults hanging out playing cards or something, our dogs wandering around and yet in my memories, I don’t seem to ever remember that bothering anyone - it was the norm.  There was always a fire burning, there were always kids dragging toys in from the porch, exploring the spooky attic and running down to the basement.  There was running around in the huge yard, playing in the woods, rides in the wheelbarrow… hooked up to the riding lawnmower and snowmobiles.  Most of all there was laughter… tons and tons of laughter - like the time my mom and some of my aunts decided to play strip poker in the middle of the damn day at the dining room table and one of my other aunts (I should say my “favorite Aunt” - in case she reads this - she has always made us make that fact known) decided to drop in unannounced with her sister-in-law - THE NUN.  You have never seen grown women scramble faster or laugh harder.  This kind of stuff was normal in our family.

As much as we went up to see them, they would come to our house too.  If my grandma came, they would drive down in the old Pontiac Grand Prix, but if it was just my grandpa, which a lot of times it was, he took the Greyhound bus - ALWAYS.  We would have to head on up to the True Value Hardware store to pick him up, because that is where the bus took him.  He would come do handy-work around the house and help my mom out, while my dad was away, then he would do the same for the neighbors or anyone that passed by.  He could never just sit, he had to keep busy, UNLESS Jeopardy was on.  If Jeopardy was on, he was watching it.  Not just watching it, answering every single question correctly BEFORE they told the answer - he was AMAZING.

If he wasn’t piddling and whistling, you could find him in his chair - HIS CHAIR.  You were allowed to sit in it WITH HIM… but not without.  He would read in his chair, or work on the Crossword Puzzle or Jumble, or just sit there and watch his grandchildren playing on the floor in front of the fire.  Every once in a while he would get up, go out the porch doors behind his chair and grab more firewood.  If you asked him what he was doing… his answer was always the same “eating chocolate ice cream… what does it look like I’m doing?”

My grandpa was not the affectionate type, but was loyal to a tee!  When you went to hug him, he would pat you on the back and say “alright now… come on… go play” or something like that and I don’t think I ever remember him referring to my grandma as anything other than “woman,” as in “WOMAN… that is enough!”  But you KNEW this man loved you, because he was always doing for you.  Always.  He loved ALL of his children and he loved his grandchildren even more.  He was so proud of his enormous, CRAZY family.  And god knows, we loved him more than anything!

My grandpa died of cancer when I was 19 years old and one of the things I remember was that he had us laughing up until the moment he died.  His obituary stated that he was survived by my grandma, which is not true, she had passed 10 months before him, also of cancer and very sudden.  He had been successfully fighting cancer before she died and in my opinion, just gave up after she passed.  When he died, it was so much harder on everyone, because that meant the end of grandma and grandpa’s house, the end to a huge portion of my childhood.  I wish more than anything that my kids could have known him.  He would have loved my kids so much and they would have loved him.

This post is protected by the soapbox.SUPERSTAR Member's Only Club.
In order to read this post you must be an approved member. If you have registered and are still seeing this message after logging in and feel like you have been hanging around here long enough to have access, just email me - I may need to bump up your membership a notch!
Login • Register Now

This post is protected by the soapbox.SUPERSTAR Member's Only Club.
In order to read this post you must be an approved member. If you have registered and are still seeing this message after logging in and feel like you have been hanging around here long enough to have access, just email me - I may need to bump up your membership a notch!
Login • Register Now

Several days ago I purchased the above Victoria Secret bikini top on Ebay to go with the matching bottoms that I already own.  I have a tankini top to go with them now, but wanted a bikini top for an upcoming trip.  I paid a whopping $10 for it with $3 shipping - new with tags.  Can’t beat that!!!  The bikini top came in yesterday (just as described) in a box filled with propaganda like the three examples below:

I feel so thankful that this woman included all this literature in the box with my purchase.  I had NO CLUE that the world was ending on May 21, 2011.  It’s a Saturday, which I guess that’s good, so I won’t have to use up a vacation day for it.  I am glad that I decided to get the bikini top and enjoy it THIS SUMMER, since apparently, I won’t be able to get much use out of it next summer.  I am also guessing that this literature doubles as this woman’s “Return Policy” - I am guessing she won’t be around to handle returns after this date.

I went ahead and gave her positive feedback since the item was in fact new with tags, shipped fast and had no defects.  I did not bother wishing her luck on May 21, 2011 in my feedback notes… as I am quite sure she is already thoroughly prepared for that day!