Month: November 2008

For those of y’all who are interested (all three of you!), I thought I’d let you know that I did not venture out this morning for Black Friday shopping. I decided to go with my original thought which is there isn’t enough money to be saved or sedatives to be taken to make me want to get out in the crowds on a Friday morning.

Plus, you know the new Target is now seven minutes and one extra stoplight away instead of five and I just don’t have that kind of time.

And Walmart is too much for my delicate sensibilities on a normal day that doesn’t involve professional shoppers looking for great deals on flat screen T.V.’s. and a Barbie Hot Tub Party Bus.

So, I’m just sitting here eating leftover chocolate ice box pudding, the way God and the pilgrims intended.

However, there are a few things I need to share because they are too good to keep to myself.

1. From now until Monday, December 1st you can make personalized Christmas cards at Studio Dayspring. They have really cute designs and, best of all, if you enter the code Staff50 at checkout you can get 50% off your order of 50 or more cards.

2. CWDKids is doing a fun 12 Days of Giveaways on their Kidbits blog starting Monday, December 1st.

They’ll be giving away gift certificates, products, and charitable donations. The first day, they will ask blog readers to tell them what charity is important to them and why. They’ll pick one winner and donate $250 to their charity.

The winners for the 12 days of prizes will be announced on December 25.

3. Don’t forget that if you want to participate in the Dear Army Family project, you need to get your cards in the mail today.

I wish I had two more things so I could have a list of five, but Caroline is threatening to run away if she can’t get on the computer and play various games on Nick Jr.

It’s a lot of drama.

Yesterday we left Beaumont around 11:00 a.m. and began the long, arduous journey home. We only survived thanks to the new, improved pink headphones we purchased at Target that kept the back seat campers happy and a blizzard from Dairy Queen complete with extra Reeses’ Peanut Butter Cups that I used to self-medicate.

Caroline was terribly sad that it was time to return home and declared it “the saddest day ever”, but she’s also been known to say the same thing when I refuse to let her get a gumball out of the gumball machine at HEB. She likes to manufacture drama, which makes me look forward to the teen years with great anticipation.

Anyway, now that we’re home it’s time to begin all my Thanksgiving preparations, which basically means I need to make chocolate ice box pudding.

The bad news is I still have to make a trip to HEB to buy the ingredients. I knew I should have gone to the store last week, but I was way too busy getting caught up on “Top Chef” and reading Tori Spelling’s autobiography “sTori Telling” (oh, so clever!) to be bothered with being prepared for a meal that was still a week away.

And tomorrow I will have to pay the whipped cream piper.

I don’t really know what that means, but it isn’t good.

The key ingredient that I’m missing at this point is ladyfingers, in spite of the fact that my sister-in-law emailed me about three weeks ago to ensure I had made the ladyfinger acquisition since HEB tends to run out of them. But, oh no, I threw pastry caution to the wind and now I’ll just have to hope for the best.

Or hope that chocolate ice box pudding tastes okay when served in a bowl lined with hot dog buns, which lack the sweetness of ladyfingers but are similar in shape.

Needless to say, a trip to HEB two days before Thanksgiving may just be the saddest day ever.

The other pressing issue that is keeping me awake at night is Black Friday.

(Keeping me awake may be an overstatement)

I have NEVER in my life shopped on the Friday after Thanksgiving for two reasons.

1. There is no way I’d save an amount of money large enough to make fighting the crowds and getting up at 4 a.m. worth it.

2. I have an impulse shopping problem. If I were to find myself in a store surrounded by deeply discounted Crockpots, I might end up buying two or eight of them in spite of the fact that I don’t know anyone who needs a Crockpot.

However, Target is taunting me with their online sale flyer. Board games for $4.00! That’s just MADNESS! Especially since it’s hard to put a price on an afternoon of good, clean fun with Hi-Ho Cherry-O.

But then I realize I might be eaten alive if I venture out among women who carry blueprints of the store and wear track shoes to ensure maximum bargain coverage.

I may also come home with eight Crockpots.

And then it really would be the saddest day ever.

So, who shops on Black Friday? Is it worth it? Am I missing out or should I stick to my original plan to stay home and eat the chocolate ice box pudding leftovers with a side of hotdog bun?