Happy Saturday....................

I am noting the day, because I always have trouble remembering exactly which day it is when the normal schedule gets altered, as it does with a holiday. Hope everyone's holiday (and non-holiday for all my non-Thanksgiving celebrating friends in other countries) is going well. Here are some highlights of mine, in case you are interested.

My system must have sensed something amis on Wednesday evening, because I started taping my Friday night shows. In doing so, I found a Doctor 90210 that I hadn't seen, so I taped that instead. As it turned out, this was a lucky break, because Thanksgiving morning I woke up at 3:30 AM, and had something to entertain me since I am not a big fan of infomercials.

My youngest and I headed off to run the Turkeyman Trot around 7:30 AM, Thanksgiving morning. This year, ORA ran the race with me. This was her first ever attempt at running a 5K, and she did a GREAT job, and I am VERY proud of her. We did a run/walk combo, and while we may have not broken any speed records (though we did "run a few red lights," RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE COPS, as the race is run on the road), we had a fabulous time and even managed to save a kick for the end and pass someone just before entering the shoot! We finished the run in a very respectable time for a first run of 48 minutes, and now she has her time to beat for her next race. Good job ORA, and thanks for running with me.

For the past twenty years, it has been my tradition/preferance to send everyone in the family off to someone else's turkey dinner and spend the day alone. Especially since starting my business, I rarely get time completely to myself, and I love the opportunity to do exactly what I want without considering anyone else. My Thanksgivning feast this year consisted of Nachos with FULL FAT cheese, and a small chunk of WHITE French bread dipped in flavored oil. I can hear my arteries complaining just thinking about it. The nachos were great, the bread not so much so.

Speaking of good tasting foods, I helped my youngest make lemon bars to take to her boyfriend's house for Thanksgiving dinner, and decided to taste them. They tasted terrible. She said they tasted fine, so it can only be that mouth is FINALLY figuring out that healthy foods REALLY do taste better than empty calories. It has been well over two months since I have eaten white/processed/sugar laden foods, and I am still not missing them. How cool is that?

Black Friday...A day I look forward to all year long...Only this year, I had all of my presents purchased, wrapped, and waiting for the tree to go up by last weekend, so there wasn't any real need to participate this year. As I am sure you guessed, that didn't stop me from doing so.

My youngest had decided to get one of the ten laptops on sale at Best Buy. In order to assure the success of this, she was planning to spend the night outside the store with all the other crazies. I know it sounds crazy to allow your teenager to do this, but I trust her and the people she was planning to be with. They got to the store around nine o'clock in the evening (which was the time that last years "first in line" had arrived), to find about forty people in line ahead of her. WOW! Talk about determined! Last year, (my) Mister arrived around two in the morning and there were only about fifteen people ahead of him. After asking the first ten people what they wanted, my youngest determined she would NOT be getting a laptop at this sale price so she came on home. My question is why would the twenty to thirty people behind the lucky first ten to fifteen people bother to stay out in the cold all night when there was no chance of getting what they came for? Did they NOT read the fine print about limited quanties? Did they think one of the first ten would weaken as the night wore on and they would move up in place? (I have to say that if I were 11 or 12 this probably that notion would probably got me to stay...But 20?) Were they really homeless people happy for some nighttime company for a change? I just didn't get it, but my hat is off to them for perservering and hanging in there.

Anyway, back to my adventure...I woke my youngest up around 3:30 AM, (my) Mister left for the two stores he was tackling, and we were on our way by 4:00 AM. We were going to go to Kohl's to get a sweater for my oldest (who's job it was to sleep in with the OPs, being as over eighteen warm body in the house to keep me in compliance with the state.), and I could get my two dollars back through the price matching rules as I had bought two of the sweaters last week and they were a dollar cheaper for the black Friday door buster deals. On the drive there we decided to change our strategy and go to a different store first. When we arrived, there was no line at that store, (Could this be because someone, who shall remain nameless, didn't read the fine print and that store didn't open until seven in the morning?), so we decided to hang out in the line at the computer store next to it, just for fun.

In all my years of post Thanksgiving day shopping I have never witnessed anything negitive. I always end up chating and joking with the people around me to pass the time, and this year was no different. I won't bore you with further details of our morning, except to say that while I tried three different times between 6:30 and 10:30 AM to get the sweater from Kohl's, I didn't do it. Each time the line was wrapped three quaters of the way around the store and I just couldn't manage to get brain to justify the waste of time for one item that was not a MUST HAVE, but a simple desire. Since it has been on sale twice this holiday season, she convinced me that the odds of it going on sale again were be pretty high.

We were home before 11:00 AM, and my youngest went off to take a nap. I made lunch for the OPs, and enjoyed my oldest giving us her Christmas present. Remember I told you that I am not big on "normal" presents? This year we ask that she take all her old junk out of the atic and either get rid of it, or take it to her house. She did this, and it was tons of fun watching her go though it and enjoy all the old memories it brought back to both of us. When she was finished, the two of us took advantage of the warm sunny day and went for a quick four mile run. In the evening, we watched a movie that we watched last holiday season, and I fell asleep for the second time before seeing the ending. I guess there is always next year...

So this morning I am getting myself ready for the fact that the Christmas decorations are going up for the next thrity days. I like my house just the way it is, but I am as good a sport as the next person, and let everyone else have the holiday decorations. At least until the presents are opened, then I WANT MY HOUSE BACK! Last year I think the tree was down and packed up before noon. It is getting harder to deal with in my old age. Enjoy the rest of your holiday (or not) weekend, and I will chat with you again soon.