Did you “Black Friday” shop?

We set the alarm for 3:45am last night. When the alarm went off we both reached for our laptops and pulled up them on to our laps while we sat in bed. We hunted for the products we wanted, we pulled up the sites offering the products, we refreshed the pages waiting for the sales to go live. When they did we added the stuff to our carts, we reached for the bank cards, processed the orders and then went back to bed.

It was pretty crazy to see the servers hang on big retailer sites like Amazon and Walmart. Both N and I had some hair pulling moments while trying to check out this morning. Walmart’s site was having major server errors and Amazon’s site was hanging big time for me.

First my product was in stock, then it was sold out the it was back in stock and finally my order processed. Whew!

Eventually we got our orders processed and were celebrating our great deals. We didn’t have to deal with other crazy shoppers, thank goodness! I am very irritable these days and probably would have got myself in to a fight or something.

Can you believe that people were injured and even killed today just by shopping? One Walmart worker was killed in Long Island today, many other shoppers were injured. I think the whole concept of Black Friday is just degrading and plain embarrassing for shoppers. I refuse to wait in lines outside a store in the wee hours of the morning and I won’t run through stores or elbow other shoppers for that great deal.

Shoot I don’t even like the feeding trough feel of buffets so I am totally not one to join the shopping mobs on Black Friday. Especially since I am pregnant and all and can you believe I am at then end of my 1st trimester already? Woot!

Anyway, I remember back in the day when I worked retail. I had a friend that worked at KB Toys and they would construct a “one way maze” through the store and would only let a certain number of people through the doors at a time. This was great crowd control but at the time it seemed crazy to me. Now I think more stores should consider trying to manage the mobs better.

I just can’t believe so many people are willing to partake in mobbing stores, especially since there aren’t that many killer deals. Besides are the retailers really “back in black” after this shopping frenzy or are they still in the red? Perhaps it should haven been called Red Friday.

Did you shop today? Where an how did you shop? Do you have shopping strategies and what deals did you snag?

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Happy Thanksgiving to you!

Hopefully everyone is having a wonderful Thanksgiving! N and I are still in bed and it is 11am. We are watching the Macy’s Day Parade while having coffee and doughnuts. Two of my favorite performances were by: One More Time Around Again Marching Band and the Florida Special Needs Colorguard.

I woke up this morning at 4am too empty the bladder and to get a good deal on one of the big sought after gifts of the holiday season for N. I am happy to say I got what I had my eye on for N for a great price and I did it all in my bathrobe in the living room before the sun was even up.

After scoring my sweet deal I crawled back in bed and went back to sleep. I love the internet, it saves me so much stress.

Last night after N got off work we had to brave the 24 hour super Walmart to get our grocery shopping done that we put off all week. My rapid milk drinking resulted in us being totally out of milk by this time yesterday and that is never a good thing. So we visited Walmart at about 9pm and it was still a freaking madhouse.

We figured going before Thanksgiving would be way better than having to go after Thanksgiving when all the holiday sales are happening and people are going crazy. Just being in the store last night was enraging enough so I am super happy that I snagged the gift I needed online this morning.

Now I wont have to fight the crowds and search high and low in stores for N’s big gift, yay!

What does you Thanksgiving day look like? Did you visit any stores or are you just staying home and cooking?

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Turkey day is tomorrow, do I have the flu?

I am feeling a bit off today, like I might be getting sick or something. I am trying hard to kick it by eating well, drinking tons of water and resting. Hopefully I am not getting the flu or something.

N is thinking the fact that I ate subway might have something to do with it. I guess eating lunch meat while pregnant is not recommended because of nitrates and listeria… The thing I don’t get is how my niece turned out fine after her mother ate nothing but subway while pregnant. Well, I am not going to worry too much about it, it is done so now I am moving on.

I am looking forward to a chill Thanksgiving tomorrow. The menu is planned, we have everything we need already and N has the whole day off so we are just going to bust out the Christmas cards and have a low key day. Woot. Hopefully I’ll be able to spend the day out of bed but we’ll see.

Oh, I found a video today about an amazing midwife who is working to change the system. She is 81. Oh, how I wish there was a free standing birth clinic in my area.

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Yay Amigo!

Remember when I mentioned that our only car (the poor amigo) was getting a new soft top? Well, the soft top arrived yesterday and N got it installed today. Hurray for keeping the cold air out of the moving vehicle!

This is a huge deal for us considering it has been about 4 years since we started talking about getting a new top for the thing. It is amazing what a difference it makes to. The car is actually not uncomfortable to ride in anymore. Before the wind would whistle through the car blowing dust, leaves and other debris in to your face. Also, people riding in the back were not protected from the rain or snow.

They day we dropped my mom and brother off at the airport after the road trip this was how the ride went:

Also, N had coworkers who would gawk and comment about the torn top, in general it was an eye sore and a pain but being our only car we dealt with it until recently! Here are some before and after photos for comparison:

We are so pleased to have the new top on the Amigo, it looks so much better!

Now I am off to take a bath, I have a killer hair headache that I can’t take motrin for thanks to Tater Tot so I am going to soak the pain away.

My reader has been acting up and I am just going through manually clicking through my blog roll now, if I haven’t commented on your blog lately don’t be mad… I am getting there, I promise!

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Good morning all, got a flood? We do!

Look what we had the pleasure of waking up to in the basement of our rental… It rained most of the night and thank goodness our neighbors warned us about the leaky basement as we were moving it. Apparently our basement has some major leaking issues and today we get to witness them first hand.

Here is a video I tried to make of the madness. You can hear the water squishing in the carpet when someone walks over 9 or 10 foot wide drenched area. The cats and dog are quite concerned about the wetness as are we.

The water is coming from under the storage rack we have in the corner, it is flowing across the floor and right under the wooden bar/ wall and is under the tile behind the bar. No water is going down the drain yet…

The landlords never mentioned it to us but thankfully the next door neighbor did so we have nothing that can really be damaged down there. All the stuff in the flood path is in plastic bins so I am thankful about that but I just can’t believe this is an on-going issue with the house that is yet to be fixed.

Will there be standing water in the basement by tomorrow morning? Should we turn fans on down there to dry it all up or what?

We are just glad none of our stuff is destroyed. We are worried about toxic mold growing in the walls as a result of this insane flooding issue.

So how is the weather in your neck of the woods? Got rain or floods?

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