She Does Exist!

Has it really been almost a month since I posted anything?!?!

I knew I was slacking, but I had no idea I was this bad. That was until I started getting emails and phone calls from my few faithful followers asking what the hell was wrong with me? They would no longer check my blog daily and would in turn remove themselves from my pitiful little list of followers unless I posted something soon.

You love me, you really love me :) And here I thought no one would really miss my pointless little old ramblings.

Well here is to my followers.... few as you may be.

I've actually got a lot to chat about too... hang on ladies (and gentleman)... you might be here for a while.

Thanksgiving..

I was so excited this year to host Thanksgiving in our new house. I busted ass for the entire week before decorating the house and cleaning every nook and crannie. I conquered my inability to make a wire-ribboned bow by buying a Bow-Dabra (shameless, I know... but I got some booti-ful bows now).
In the end, I pulled it all off... the house looked gorgeous, dinner was fantastic and the company was great. We had alot to be thankful for this year, and the consensus around the dinner table was all a huge thanks for "Family".

So as the men retired to attempt to keep their eyelids open long enough to see a play or two of football... my sister and I hit the sale ads preparing ourselves for Black Friday.

So who is crazy enough to actually go out on Black Friday and brave the mobs and life-threatening stampedes to save $4 on the latest gadget? Me. Me. Me. And my bestest girlfriend... and for the last couple of years we have drug our booties out of bed at an insane hour and hit the stores. Last year... faithful, committed shopper that I am... I did it with an 8 month old and 6 year old. Brave, I know. Although some would just say crazy.

But this year I was sans kids and my sister, who was a Black Friday virgin, decide to join in the fun. So Thanksgiving night we sat down to map out our route and get a game plan in mind. And then, to our surprise we ran across a couple of ads from stores that were open on Thanksgiving!!

OOOOOOOOOOH! Let the fun begin - my sister and I ran out of the house at 6:30 in a furry trying to make it to Big Lots that closed at 8pm and Kmart that closed at 9pm. We call this "pregaming" in the shopping addicts world.

So Thanksgiving night we closed down Big Lots, and then Kmart... and then at 9pm we still weren't fulfilled... so we hit Super Walmart... whose wonderful doors never close. At 11:30 we were back home... just in time for a few hours power nap before we had to get up again.

At 2:30 my alarm went off. I realized at that moment that I had a serious problem. That no one should rise at 2:30 in the morning to shop. That no sale could be that good to get up this damn early. But I got up anyways... arose my sleeping, grumpy sister and we were out of the door by 3am.

We were headed to Northern Virginia.... to hit the Mecca of all shopping... Potomac Mills. We met up with my bestest bud and so our day began. At an hour most were still snug in their beds dreaming of sugar plums... we were elbowing fellow shoppers for MP3 players and Hannah Montana barbies.

It was insane and nonstop. Walmart was the worst. We got there about 6am, only an hour after they opened and you could barely move in the store. It took us almost 20 minutes just to get the cart into the front door. We stood in line to check out, with two heaping carts for almost 45 minutes before some kindly Black Friday angel let us in on a secret fast-paced line. In a mission that rivaled 007.... I scoped out the line first, to make sure it was legit... then I called in for one cart at a time. My sister came first with her cart... and then after we were certain this was a real line and someone wasn't going to tell us to get lost and send us to the very back... we called in for our second cart. And in 10 minutes, we were through the line and out of the store. Everytime a checkout register rings... a Black Friday Angel gets her wings. Bless our Black Friday Angel.

We only took a few short breaks for food. By 1pm our stomachs were ready to eat themselves, so we thought it best to take a short hiatus for lunch. After that we headed back to the mall and cruised through the crowds. We had so many bags that we grabbed a Costco shopping cart (you know how gi-normous thouse things are) and proceeded to push it around the mall. By the time our evening was over, the cart was full and the back of my van was bulging.




I am still not quite sure of everything I got. It is all such a blur. And I am writing about this now, because I honestly think it took me a full week to recover from our marathon shopping day. We started our day at 2:30am and I didn't get home until almost 11pm. I had to get up and go to the work the next day and was virtually useless. I was so exhausted I couldn't see straight.

But it was great. It was exciting. It will be happening again next year. And my sister is now officially a Black Friday whore!! Check out her stash -




And so now this week I am fighting off the Black Friday funk... I have the cold from hell that I swear came from touching too many germy shopping carts. My hypothesis has proven true because sister has got the same funk too!

It's worth it though. All my shopping was done in one swoop... even if it did take 18 hours worth of shopping to get it done! Anyone want to join in on the insanity next year?!?