Thursday rolled around and I went to the home of one of my sisters that lives about 25 minutes north. We had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner and then just hung out for a while, talked and watched my nephews and niece play video games. On the way back I stopped at a friends parents house and played with Lego's and enjoyed a delicious homemade pecan pie.
Friday was Black Friday and I have never participated in it before. I have always scoffed at the ridiculous hour that was necessary to wake up in order to get anything. However since this year I've gotten into the habit of waking up at 4am for work during the week I figured 5am would be a breeze. It was. However I was careful to avoid any and all places that might be crazy. I have heard many stories of crazy people on Black Friday and to get wrapped up in all the hustle was the least of my desires. And most of what I wanted was at Big 5, so I went at 530am figuring that if there was a rush at 5am that I would have missed it. I was exactly right. There were no crowds, I didn't have to wait in line and I had 4 different associates asking me if I needed help and finding things for me. It was awesome! I ended up getting new running shoes, new hiking shoes, a hydration pack for hiking trips, an emergency roadside toolkit with jumper cables, and two pair of thick thermal winter socks. Total regular retail price: $210. Sale price: $84. Then I drove past Greywhale, the record store, to see when they opened but it wasn't until 8am so I continued elsewhere. I was near Kohl's and needing a nice winter coat, I walked in, found a good one that I liked, paid for it and walked out in a matter of a few minutes. Regular retail price: $80. Sale price: $30. I figured I'd be done and headed back towards my place but I drove past OfficeMax and decided to see what they had available. I walked out with a 32GB SDHC memory card for my camera and a 64GB flash drive for storage and transfer or large amounts of high quality photos and video that I have already been accumulating on my still-new-to-me camera. Total regular retail price: $262. Sale price: $90. And with that I headed back to the cave and was once again asleep in bed by about 7am.
The rest of the day, after I woke up, was pretty chill. I enjoyed some time to myself and in the afternoon I headed back to the record store to do some browsing which quickly turned into a full fledged outbreak of my disease, recordstoritus. They were doing a sale of 20% off all used cds. I splurged. When I came up to the counter carrying 21 cds, I told the guy to "Go ahead, say it, I'm a junkie". They laughed, told me I was the customer of the day and gave me a high five for being awesome! My total for 21 lightly used cds including the latest from Coldplay, Alice In Chains, Linkin Park, Muse and Weezer was $106. That's about 5 bucks each, a great deal for a cd collector/music junkie. I shouldn't be back there for a while!
So there was all that new stuff but in addition, I also received some things this week that I ordered from Swagbucks via Amazon gift cards. I didn't have to pay anything because I had earned my Amazon bucks by using the Swagbucks search engine. (A great way to get free stuff, ask me about if you don't know!) Using my free Amazon codes, I ordered a new tripod for my camera that stands up to my chin, an amplified tv antenna to get free broadcast channels here at the house, and an extra camera battery for when I'm out on adventures. That stuff was regularly priced at a total of $71 but I received it free! With all the new stuff it was a little bit like Christmas here! But not really, because I like my holidays to be distinct. According to my math, I saved (didn't have to spend) about $445 bucks this week! Wow! That's kind of incredible.
Moving on now, Saturday was Thanksgiving number two at my other sisters house about 25 minutes south. We enjoyed lots of good food and hanging out and playing some games with the kids. Later in the evening, my other sister and her family showed up and we had a great time eating more food and junk while talking and whatnot. Then we all played this game with M&M's that got pretty intense! Everyone has a small bowl and a straw. There is one large bowl with M&M's in it and one dice. Each time someone rolls a one on the dice they have to get as many M&M's from the big bowl to their bowl as possible while only sucking through the straw. People continue to roll and the next person who rolls a one on the dice get to take the bowl of M&M's and see how many they can get. This continues in a circle until there are no more M&M's in the big bowl. It was so much fun! I am definitely doing this game with some friends sometime. After that, it was getting late for the kids so we all said our goodbyes and went our ways. I left and ventured up to a friends house to share the last of the apple crisp I made for earlier in the day, while watching The Half Blood Prince until the wee hours of the morning.
Today, my roommate made amazing pancakes for breakfast and we had a few people over to help us devour them which was followed with a round of NES video games. Eventually I went to church and struggled to stay awake the whole time! Such a great week and not enough sleep! So now it is merely 7:45 pm and I am going to get ready for bed immediately after posting this. Work comes at 530am and I also have a roughly 3 hour meeting for all new employees hired within the last three months. Whew! Next week should be a lot more low key. Oh and I have a birthday coming up in a couple weeks, dun dun DUN! :)
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