The Absolutely Happiest Tuesday of the Year!!!!

Today is one of my favorite days of the year because the Tuesday Farmer's Market it back!!

Our local market is open year-round on Saturdays, but I don't shop or work on that day, so I look forward to April to November when I can enjoy the Market on Tuesdays!

Well, I hope I can get there tomorrow today before it ends, because I'm still up, watching the new Masterpiece about my beloved Charlotte, Anne, and Emily Brontë (I even named my youngest son after a Wuthering Heights character. ;-) I'll blog about it later.

Last and First

Today was definitely the last time I purchased something for my 13 year old at Crazy 8. :-(  Their largest size is 14 and he'll soon outgrow that. Hard to believe because C8 clothes were always WAY too big for my boys and they always wore one or two sizes below their actual age. Not anymore for Kelvin!

On the other hand, today was my very first shoe purchase in adult sizes for him! It's hars to find size 7, but Target helped us out! And it was on clearance too! I know he'll outgrow this pair in no time -- he's been through 3 shoe sizes this year already, sigh... But I'm happy he's growing! 

This summer he passed me in height and is now about half an inch taller than mama. He's so proud of himself! :-) I am too!

Still Not Done! :-( & My Genius Writing Partner :-)

I hope to write a different post soon, but I suppose I'll wait until Friday, or Sunday, when I should be fully done with both universities (I'm still at the same point I was in the previous post from Monday evening)...

Yesterday was a long day. I spent most of it on a teaching retreat (at a beautiful location, with delicious food and nice company, thankfully!), then I did a series of trips to several grocery stores, stopping at various points in my 70 minute commute back home, and making it a 4 hour affair -- that was very tiresome!

My husband's students are coming for an end-of-the-semester dinner tonight, (sigh...) but I also took so long because I always pick up several items for a friend every time I go to one of my favorite grocery stores and yesterday it was time-consuming because I had to email her photos of different things to check if I was buying the right things. And I still need to go to Costco today to finish the grocery shopping! We're preparing a Mexican (Chipotle eatery-style) meal since yesterday was Cinco de Mayo. :-)

Then, while I was driving home from my last stop I saw a new email about the letters of recommendation and freaked out BIG TIME (because I didn't realize the letters needed to be submitted by the deadline too! So I hadn't said that to my references!). So I got home nervous and high on adrenaline and because it was 9 pm and I still needed to feed the boys something and had to put away all the groceries, but all I wanted/needed was to sit at the computer and write emails to people, I screamed at my poor husband and it was not a pretty sight.

huge sigh...

I did calm down, prepared something for the boys, wrote all the emails, and got the answers I needed, thankfully. And then, around 11 pm K and I sat down to work on the application materials. He edited my cover letter for a couple of hours by himself and then we revised it together.

He's a GENIUS writing these things, my husband is. What would I do without him? No wonder he got four interviews (including one at an Ivy-League school) and almost got a grant he applied for. He has learned to write these things!!

I was joking that he's my ninja-writer husband to which he replied that ninjas are not only precise and skillful but FAST and he's very, very slow when writing, so I had to drop the metaphor... sigh...

OK, I just heard back from my last reference and will now login to the job application site and provide the information for each of them. I'll keep you updated about the job application!

P.S. it's such a gorgeous day! I wish I didn't have to work and grade and give exams, etc... (I have two students taking tomorrow's exam at U#1 early later this morning...)

12 Step Program?

Warning: tons if italics and BOLD WORDs ahead! ;-) Oh, and words repeated for emphasis. ;-)

I think you could call me a shopaholic. There, I've said it. But it's "serious," this problem that I have. I'm a proud, hardened, unrepentant, "don't want to change, don't even try to convince me" second-generation shopaholic. You see, it's a genetically transmitted defect! Even my father (a MAN!!!) loves to spend time in stores and, if it's a really good bargain, to shop. Wasn't I bound to be doomed?

Problem is, I don't feel the need to change! For the most part I only buy cheap stuff. Sometimes (and here's part of the problem), really, really cheap stuff. I could never ever be the "extreme couponing" type of person. I don't have time or patience for clipping coupons. In fact, I can't stand grocery shopping and I HATE buying name-brand stuff (and virtually ALL the coupons are for name-brand, highly processed items).

So... what did daddy pass down with his genes (almost wrote jeans, hahahaha!) to me? An irresistible need to be a "bargain hunter" and, probably, a love of colorful clothing. Not that he actually wears very colorful clothes, but after he retired from being a pastor, a chaplain, and a professor for many years (but, mainly, church pastor), he ditched the dark suits and white shirts and started to wear slightly mismatched, more colorful (or at least striped or checkered) shirts. Gotta love him, he's so cute!

Clothes and shoes. These are my weaknesses. Particularly dresses. And NEVER any accessories (belts, scarves[light ones], jewelry -- I cannot bear to pay any money for these things, particularly belts). If I could afford it I'd have tons of winter hats and gloves (and even scarves), but I can't, so there you go.

Interestingly, there are items that I can't stand buying, I just do it because I have to, and even then, sometimes, I ask my mom to help me (with skin colored pantyhose, ARGH, I don't know why I hate buying it so much and almost equally, wearing it, but sometimes one has too, right?). I don't like to buy bras... (and maybe that's because I'm too skinny & they don't really fit me right).

I love pajamas and wish I'd allow myself to buy more (like I do with dresses), but there's logical reasoning about having lots of pajamas! We spend a very large portion of our lives sleeping, we might as well be dressed comfortably!

Yeah, I don't really think I have a problem, although I probably do. Sigh... My other reasoning (for buying a 9.99 or 8.99 cute dress almost every time I go to Ross) is that "I work so hard and actually make some money, I deserve this -- it is so cheap!" But, as my husband said, it's OK, as long as I donate as many dresses or clothes to other people and I promise I'm working on it!

And I think I have pretty good taste and pick very cute clothes that look good on me. I think I have my own quirky sense of fashion. Actually, for a couple of years I've been dreaming of having this little unassuming "fashion blog" on the side, but I simply don't have the time it takes to do it. Mostly because I'd need to take and post photos and that takes a long time, but also because why do it if getting people to read is nearly impossible with so many professional bloggers out there?

So, the "secret" is out. Do you have any little secrets or not-so-secret bad habits like me? I'd love to know!

The Car Saga Continues... Better Fit or Prius?

We missed buying the two cars we saw on Thursday (only K) and Friday, both of us -- we were waiting to hear from the Friday car guy (we offered but he had already gotten another offer) before we made an offer to the Thursday one and, of course!!, both cars sold to other people. :-(

They were Fits, 2009 & 2010 and with 36K and 39K miles respectively and now the standards are SO high that I'm afraid we'll never find the right car in the next two weeks -- which is the window of time we have in order not to have to rent a car to travel to Montreal in early August!!

That's why we're also looking at the Prius. One with good mileage is more expensive than the Fit, but if we can't get the exact Fit (pun intended) we might as well go with the Prius which is also a car we want.

I hope we'll succeed, we were pretty bummed last night when we got the messages about the other two cars being sold! Wish us luck! I'll keep you posted.

Better Fit than Not, right? Car shopping adventures begin!

I briefly mentioned earlier this month that we're having trouble with our old minivan, so I wanted to do an update and let you know that we're actually car shopping right now, sigh...

We decided (last year, in fact) to buy a Fit & later on save to buy a Prius since we need  to cars -- for now we'll keep using the Hyunday Accent that we bought in 2012 & I never blogged about 'cause I needed to take a photo! I suppose we'll be done with the bigger cars for several reasons (mostly cost) and we will all miss our dear old Odyssey like crazy! :-(

K saw a car 1h30 from here last night and we're scheduled to see another one a little closer in about an hour. This guy put this car on Craigslist last night and he has FOUR people to see it today*, so... yeah, I don't know what our chances are. Maybe it's not meant to be! I'll keep you posted!

* It seems like today is not our day, right? We also got this mysterious letter from the IRS indicating something may be wrong (like we didn't pay our taxes -- WHAT?!). I'm freaking out thinking "identity theft." Hopefully it's nothing!

The Lamest Spring Break Ever

I'm mildly depressed at our most boring and "sad" (well, it will end really sadly, more on that later) Spring Break ever.

OK, last year was WORSE because the two universities' Spring breaks didn't even coincide, this year at least K & I are off on the same week. Sigh...

The original plan (from when we we excitedly found out our breaks matched) was to drive down to Florida for a week, glorious! Later K decided against it, though, so the boys wouldn't miss more school (they missed several days because of our trip to Brazil). So sad!

Then, K's younger brother ("K4") was planning to visit from Montreal and when we realized that it would be one of K3 & family's last weekends before their move we organized our last "half-family reunion" (and birthday celebration for my eldest son). This was last weekend (and I'll try to blog more about my son's birthday celebration later).

The rest of the week has been relatively uneventful... On Monday I cleaned the house and made Oreo-vanilla ice-cream "cake" & took it to my school to the delight of all 6th grades while my husband went to his office & lab. Then I took the boys for piano lesson.

On Tuesday I took a whole-morning nap!!! (Too bad I had weird nightmares...) and spent some time outside with my youngest son. I also did more cleaning. K had to spend the whole morning judging a science fair at the university (he regretted having volunteered during Spiring Break!) and then he had to go to a meeting at the Brazilian Embassy in DC. And I had to get the boys to bed by myself... :-(

Yesterday I spent most of the day at my sons' school - I made more Oreo ice-cream "cake" for the 6th grade teacher since he'd loved it! I also sent emails and talked to people planning both a wedding shower and the farewell party for the elementary school principal who is leaving with his family...

Today I "dragged" my poor husband to an outlet store because he badly needed shoes and we also wanted to check skiing/snowboarding clothes and we were successful.

The plan for tomorrow is to have the boys miss school so we can go skiing/snowboarding for he last time his season. I actually wanted to drive to the coast to do some sightseeing, but I prefers to stay home.

On Saturday night we have a birthday party to attend in a city 2h away (we may travel there tomorrow night) and on Sunday we want to have lunch with my brother-in-law's family before they go to the airport to move away to Egypt. :-(

So the break will probably end in a very sad note and we'll be grieving the "end of an era" of family geographical closeness for a while. I also hope to write more about this, but in case it doesn't happen, it's registered here.

Yeah, apart from last year's unfortunate mixed up schedules, this is certainly one of the lamest spring breaks we've had!

Online Shopping Spree

Last Sunday I should have spent the whole day grading, but I didn't.

This is what I did instead...

... I spent a really long time deciding which Metropolitan Vera Bradley bag on sale to order (this particular bag was recommended by a friend because it fits a laptop, is roomy and I think that it looks a bit more professional than my colorful backpack. Besides they are not going to be made anymore). I picked the "Rhythm & Blues" one:

Then, the site began to display their "Cyber Monday" discounts (on Sunday afternoon) and went ahead and got this matching clutch to carry my iphone (I also needed one more item to be able to use a coupon for 20 dollars off -- I know, it's an old trick to get you to spend more):

For some really random reason, while browsing, I remembered Painted Birds shoes and clicked on the site. These lovely hand-crocheted shoes (made by women in India that I hope are paid a fair wage for their work) cost a lot, but they were having a 50% sale, so I couldn't resist and ordered this:

 

... but only after I'd spend a long time (again) deciding between this and another green, blue and yellow pair. I even tried to figure out if the colors matched those of the bag above (and they kind of do! ;)

Then on Monday I remembered this gorgeous dress that I'd seen on Target (feMOMhist got me started on Target dresses with this post -- my comment proves it -- and this other one!) and it was also on sale for 18 bucks, so I went ahead and ordered it.

The worst (?!) part it that I don't feel ANY guilt whatsoever, quite the opposite. I had wanted or needed these things for a long time and now I decided to get them. I know that this whole "discount" thing is relative because it's impossible to know the "real value" of anything. And I think I deserve some pretty things, don't I?

What do you think of my purchases?

P.S. I'm staying at other-university town tonight and while on the phone with my husband I learned that the shoes and the bags arrived. He thought that the shoes were too pricey. :(  (I hope there's no receipt with the bags!! [I don't think there is]

P.S.2 I'll be a good girl and grade now. I feel only a tiny bit bad for having gotten my "reward" before doing the work I should have been doing. ;)

I'm Most Thankful...

... that all my "black Friday" shopping was done by 12:20 pm tonight!!

I even had K (who hates stores and shopping) accompany me to the stores that were opening at 8 and 9 pm (WM & Target). My ten year old really wanted to go as well, so he went with us and experience his very first "Black Friday" on Thursday night, before his bedtime!! And then I went quickly to a store that opened at midnight, but I got out of there in less than 20 minutes!

We bought almost everything in our list (things we actually needed):

• memory foam mattress toppers for the boys;
• Fire-pit for our brick patio;
• pajama for K & robe for my uncle;
• big plush throws for our living room (we already have two, but our guests truly love them, so I got two more);
• Cuddl'Duds (great brand!)fleece underwear top (I wanted another pair of their fleece leggings, but the store didn't have them).

And I few things we didn't exactly need, but which were cheap and will also be useful:

• memory foam bathroom mats;  

We couldn't get the table tennis (I prefer) ping-pong table we wanted because the store must have had only one, but that's OK.

The food today was AMAZING! (as always). And I'm glad we have tons of leftover for tomorrow. I hope to blog more about that later!

I feel a bit sorry for my in-laws because they decided to go to a store that opened at midnight and they are still out, but I'm delighted that I'm going to bed now!

How was your Thanksgiving?

Pillow Fight, or... buy and return, buy and return...

(extra title "Saved by Target")

I wanted to update the looks of our couch & living room for Spring/Summer, so I went out and bought countless decorative pillows in April and May. OK, I guess they can actually be counted, but it did feel like the buying and the returning of pillows would never end!

I wanted "aqua" colored pillows, but they were nearly impossible to find. First, I got these green/brown pillows at Ross (they were so cheap! I couldn't resist), but they were too bland & blah...

...So I returned them and thought that these inexpensive and nicely colored outdoor pillows from Costco (including one to sit on the ground) were nice, but changed my mind in a few days (rougher fabric, definitely looks like it's for outdoors):

I returned them and stopped by Tuesday Morning, where I thought that the color of these was just the perfect aqua green that I wanted. They were pricey, though, 15-20 each! 

I went back to Ross and found these other pillows, more blue than green, for half the price of the green (two for 15):

... but the fringe of the cheap blue ones were not as pretty as the green's, with black in there (in addition to the blue, brown and beiges):

K settled my indecision because he couldn't stand the taffeta fabric of both pillows -- he thought it was super scratchy! So I returned all of them, together with this cheap (6.99!), but bland oblong pillow from Ross: 

Finally, Target to the rescue! I was overjoyed to find these true aqua pillows @ Target. The solid ones were 2 for 14, but the striped ones were 14 each (not very cheap), but they were so perfect, so I didn't mind!

So... 16 pillows later (12 of which were returned), I now had the four cheery ones that I wanted for our couch!

P.S. Last week I bought one more of the stripped pillow on the right ($2 off!) and now there are two pillows on the love-seat and three on the couch.

Amazon just did WHAT??? Get refunded and keep the book?

WOW... I'm blown away right now, seriously. I only buy books at Amazon* (I know, I should be supporting local bookstores, etc... but I love books and I need to buy affordable books) and I always use their free saver shipping (though I've recently decided to dump netflix and get an Amazon Prime account so I can get free shipping always and be able to watch streaming video).

If you're not familiar with it, the free shipping requires that you buy 25 dollars in books, so I always need to buy "tag along" books with any purchases. This time, I was buying one of my favorite cookbooks of all time, Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone as a wedding shower gift to a friend, and I needed to spend about 5 more dollars (a very hard thing to do), so I bought Rick Riordan's Kane Chronicles Survival Guide for my son as a surprise, since he'd been asking for it for a while. Well... when we received it, it was a great disappointment to him because he had already bought the electronic book and I didn't know about it! :(

Today I went to Amazon to get the refund process started and... guess what? They told me they're giving me a refund and I can keep the book!! What???!!... these guys are making such big profits that they can afford to give me a book for free? Seriously?! I don't know if I should be happy or appalled, but the thrift-addict in me is cheering and jumping up and down! (and, best of all, my dear "thrifty person in training" son will be very relieved that we just saved 10 dollars -- he'll probably want to claim it to spend it in Legos!). What do you think of that?

In any case, I'm waiting for the refund now, I'll let you know if it really happens, but I think it will and now I'm really curious to know if this has ever happened to you before.

* And in two discount places/"warehouses" in our area. I hope that is OK, since I can't afford to support small independent book sellers.

breeze

if you read my earlier post and you're wondering how it went... well... I really couldn't believe what happened!

I had to miss my relaxing yoga class, but fortunately it was a breeze to get in and out of those stores, I even got to park right in front of the door in both Target & WM something that hardly ever happens on either place! Of course Costco was as crowded as ever (and I forgot to buy contact lens solution -- 'cause it obviously was not on my list! :p ), but it was ok.

There were only two problems: 1) I forgot that I had to recharge my store card to buy gas (put only 5 dollars to be able to go back home); 2) the traffic in the parking lot and surrounding streets after I finished shopping was horribly jammed, so I was late picking up the boys. :(

I'm beyond exhausted after 4 hours and saying my lines 19 times... sigh. And I'm still smelling like smoke, even after a hot shower. only three more nights to go. (I will have a substitute for part of Sunday, though, which is good).

dread

I cancelled the yoga class reservation (mopping and cleaning took too long on top of blogging) and I'm heading to town now. I DREAD going into the stores, though. I wish I could go to sleep and woke up after the holidays... I can't stand the crowds. I just need to buy food for our family and cleaning supplies and stuff. Sigh. I'll let you know how bad it was later, OK?

Crazy Tired from Shopping

I have to blog now because later I may be too tired to do it.

My sister-in-law and I went to the stores (Kohls & Target) at 1 am. Then we headed to JC Penney at 4 (I bought next to nothing there) and came back home close to 6 am. I got up at about 9 am and left again, this time for Costco and Trader Joe's. Then I went to the mall (crazy crowded) where I shopped at Gymboree, got lost walking around and came back home.

Now my sister-in-law and my husband (who stayed home and slept all night -- but according to him he woke up very often) are napping and I'm here trying to stay awake. Sigh. My brother-in-law (who had his own shopping spree this morning at Macy's -- beautiful and really affordable suits!) took the boys to the park and I'm really thankful for that!

What did I buy? At Kohls, a couple of big throws for our new living room (solid brown & caramel), a blazer for my husband, some gifts for the boys and a few other things... and going to Target was pretty much useless (I wanted a fire-pit, but an hour after opening, they were all gone. :P At least I bought a nice immersion blender -- which I thought was the one one sale, but which it wasn't. Booo... At JCP I bought a pair of red gloves & some funky tights and waited for my SIL to do her shopping.

I'm calling my aunt now, we want to go there and see her and my uncle (the one who had brain surgery two years ago).

I hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving! Ours was great... I'm just awfully exhausted, but I think it was worth it.

Looking Forward: Grocery Shopping and School Clothes

I finally began to look at stores, the boys' school (they're going to a specific private school, one of the reasons we wanted to move to the area), town and area websites, etc. in Virginia.

- Grocery store roster's pretty dismal: 1 WM Supercenter and 2 stores of the same chain supermarket: [edible thing+"King of the animals"] -- I will try to avoid those by switching from our customary, but non-existing there BJ's wholesale club to Costco -- at least the place has that!

Our staples Aldi and Trader Joe's are an hour or more away (as is Whole Foods).

- There are several farmer's market and produce places. I hope those are good. I have to check into the CSAs again.

The big surprise: it looks like the boys' school does NOT require that they were a uniform. This is **really** important to find out ASAP because if that's the case, I'll have to hit the sales racks hard in the next few weeks before the fall/winter clothes disappear for good. Sigh.

I don't think that's bad at all because I like the boys to wear varied clothes (and I like to shop for clothes ;-). In the two years that Kelvin wore uniform (solid, but several colors polo shirt + navy, black or khaki pants) I realized that I didn't need to buy him many clothes anymore because most of them remained unused. I need to plan ahead, though and I always buy everything in the season clearances.

Beans, Clothing Retail, Weather: Some Random Observations

I suspect that comparably few people buy and cook dry beans (and lentils) in this country nowadays, am I right? Years ago you could find lots of different brands of them in the supermarket, today, I found only two at Giant, both Hispanic brands, Goya and MiCasa. Can one even get beans on wholesale stores? I don't know about Costco, but BJ's only has canned beans. Target has almost become a supermarket, but it doesn't sell dry beans either. I generally buy them at Aldi (my favorite store!) and Wal Mart, -- 'cause you may remember that I don't shop at regular grocery stores at all, today was an exception because I was looking for some hard to find items* and didn't find them there either -- but I haven't had time to go to Aldi &or WM yet (or both, they're next to each other) .

January and February come, the coldest months of the year, and I never cease to be amazed when I get into stores and see all the spring clothes for sale. What is this? Extreme positive thinking? (probably more like trying to maximize sales). I don't understand winter clothes for sale in August either. Whatever, that's the way things work here in the U.S. (sigh). At some places, such as Target, the first thing I see as I walk in the door is actually swimwear! (the image was borrowed from here, actually from April last year at that store). I feel very bizarre and, at the same time, thankful that I can buy winter clothes for a fraction of the price on the clearance racks.

Last, but not least, I just wanted to point out that the boys and I loved the 66 F (19 C) weather yesterday! It rained most of the day, but then the sun came out in the late afternoon and I let the boys ride their bikes outside (Linton got the back of his shirt all wet and muddy and had to change, but that's part of the fun ;-) . Today it's back to being cold and wintery. We are looking forward to a snowfall or two before it's all over, though, since we missed the December record blizzard.

Well, that's it for now, I've been busy with the cyber-schooling as usual. Oh, and with some much needed cleaning in this house, thanks to K's help! More about that some other time.


* If you must know what I was looking for: (1) a rust remover for a rug and one of the boys t-shirts. Unfortunately the only one the grocery store sells is SUPER toxic POISON stuff! and can only be used in white fabric. Any hints on how to remove rust from fabrics? I'll google it soon ;-). The second thing seems not to be sold anymore :-( Drew's Smoked Tomato dressing... It took me too long (like 6 months) to need to buy it again and now Drew's doesn't seem to carry it anymore. HA! The product's site still lists it, so I guess it's just that Giant is selling less varieties of it. BOO! I'll just have to keep looking or try to buy it online. Do you think that someday we'll be buying all of our groceries online?

HA HA HA - Midnight Highway Madness Indeed!

I was done with my post-Thanksgiving shopping before 6 am, thankfully. The midnight thing never happened, though!

I had warned my MIL and SIL that the traffic would be stopped in the highway trying to get into the outlet, but we tried to go anyway. HA HA HA! One whole exit before the highway came to a standstill and it took us half an hour to reach the exit (driving through the shoulder) and turn back around.

It was nearly 2 am by then and some stores were going to open at 4 am and it wasn't worth going back home, so we went and parked at the mall and took naps. At 3:30 JCPenney opened and we ran in with a bunch of other people who had been waiting as well. My husband really, desperately needs a winter coat to go on his interviews (and to wear to work too), so 49 bucks on one was a great deal. I ended up getting a steam floor cleaner too, thinking I could return it later if I didn't want it, but I think it'll be really useful -- not to mention "environmentally friendly" :-).

We then did quick stops at Kohls (micro-plush blankets for my kids) and Target (micro plush robe for hubby) -- I LOVE micro plush, it all started with blankets a few years ago, but now we have a sheet set (for our king bed, no less), pajamas and robes. Then, we took MIL to Wal Mart (where she scored a Cuisinart stand mixer for 139!) and drove home in MIL's Corolla to have my BIL join her with the minivan because they're going to buy bulky items.

SIL has gone to bed already, but I drank tea before we left and then ate some dark chocolate (delicious! Godiva with raspberry filling, from Kohls checkout lane), so I'm very awake. It's pouring rain outside, but it's not really cold. I'm glad SIL and I were done so quickly with our shopping, but we're just sad that MIL didn't prioritize the TV she wanted/needed to get for her move back to Brazil so she didn't go stand in line at WM where she should have gone first to try and get the 500 bucks Sony TV (I think they might have had very few of those cause we were there only half an hour after the store opened and didn't see any TVs in people's carts).

The line to go into Target was ridiculous, BTW, we just couldn't believe it! All because of the noname brand TVs there. Every year for many years now the TVs are always everyone's first pick -- Americans love their TVs, right? Good thing at least the checkout lines were short there (not at Kohls -- we "divided and conquered" for that one).

I agree with you, MemeGRL, that people watching is quite fun on Black Friday. The people in their pajamas (one lady had black footie pajamas on, with shoes, obviously)! The folks who stayed up all night in line. The dishevelled hair and the bleary eyes! Yeah, it's lots of fun, but I'm glad I'm back home and that I spent very little.

Last, but not least, we're veteran Black Friday shoppers in this family, but I think we're doing less and less of it every year that goes by . Once upon a time K and K2 stayed up all night outside Circut City to buy a 400+ laptop, but no more! Online shopping is much more efficient these days.

OK, I'm getting sleepy, finally, so I'll go to bed! It'll be tough to manage four boys on no sleep, but SIL and I will take turns. I'm going to try to call K now, I think he's already arrived in Miami. I just don't know if he'll have his phone on.

Have a great day, everyone!