Lazy Saturday...

Belated Happy Thanksgiving to you all. I hope it was as good of a day for you as it was for me. I started my turkey-day late. Not on purpose, just enjoyed the freedom to sleep in. At least, that was my theory. When I rolled over at looked at the clock reading 10:02, I promptly jumped out of the bed and walked (with only one eye open) to the kitchen to "begin". For those of you who prepare the Thanksgiving feast, you know what I mean.

I had baked a cake on Wednesday night but had not iced it, so I did that first. Once that baby was done, I placed the cinnamon rolls in the oven for the family breakfast. No one did their chores properly on Wednesday so in between all of the food prep, I was cleaning house as well. I stuffed mushrooms, I prepared spinach and artichoke dip, I got my turkey going, prepared the green bean casserole, peeled and diced the potatoes and had the kitchen clean by 1:00. I was pretty impressed with me - AND the fact that I was showered, dressed and sitting in a clean house. Life was good.

We had one friend join us for dinner - a friend of my husband's with no family of his own. He doesn't go out much so Frank picked him up and brought him home. We had some dear friends join us for dessert and I have to say, it was a wonderful Thanksgiving. The kind of day where you sit back at the end of it and sigh thinking "That was nice".

Then came Friday.

This Black Friday will forever be remembered because it was the craziest that I've ever encountered. For all of those news reports of hearing what a recession we're in and how people are broke and will not be shopping this holiday season CLEARLY are mis-informed. I woke up around 3 a.m. for some reason and could not go back to sleep. I was in the shower by 4 a.m. and out the door at 4:35 a.m. The plan was to meet my buddy Michelle at the Wal-Mart at 4:45 a.m. because last year we did not get there until 6 a.m. and missed a lot of the items that we wanted. I knew the place would be crowded - I HAVE shopped on Black Friday many times before - but nothing prepared me for this. I have to admit, I was a little scared. The parking lot was FILLED. Not just crowded, but FILLED. I called Michelle as I walked across the parking lot to see where she was at. She had not arrived yet. I filled her in on what to expect and said that I would meet her in the store.

Walking towards the building reminded me a little of walking in to a rock concert - there were just throngs of people heading inside. Again, a little scared. I got in, there were no carts to be found. Once inside the store a bit, I located one and noticed the large crowed around the first "wrapped display". Seriously, the display was wrapped in some sort of dark plastic so you could not see what was inside. I decided to get FAR away from the 500 people waiting there and went about finding my little deals. Seriously, the biggest thing that I wanted was the $4 boys pajamas that were on sale. How hard could that be? So I walked to the boys department and figured I would just grab the jammies and go when an announcement came over the sound system.

"Good morning, Wal-Mart shoppers..." The rest was a blur because there was some sort of stampede that made me want to hide under a rack for safety! All I could think was, I'm not moving from this spot! But then I remembered that I had yet to meet Michelle. Now I've got to go TOWARDS the stampede. There were hundreds of big screen TV's precariously balancing on shopping carts all around me and all I could think was that I STILL hadn't found the damn pj's, I just might be killed by a big screen TV and these people are pissing me off. I spot my girl and the pj display at almost the same time. One was walking in, the other was right by the big screen tv display. Honestly, the Wal-mart people are evil. No doubt about it. Not in an evil-genius kind of way but just plain evil. I had to take my life in my hands for a pair or two of Sponge Bob pajamas. It's not right, I tell you!

Poor Michelle had even bigger problems. She needed a Wii. We walked towards the electronics department and the line there made me want to cry. I felt like we should have had a long, meaningful good-bye scene at that point because who knew if we'd ever see each other again! There was a possibility - I'm sure many people disappeared yesterday that search parties had to go in for and just at the Wal-mart! I went about my shopping and got just about everything on my list. I was pretty impressed with myself. Once I realized that I could shop no more in this place ( I had my lists for many other stores and their sales), I had no choice but to head in to the electronics jungle in search of my friend. I did eventually find her, she looked a little worse for the wear but we knew that we were almost there; there was a light at the end of the shopping tunnel. At this point in time, there was no guarantee of a Wii. We could only stand there and pray that we would both emerge victorious from this retardedly-early morning adventure.

At 6:45 a.m. it was like we had planted the flag of victory on top of Mt. Everest. We came. We saw. We shopped. We crossed all of our items off our lists. With a Wii in her cart and all sorts of goodies in mine, we checked out. It was as if a great weight had been lifted. A red cape should have been flowing behind each of us. Success...it felt good.

I'd like to say that the adventure ended there, but let's just say that I didn't actually GET home until 2:00. We know how to do a Black Friday right. And now to further sicken you with my exploits, all of the gifts are wrapped now, too. There was take-out Chinese brought to me on a tray by my dear husband for dinner and I did eventually crawl in to the bed last night somewhere around 10 (but only after a hilarious game of Totally 80's Trivial Pursuit with the family).

Today's plan...jammies (and not of the Sponge Bob variety), a chick flick, and not much else. Lazy Stace has emerged and is taking a mental health day.