It’s officially tomorrow today and I forgot to post earlier today yesterday. Good news, I did go shopping! And I did purchase a couple Christmas gifts.
Can you believe that there are only a few more days left of NaBloPoMo???
I was hoping to join the masses for some Black Friday shinanigins at some point today. Let me preface things by saying first and foremost that I don’t do those insane AM hours. Ever. But in my defense, I worked retail quite a few holiday seasons in my not so distant past. And even when I wasn’t working retail, my best friend and roommate was a district manager for one of the mall chain stores, so I’d help her out from time to time during the holiday rush. I’ll be honest, I’m wacky enough to miss it.
Yes, I do indeed miss working retail during the holidays. Every year I say that I’m going to get a part-time holiday job. Every year, I let someone or five others talk me out of it – no flexibility, no parking, crazy hours, horrible customers, you name it. So since moving away from NM (and my former roommate – who no longer works in retail herself) I’ve longed for the craziness that is the holiday season at the mall.
This year is the first year though that I’ve not partaken in anything Black Friday related. Heck, we don’t even have leftover turkey to eat. My friend that was going to head out with me today stood me up. She decided that it was more important to nap and stay in her cozy bed than to go shopping. I guess that’s fine. I mean it’s not like I wanted or even needed anything (and what I do want I can just get online). And I can’t really be all too angry, she did spend the big bucks and get me a pound or so worth of Cadbury’s Fruit & Nuts (so much better than we can get here in the US).
But unbeknownst to me, I took part in Buy Nothing Day without even trying. Go me! Though, does it count considering we did have to buy our passports? Or doesn’t that count? Me, I say it doesn’t considering it was really the application process and I can’t really see how it would be feeding the consumerism monster.
Now let’s see how long I can keep away from ordering those two “family gift” things I was eying over at BestBuy.com (hopefully, the digital frame will still be there tomorrow since I need to see if the wine fridge is still at Macy’s before I try ordering one through BestBuy). Then again if they’re sold out, no harm no foul – We really didn’t *need* them in the first place.
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and that Black Friday was all that you hoped it would be – filled with bargains or a day without crazed shopping.
I’m sure I could wax on (and on and on) about how thankful I am (‘cuz let’s face it, I am thankful for so many wonderful things) or about the meaning of Thanksgiving or whatnot. But really, I just don’t want to. Instead, I’d rather spend the next couple of non-family-obligation hours just relaxing.
I tried listening to some Christmas music, but I made it through two songs before it just started to annoy me. I’m choosing quiet and rat-a-tat tapping of my fingers on the keyboard as my background noise. Basically though, I’m ahead of the game: the trifle is made but for the final layer and crumbles; the brownies are sliced and packaged to curb further taste testing; the corn bread casserole is assembled and waiting to go into the pre-heated oven that last hour before leaving; the bags are packed with all my food offerings and bowls (and plastic wear and plates since one year the host inlaw neglected to double check that there were enough – there were none!); the wine is chilling and so am I.
The hubby is getting ready to take the pupster for a walk – but first he must update his iPod :insert rolleyes here: while the pupster goes insane waiting for the walk. I’ll be hopping into the shower in a bit so the curls will have a good chance to dry before we head out and then I’ll either curl up with my book club book or watch a little TV. But yeah, it’s a good day so far.
I wish you all a wonderful day filled with warmth, love, good food and good times. Please be safe while on the road. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!
PS – I’m a little behind on catching up on everyone’s blogs and leaving comments (or even replying to my own comments), but rest assured, I’m following along.
We were just now driving back from dinner with a friend (Don Cuco’s in Tolouca Lake – yum!) and you’ll never guess what I heard on the radio. No, not Christmas music – though I am looking forward to that. No, it was Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant! I couldn’t believe my ears.
Why was I appalled you ask? Well, you see, it’s not yet Thanksgiving. It was a mere 11:00pm. Huh, you say. Well, Alice’s Restaurant is said to be based on a true story that occurred on Thanksgiving Day in 1965. It was basically your typical (if 18 minutes would ever be considered “typical”) anti-Vietnam war type of song complete with sing-a-long – the song’s storyline can be found here at Wikipedia. Traditionally, the song is only played (and annually played) at some point on Thanksgiving Day.
Seems the uber* annoying pot-head, Jim Ladd over at KLOS (with the annoying flash website) has his own version of the tradition. He seems to feel that since he doesn’t work on Thanksgiving, that the eve of Thanksgiving is well, good enough and therefore playing by the rules. I’m sorry, but you don’t fuck with tradition like that.
Hell, lay off the pot and at least wait another hour play it at midnight stoner-boy, the show’s on until fucking 2:00AM!!!! So yeah, this might seem silly, but some traditions just don’t need to be fucked with and I’m just a bit both bothered and yeah, appalled by this.
*Hey wordpress folks, where are those damn language symbols in spell check?
I’ve been a fan of Firefox for quite a few years now. Since upgrading to Panther though, it keeps crashing out on me – regardless of how many tabs I have open or how many additional programs I have open. So today, I complained, yet again, to the hubby and asked him how to delete it so I could re-install it.
Surprisingly, he had me delete Firefox and install Flock. For the most part, it’s your basic tabbed browser so all is good. The cool part, it’s not crashing on me and it runs tons faster than my Firefox was running. It does take some getting used to though – especially the add a new tab button. Dude, it’s on the far right!! And of course, I keep looking for the button on the far left. This is all so reminiscent of our new faucet that somehow change sides for the temps.
I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it though. It’s new it’ll just take some playing around time to get used to things as well as to just learn how things work. It’s multi-media intuitive, which I’m sure some may like. Me, I’m going crazy with the stupid little banner opening up every.single.time I open anything with RSS feed capability – hello, that’s a LOT of blogs and sites. I also miss my auto-fill button, but since that’s really a Google toolbar thing I’m sure I figure out how to install that again.
Now, if only I could figure out how to get my damn drop-down thingies working again. It sure makes it challenging to edit the authorship on my group blog or write emails from anything other than my standard gmail addy. But hey, I’ve got a couple more days to figure it out (before I force my hubby to do it for me out of frustration).
And can you believe it…it’s already Thanksgiving tomorrow! Yikes! Where has the year gone?
Getting the hubby to take a moment out of his three weeks “vacation” to actually get a damn passport is like pulling teeth. Thing is, we need to get one sooner rather than later. We’re still considering a cruise in February (though he’s rethinking this since there’s some work changes in the new year and he doesn’t yet know how that will play out – I’ll give him this as a legit reason), we’re constantly invited down to Mexico to spend the weekend at Herbie’s vacation home, we’ve been invited to Japan more times than I can recall to tag along with Herbie’s current tour and more recently, we’ve casually been invited to attend Montreux Jazz Fest in Switzerland with Herbie. And then there’s visiting my friend, Jo in Madrid where she teaches.
For all of these things…yeah, we’ll need a passport. Mind you, his last day of vacation is Friday. We need photos, we need birth certificates (I have them, I just need to pull them out), we need to fill out the application and we need to get to the post office before 2:00 today. Um yeah, I don’t think he’ll be going today considering he’s a major moppet and needs a serious haircut and shave as well. At least in my defense, I can go any day since I basically work from home. He kinda can, since he can go into work at whatever time he wishes. But still. I’d just like to get the damn passport already. Please.
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My head feels thousands better! It usually does by the time I take the second Imitrex. Only the second Imitrex puts me over the edge and makes me crash in a big way. Sadly, the need for the Vicodin is fairly new. My head never used to hurt like it seems to hurt lately. It seems to feel like my head is in two or more vices just squeezing with all it’s might and it seriously brings me to tears – and I’m not one to succumb to pain-induced tears much (oddly). I would never have even thought of the Vicodin if my doc hadn’t prescribed it when I called in begging for the Imitrex saying that my head was killing me (in that case for over two days). I’ve learned though, that it makes a huge difference. Mind you, I should have gone to the chiro today and that would have made a difference as well. I’m also considering trying acupuncture for migraines since I know first hand how well it works for lockjaw. Anyone try this?
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And thanks SO much to all the ladies that have found me today and left such informative and helpful comments regarding Ladies Who Launch. I will definitely be following up with you guys. I’m really, really interested in learning all I can about LWL now.
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Busy day today. The pupster is getting groomed (talk about being a moppet). I have some more pre-Thanksgiving prep to do – I’ve made the gingerbread for the trifle and will make the pudding today so it’s all set to assemble tomorrow, I made brownies last night before the migraine got too crazy (hey, I think I was in so much pain yesterday that I may have even spelled it incorrectly – yikes!), all I’ll have left to do tomorrow is make the cornbread casserole – woohoo!
I’m also meeting a friend out in Pasadena in a bit for some baby shower gift shopping, lunch and catching up. Between Bunco and book club we see each other twice a month, but we have November off from both and she wasn’t able to make the last book club, so I feel like it’s been forever since I’ve seen her. Should be a fun lunch. Hopefully she’ll bring the little one along too.
And now, I’m off to dig up those birth certificates – wish me luck!
Two Imitrex and a vicodin and still the head is throbbing. Off to bed. And yes, this is my NaBloPoMo post for today
It was asked that we (all three remaining siblings) provide the sides for Thanksgiving while the other sibling provides the turkey. That’s it. No other direction, no other organization. So, the hubby and I have taken it upon ourselves to provide dishes that we know we like and that more than likely, others won’t make. So here we go so far…
* mixed greens with cranberries, fresh (really fresh from the farmer’s market) goat cheese, sugared nuts and a champagne vinagrette
* cornbread casserole – the hubby wanted cornbread stuffing, but nothing jumped out at me
* possibly some green beans – easy to transfer and steam in the microwave (and some much needed veggies)
* Paula Deen’s pumpkin gingerbread trifle (in fact, I’ve already baked the gingerbread earlier tonight!!)
* a mishmash of crudites and appetizers (who knows how long we’ll be waiting for the entire family to show up with their sides and we need more than just potato chips, right?)
* a bottle or two of yummy wine (we’re more than willing to share – but really, we’re the only ones that drink wine).
Any other suggestions for easy sides that can travel well?
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I’m thankful that I was able to finally send out our last batch of invoices – so much closer to having all of our bookkeeping up to date for year end. Woohoo!
I’ve heard this women’s group mentioned a time or two. The first time I heard about it, I got the impression that it was just for creative, LA-types. More recently, someone outside of LA mentioned it and I got a totally different impression. So now I’m considering joining up.
I’m poking around the website to get to get a feel for things and to learn about the membership process, but I’m not finding it to be as informative as I’d like. So before I sign up or ask to be contacted by someone, I’d love to hear from anyone that’s either gone through the program or maybe even knows someone that’s gone through it.
Anyone?
But (you knew this was coming)…but, they have a habit of doing stuff and never letting us know. Sometimes this means we wake up to the sound of the world being torn apart at the wall where our heads lay (they were ripping out their old, outdoor stairs and replacing them). Other times, like today, it means that I’ve got things to do that require water – showering, washing dishes, drinking – and they turn it off without giving any warning.
So here it is, noon, and I’ve got some place to be in a little over an hour and well, I can’t shower. I don’t mind that they’re doing repairs or upgrading things, but would it hurt to give us a little advanced notice? The time they ripped out the stairs it scared us so much (at 9:00am or so on a Saturday) that I’m surprised we didn’t have heart attacks. Had they let us know in advance, we wouldn’t have shaved years off of our lives and we would have prepared for it.
Oh well, it’s the price we pay for renting and well, here in SoCal, there’s not much else to do with the crazy housing market we’ve got going on.
And speaking of SoCal…I found out – when we were up in Sonoma of all places – that neither Glendale or Burbank are considered to be in the Valley. Why? Merely because they don’t rely on LA to provide their services – we have our own libraries, fire departments and police. Therefore, we’re not considered to be in the SFV. Who knew?