Month: November 2014

Thanksgiving & Black Friday

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My Black Friday philosophy is simple – if I can’t buy it online, I’m not getting it.

I happened to wake up this morning just after 6 am so I logged onto Target.com and ordered $300 of Target gift cards for only $270.00. Some will be used as gifts but the majority will be used to pay for groceries and whatnot. I could have sworn the ad said all boots were buy one get one 50% off but the style I wanted weren’t on sale so I didn’t bother.

I did play Macy’s instant win game and won $10 though! And I checked Amazon’s prices on the gifts I bought Joe (already wrapped, I am on fire!) and found one item had dropped in price so I chatted with customer service and got a refund for the difference.

We did actually leave the house in the afternoon to visit the library and Joe and E headed to Target to grab some eggs and milk while I stayed at home with a monster bellyache. I really didn’t stuff myself last night so I’m not sure what didn’t agree with me (maybe the can of Pepsi I drank since I drink water 99.9% of the time?) but luckily I was feeling better by the time dinner rolled around (skipped lunch) and was able to eat two turkey sandwiches. They are so much better than warm turkey imho.

Last night was fun, as always. Brother #2’s girlfriend was in attendance and we ended up playing Buzzword and Taboo (E’s favorite). Somehow I lost track of time after dinner around 6 pm and more than four hours went by in a flash. We ended up leaving around 10:30 pm.

One thing – I’m getting a little tired of my mom commenting on how competitive I supposedly am. Sure, I want to win (who doesn’t?) but it’s not like I have a fit when I lose. I just want her to stop making commentary during game play when she should be asking the questions on the card so we can earn points before our round is over. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. Joe feels the same way but doesn’t say anything so I get attacked because I get frustrated and request she stay on point. Needless to say my team lost because she was on it.

I just feel like she is always attacking my personality with the little comments she makes. Why I continued to get hurt and annoyed by it I don’t know. It just makes me miss my grandparents even more because I always felt good enough in their presence.

Sorry for the negative turn that took. It’s just (unfortunately) true. It’s not like I’m the only one she does this to, though, so I guess there’s that?

In any case, I’m thankful for my family even if they can drive me a bit nuts and be thoughtless at times. And most of all I’m thankful for Joe and his unconditional love and support.

The Elephant

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My green bean and sweet potato casseroles are cooked and cooling in the fridge and the turkey is finally defrosted thanks to a bath in the sink for two hours. I’ll be throwing that bad boy in the oven tomorrow morning, making more sides (stuffing, mac n cheese, etc.) and then bringing everything over to my parents’ for Thanksgiving.

For the record, I’ve been feeling better mentally the last two weeks and I’m not sure why. In fact, my sleep has been horrible so I’m flummoxed. Which just proves that my moods are completely beyond my control. Yay!

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Here’s some stuff that happened recently:

A few days after we had dinner with my cousin I came home to an Amazon package. This was inside:


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A little backstory – Over dinner I was telling my cousin’s boyfriend about how when we were kids my grandma took me to the circus and I got to ride an elephant. She also bought me a super cute powder blue inflatable elephant which I loved. Well, one day about a month or so later my cousin came over to my grandma’s house to visit and spotted my elephant in the basement. She decided she wanted to “ride” the elephant even though it was far too small for such a thing and before I could stop her she sat on it and it popped. I pretty much hated her after that day (not that we were ever close to begin with, but that cemented my dislike of her). Of course, when telling this story I changed it to “I didn’t like her too much after that”. My cousin thought the story was funny but couldn’t even remember the event because she’s younger than me and couldn’t have been older than six at the time.

After opening the package I messaged my cousin to thank her and we had a good laugh over it. I didn’t tell her, but I plan on blowing it up and putting it in different poses and sending her photos. I just haven’t gotten around to it.

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You know those sliding windows that are at the drive-up pharmacy? Well, my company has something similar to deal with visitors so they can’t just walk into our office. It’s also where we tuck outgoing mail to be picked up. Last week at work I slid open the window to put some mail in there and the entire thing fell out of it’s track! It actually fell inward toward the receptionist/HR/admin (she’s a jack of all trades) onto her desk. It made a terrible racket and scared the crp out of both of us. Thank god it didn’t break as the glass is thick and could do some real damage. Apparently it was off the track the day before and the guy who “fixed” it didn’t do it right. Now I’m scared of the damn thing.

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Last Friday Joe and I decided to go play BINGO at the local church. I invited a friend/former coworker to join us and we had a nice time even though Joe and I didn’t win shit (my friend won $10 which paid for her admission which was nice). Now my friend wants to go to BINGO every month, but that’s too much for me. It gets tiring sitting around for three hours. I told her maybe every other month would work better.

Visited States

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Everyone is posting these on Facebook lately, but I’d figured I’d post mine here instead.


Create Your Own Visited States Map

Even though I’ve been checking Facebook here and there, I haven’t interacted with it since the end of October. It’s been a little self-imposed experiment for me to see what life would be like not posting so much online and I have to admit, after the first week where it just felt weird, I don’t miss it much. The problem with Facebook (or any social media network, really) is that you see all the stuff everyone else is doing and you can’t help but make comparisons. And, as Teddy Roosevelt said, comparison is the thief of joy.

I rather miss the days where you’d live your life offline except for coming home and posting about your day on your blog. Now everyone just posts little tidbits all over social media constantly as they are doing said things. I’m not necessarily saying it’s a bad thing, it’s just different and I miss the way things were before.

Back to the map – if you check here you will see that we’ve traveled a decent amount since 2004 when my map wasn’t nearly as populated. As it stands now I’ve visited half the states in the country. I’d like to hit more of the east coast since I know it’s just a matter of time before we move out west. I’m not so sure about the southern states, though. I don’t have much of a desire to visit Arkansas, Kansas, Alabama, Louisiana, or Mississippi so they may remain unvisited indefinitely.

Polish Food & Heros

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Saturday evening we met my cousin and her longtime boyfriend at a polish buffet, Warsaw Inn, that my family used to frequent when I was younger. The last time Joe and I had been there was when my youngest brother graduated high school ten years ago. The place hasn’t changed a bit. It got packed quite quickly, but we took our time trying out different foods and just chatting for about two hours. It was really nice because we’ve never really hung out with either of them outside of holiday gatherings or funerals. Now they want to meet up again soon to visit Ruth’s Chris steakhouse. I hear it’s pricey but I’ve been wanting to try it out and Discover card offers a gift card with our cash back rewards so that will make their crazy prices easier to swallow.

After dinner Joe and I went to my parents’ house to visit. We played some board games, and despite making fun of it, I tried a slice of Little Caesars’ Soft Pretzel Crust Pepperoni Pizza that my mom and Brother # 1 had brought back to the house. And it was so good I had a second slice. I guess I was totally wrong judging that pizza before trying it because as disgusting as it looked on the commercials I keep seeing, it was quite tasty.

Sunday morning we headed to an early matinee of Big Hero 6. Lately my favorite movies are animated and this one gets a 5-star rating from me. Stay until after the credits for a bonus scene!