Craziness!

Happy Thanksgiving a day late, first of all.

Now moving on to Black Friday.

I have never, ever, ever been shopping on Black Friday before. I usually look at the fliers on Thanksgiving and decide there really isn't anything I need, then scoff at the early birds the next day. Is anything worth getting up that early in the morning? Some of these people are hardcore . . . lining up at 3 a.m. or earlier! CRAZINESS!

Then comes Black Friday 2010. I have been shopping for a new camera for months (I shop for it, but it is John's gift to me for the next YEAR of special occasions, thank you honey!!!) and rumor has it there are mad deals on one particular camera I have been eyeing.

Hmmm.

I decide if I wake up, I'll go. Well guess what folks? When you are exhausted and fall into bed at 8:30, there's a good chance you will wake up at 5.

Ridiculous as it may be, there I was in my car waiting for it to de-ice at 5:30 in the morning. I figured I had no chance against the real early birds, but how many people are shopping for this kind of camera, not too many, right?

Best Buy's checkout line snaked around pretty much every display in the store. It was probably an hour and a half long, just to check out! I said forget it and went home.

Fastforward to 8:30. Sophia and I head out the door, because I have finally decided 100% what particular camera I am going to get (having talked to my "professional advisory panel" aka Aunt Melissa, yet again) and there are three stores with a package deal.

1, 2, 3, out, out, out.

After all that getting Sophia in and out, driving thru slush, both of us being pelted by mini-hail some are calling snow, they were all out. Big surprise, right?

So I came home, somewhat disappointed and trolled around online for a few minutes to see if there were any sites I had missed. Uh, hello?!

Found the exact camera and lens package for $60 less than any of the in-store Black Friday deals.

Seriously?

I am never going out shopping on Black Friday again.

Food, glorious food! (reprise)

As some of you know, our little Snuggler has been having some weight issues . . . that is, not weighing enough. In the last week, though, we have had a food revolution, and the weigh in at the doctor's office today proved that it has been effective. Almost a pound and a half gain in one week!

This weight gain is due in no small part to the role of peanut butter in Sophia's diet. Peanut butter on crackers, with jelly in a sandwich, plain on a spoon, on banana and apples, etc. We eat lots of peanut butter in our house; thank God no one is allergic!

The following photos are of course capturing some of this peanut butter fun. As you can see from the amount of peanut butter and jelly on the little cutie's face, it is super fun to get it on your hands and then play peek-a-boo. Next most popular: spreading it thru her hair. Nightly bath is mucho importante now!

"So tired . . . must finish . . . "

Can't have pb & j without milk!

Jesiccas Strange Rocking Horse

Digging thru the basement, I came across a bunch of cards, papers, and school records from my childhood. The best thing I found? My first short story, painstakingly typed out at age 6 1/2. I laughed so hard . . . I remember being so excited to use a typewriter, it was so much more fun than just writing by hand.

Now, this is no great fiction, but I decided it merits a blog post anyhow. Here you go, folks, "Jessicas Strange Rocking Horse" in all its glory! (Errors in spelling and grammar included, of course!)

In the house of one hundred rooms

Jessicka was going to the nursry

But she took the roung turn

she went left instead of right She

went down a long dark and narrow passage

The doors were marked numbers first 25 then

26 27 28 29 30

At the end of the hall there was a door

it said:

Nur ey

She opun the door She was suprised to see

a girl in the room about her age to

Who are you? asked Jesicka skweaked

Who are you? the other girl skweaked

back I asked you first (We will call

Jesicka Janet)

Janet said OK Im Jennifer call me Jenny

OK Suddunly somthing caute Janets

eye It was red She looked It was a door

Weres that go? she asked ub ub uh uh

she said over and over Oh come on you

have to know or you would not do that

Oh shall have to show you But you shall

have to keep it a sekret WY Shhh Jenny

slowly and opun a door There was a rocking

horse Wate is so big obout it?

she asked Jenny

There you have it. I hope none of you are disappointed that I have no idea what happened after Jessica/Jesicka/Janet found the rocking horse.

The pink pup

Sophia loves dogs. She definitely gets that from her dad, because I am not what you would call an animal lover.

(I had a pet once, and only once. My parents bought me a rabbit for my 12th birthday, and I sold it at a yard sale three weeks later. Made $15!)

But back to Sophia. She loves all animals, and when she sees something with four legs, she is quick to identify it. "Goggie! Wuff, wuff." Never mind that she may be pointing to a dog, or a squirrel/horse/cow/moose/cat/etc. They are all "goggies." No amount of correcting from John or I changes her mind.

So what would be a better Halloween costume for Sophia than a doggie?! Plus, the kid is still crawling everywhere, so she would actually be a doggie on all fours. So cute!

I would love to say that I thought this all out and decided on a costume before I went shopping, but really it was Thursday night and I still had no idea what I was going to do, Marden's was closing in 5 minutes and the costume had to be done for the harvest party on Saturday. Eek!

As I was heading out of the store empty handed (the lights were shutting off as I went), I passed by a display of blankets. You know the ones, a bunch of throws, all rolled up in their packaging. And these were labelled "Poodle Throw."

Eureka! That's when the doggie costume idea actually hit me, and I didn't even realized how perfect it was until much later.

At any rate, it could not have been easier. I cut out two big squares, cut a slit up the middle to make legs, sewed it together and put elastic on the neck and ankles. I didn't even have to hem the armholes, because the fabric didn't run.

Voila! Cutest puppy EVER!

My favorite part of the costume is not actually visible in the pictures, unfortunately, and that is her tail. I had some automotive wire sitting around to be used for a future project, so I put that in the tail so it would have some life to it. Next favorite part was the ears . . . the Snuggler was definitely not cold in that outfit!

Thanks to John for taking the pictures of the Peanut while I was off helping with the Harvest Party "stuff."

Vacuum vacation

Many of you might have gathered from hints in previous posts that I do not much enjoy cleaning. Who does, really? I like to have a clean house, but mine is usually more on the tidy-but-not-entirely-clean spectrum. A quick swipe of the toilet bowl and rim, a paper towel to the sink, ready for company!

Then there is vacuuming. I don't care what vacuum you use, I have never found one that doesn't kill your back. My vacuum is a relic from the 80's that I bought from the "Vacuum Doctor" for $40 back when I moved into my first apartment. Does it say anything that I am still working my way thru the bag of vacuum bags I initially bought with it? And no, I don't empty and re-use them. I just vacuum that seldom.

Much as I don't enjoy it, at least vacuuming is satisfying in the way that picking a scab is satisfying (yes, I am one of "those" people) . . . I do it so infrequently that it is gratifying to see the giant hand size fuzzies get sucked up the hose.

At any rate, it was with pleasure that I loaned my vacuum cleaner to a friend several weeks ago. Finally, I could not vacuum guilt-free! And when by chance we didn't end up seeing each other until today, I got to not vacuum for two weeks. And I won't tell you how long it had been since the last time I actually used it . . . mostly because it was so long ago I can't remember.

So when my mom came over to babysit and I was scooping up a couple of obvious dust bunnies, I could just say that I loaned it out. And when a friend came over to cook and my kitchen was a bit grimy (though tidy!) I told her my friend's was broken and I had given her mine as a loaner.

What I didn't realize until I had made the loan is that I actually sounded kind of noble . . . "Well, of course I would have a clean house but my poor friend was in desperate need of a vacuum, so how could I say no?"

When I did get my vacuum back today, I decided it was finally time to actually use the thing. I vacuumed my house from top to bottom, cleaning up dust bunnies that had spawned generations of children. I even changed the bag (!!!) which was of course only full because my friend is the clean type. (She actually said since she got her vacuum back from the repair shop she had been using mine upstairs and hers downstairs. What a woman! Her children will never be covered in living, breathing dust bunnies. Sophia might.)

Tomorrow I am going to hit the den. I scoured all the other rooms today, but saved the den for it's own day. I am in the middle of painting it, and when I moved the furniture out into the middle of the room realized it had been a while. As in my black pants were gray from sitting on the floor painting trim.

All that said, what I realized as I sailed around my house today sucking up grime is that I really haven't been so noble over the last two weeks, just lazy. Because what I had forgotten is that I too have an upstairs vacuum and a downstairs vacuum. My downstairs vacuum just happens to be in the basement, a cast-off from my mom (still works perfectly fine, but they didn't need it) that I have been saving for the day that the Vacuum Doctor special finally bites it.

So all this time I could have had a clean house. But it was really nice to have an excuse, so anyone want to borrow a couple of vacuum cleaners? I won't need mine again until 2011.