Shopping Mania

Well, we're big shoppers after Thanksgiving and Christmas. My girls and I get up at 3am the day after Thanksgiving and head into the darkness for good deals! So, the day after Christmas I wasn't really in the mood to wake up early. Heck, I haven't wanted to get up before 9am all week! It's been glorious!

So, my nutty SIL, Liz, my 17yr old, Brieanne, and I headed out for a "morning" of shopping. Since the kids and I haven't celebrated our Christmas yet, I figured I'd get their Hallmark ornaments after Christmas. Cheap or a bargain shopper, you pick. The problem with waiting is possibly not finding the things you want. Our first Hallmark wasn't promising. They had some serious disco on the PA system and that's cause to "get down". Of course, that's what Liz and I did, who wouldn't? She encouraged the rest of the folks to boogie with us, but no one seemed to be in the spirit. Must've been the bloating after Christmas that kept them from pointing their finger in the air. Wasn't sure if there was another Hallmark around and if there was if they'd have more or less. I bought 2 for the boys and took my chances for the girls. Bummer, I found more and better ornaments at the next Hallmark. Oh well. Ornaments are taken care of this year.

The day before and the day after Christmas I picked up 4 bargain books at the Family Bookstore! Brieanne also bought 2 books. Let's see if they get read any time soon with all my review books in front of me.

I've never eaten at Jimmy Johns sandwich shop so we popped in. Have you ever been there? If not, you should go in just to read the signs and there were a LOT of them! One said something to the effect of "We'd love to see you NAKED but federal law says shirts and shoes required". I read the rules of ordering and really enjoyed knowing what they expected. I headed up to the counter and yelled, "I WANT A NUMBER 4". Scared the stink out of the kid making sandwiches. He said, "Oh my G--" (naughty mouth). I told him I was making sure I didn't mumble and was only doing what the sign asked. The girl next to him said she appreciated it. Thank you for encouraging my obnoxiousness! :) The boy said I scared him. Brieanne was trying to hide and Liz was laughing. Ah, it's good to be with Liz!

Made the rounds to a number of other stores but the best by far was the Linen-N-Things going out of business sale. They had 80% off! I have a weakness for sheets and comforters, probably because I have very little of both. Oh, we hit the mother load. With Brieanne heading off to college in the Fall, we filled up on XL Twin sheet sets for $6/$8. We got her a Hamilton Beach toaster that was originally $70 and I paid $14! Paula Dean's dinner set for 4 was $90 and we paid $18. There were lots of other little purchases. In the end, I spent $103 and saved $384. College, here she comes.

The down side of this is I can't find my checkbook. Most of the stores are closed and I've gone through all of my bags and van. Sigh...I have no idea what my last check written was and there was $20 cash. This is the kind of stuff that happens to only me it seems.

Last night, to give you another example of stuff happening to me, we went to my brother-in-law's brother's home for Christmas dinner. We put Rugby, our 8mo old puppy in the bedroom I was staying in. We were gone for about 6 hours. He had tried, a bit, to get out of the room. Thankfully he didn't do a lot of damage. What I did find was my son's Wall*E Blu-ray disc chewed into. The person who gave him this DVD didn't seem to know we don't have a Blu-ray player. The plan was to bring it to Wal Mart today to exchange it.

So, off to Wal Mart we went and I prayed the entire time; 1st that we'd be able to return it and 2nd that God would give me someone who would show grace and let me exchange it. Well the girl who worked with me at first understood that I'm telling her my dog chewed it, but since it had been open they'd only be able to give me another Blu-ray. That wouldn't do me any good since I still didn't have a Blu-ray player. I told her I'd be willing to explain it to a manager. The girl tried to convince me that they'd say the same thing, but I think she knew I would still be willing to try it.

Miss Wal Mart headed to the lady a few registers over and in a hushed voice explained my "story". The manager asked to see it. By that time, the lines had really drifted to only few people so I leaned over and gave an extremely condensed version of what happened. Ms. Manager could see that I didn't just open it, burn a disc and then am trying to return it. She asked me if I wanted the regular DVD and I told her I did. She told me to go get it! I was stoked and almost started to cry. I wouldn't have been able to buy the Wall*E DVD on my own at this point and my kids are tired of our puppy using there things as teething toys.

Tomorrow will commence the store calling to find my check book. Please pray for me as it has a LOT of receipts in it and I don't remember my last check. The good thing is, being in Chicago I can't use checks so my last one would've cleared by now.

Happy day after CHRISTmas...

Praise God. Called Office Depot and they have my checkbook! For a moment when she was describing it I thought, "oh, it's not the right one" because I thought she was describing the cover, which is blue. My checks are breast cancer awareness checks. I kept saying, "Praise God!"