We're breathing a sigh of relief in our house tonight. K- passed the Ohio Reading Achievement test enough to qualify for promotion to 4th grade. It is very sad that this child got so stressed out about a test that could potentially hold her back that she took half of a day off as a mental health day.
Poor kiddo!
She scored above their required score, but just a few points behind where they want the kids to be at the end of third grade.
Considering the massive amount of stress she felt, we think that is awesome! On a general day, she could do better, but having never seen it before, she did fabulous!
It is sad that it has come to that, though. It is ridiculous what they put these poor kids through. The teacher made no mention of the 3rd Grade Guarantee specification and neither did we, but other parents told their kids who were a little free-wheeling with the information. Between that and the difficulties in math, the kid has been a complete wreck!
She takes the reading test again in April, along with the math achievement test. About a week ago, the kids had a reading test for the city that took 2 1/2 hours and K- said it was 31 pages long.
Do I need to remind y'all that K- is 8?
I have a hatred for standardized testing. I know it has its place, but I'm not a fan. Argh.
:whew with a wipe to the forehead:
That is a hurdle that we've jumped over together. Now if we could just get that math thing licked!
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Tales from the Trenches: Don't worry, I'll bend down.
My daughter is growing.
And growing.
And growing.
This is where I remind you that I'm 5' 1".
This morning, I woke up about an hour later than I usually do. My alarm usually goes off at 6:09 AM with two options to have alarm smack-downs, then up at 6:30. Since I failed to set the alarm, I did not have that this AM, but with the bus coming at 7:40, we had enough time. (And I even had to pack lunch!) I ran down and grabbed K's uniform parts off the line, started packing her lunch and grabbed up breakfast for her. I was brushing her hair, she popped up to brush her teeth and then she stopped.
She bent down for me.
"Mom, don't worry. I'll bend down for you." You see, it's getting harder and harder for me to part her hair without her being seated.
My baby? She's growing older and taller.
:smirk:
I even bet that she'll be taller than me. That's okay. Hubs told her that she'll be 6' 4" (which she won't be) and I'll still be putting her into time out. All she could do was to laugh. I told her that I didn't care how tall she was, she just needs to remember that I'm mom.
A short mom.
Have a great day!
And growing.
And growing.
This is where I remind you that I'm 5' 1".
This morning, I woke up about an hour later than I usually do. My alarm usually goes off at 6:09 AM with two options to have alarm smack-downs, then up at 6:30. Since I failed to set the alarm, I did not have that this AM, but with the bus coming at 7:40, we had enough time. (And I even had to pack lunch!) I ran down and grabbed K's uniform parts off the line, started packing her lunch and grabbed up breakfast for her. I was brushing her hair, she popped up to brush her teeth and then she stopped.
She bent down for me.
"Mom, don't worry. I'll bend down for you." You see, it's getting harder and harder for me to part her hair without her being seated.
My baby? She's growing older and taller.
:smirk:
I even bet that she'll be taller than me. That's okay. Hubs told her that she'll be 6' 4" (which she won't be) and I'll still be putting her into time out. All she could do was to laugh. I told her that I didn't care how tall she was, she just needs to remember that I'm mom.
A short mom.
Have a great day!
Friday, November 30, 2012
Will work for books.
Today, my book fair co-chair and I went to the Scholastic Warehouse sale. We needed to purchase books for our school library. In years past, we were able to purchase paperback books and all was well. Central processing has now said that they will no longer bar code the paperbacks and all further purchases need to be hardback.
Drat it all.
Kay and I went knowing what we had brought in for the Birthday Book Club. We also knew that we had a fairly successful book fair this fall and are sitting with quite a sum to be used for book purchases. We had books to purchase for all 6 grades, and to keep with hardback, we knew it would be difficult. The warehouse sale was 25-80% off and most were 50% off. While she picked some ahead without me, we went to town today.
I have no idea of how long we were there, but we were able to score.
We purchased 65 hardback books for the bargain price of $315. For those of you not wanting to pull your calculator out, it was an average of $4.85 per book. Given that, we decided that 4th and 5th grade would each have a donated book in their name, where grades K-3rd would be buddied up a few kids on some books. In the end, it doesn't matter, as long as we purchase for the library what needs to be gotten. The folks, if they have a problem with it, will notice the retail price on the back is NOT the $5.00 that people donate. We had a coupon of $25. off each $100. spent, so we did 4 separate transactions to get the best price. We saved $100 that way! When we dropped the new books off to the librarian, she was thrilled to death. Those two boxes of books were like Christmas to her!
Kay and I were given a book a piece as a thank you for our recent book fair. Apparently, they were impressed by how well we did. They made sure to let us know that the books that we were given were for us for our use at our homes. I thought that was kind. Kay worked on set up yesterday and since Scholastic pays $10 in book trade per hour of labor, she is sitting with a tidy $40 in credit to use towards Christmas. I will be helping tomorrow as well. I have a few science project books set aside for K to go with her Christmas gift. To my understanding, they honor the 1/2 price with that, so for two hours worth of work, I may owe them just a few dollars. Hoorah!
I love books. K loves books. To be paid in books? That is just grand!
Have a great day!
Drat it all.
Kay and I went knowing what we had brought in for the Birthday Book Club. We also knew that we had a fairly successful book fair this fall and are sitting with quite a sum to be used for book purchases. We had books to purchase for all 6 grades, and to keep with hardback, we knew it would be difficult. The warehouse sale was 25-80% off and most were 50% off. While she picked some ahead without me, we went to town today.
I have no idea of how long we were there, but we were able to score.
We purchased 65 hardback books for the bargain price of $315. For those of you not wanting to pull your calculator out, it was an average of $4.85 per book. Given that, we decided that 4th and 5th grade would each have a donated book in their name, where grades K-3rd would be buddied up a few kids on some books. In the end, it doesn't matter, as long as we purchase for the library what needs to be gotten. The folks, if they have a problem with it, will notice the retail price on the back is NOT the $5.00 that people donate. We had a coupon of $25. off each $100. spent, so we did 4 separate transactions to get the best price. We saved $100 that way! When we dropped the new books off to the librarian, she was thrilled to death. Those two boxes of books were like Christmas to her!
Kay and I were given a book a piece as a thank you for our recent book fair. Apparently, they were impressed by how well we did. They made sure to let us know that the books that we were given were for us for our use at our homes. I thought that was kind. Kay worked on set up yesterday and since Scholastic pays $10 in book trade per hour of labor, she is sitting with a tidy $40 in credit to use towards Christmas. I will be helping tomorrow as well. I have a few science project books set aside for K to go with her Christmas gift. To my understanding, they honor the 1/2 price with that, so for two hours worth of work, I may owe them just a few dollars. Hoorah!
I love books. K loves books. To be paid in books? That is just grand!
Have a great day!
Thursday, November 29, 2012
One more thing ticked off of the list.
The annual Christmas card is usually ordered and posted by now. I like to drop them off on the day before Thanksgiving so that they can hit mailboxes on Black Friday.
Not so this year.
We have a different computer configuration since the infamous crash of early fall, so I haven't been able to get tutoring on transferring photos. The photos are locked into the external hard drive, but tonight's e-mail had me motivated enough to do some investigation on my own. I figured that the worse I could do was to get a funky screen that would call for my neighbor to come bail me out.
Shutterfly was having a sale, y'all! There was an extension of Cyber Monday, I had a coupon code that came in K's photo package from school and I had free shipping since my order was over $30. I cashed in on a savings of $97.00!
You see, I plugged the camera in and touched the computer and told her how pretty she was. I wasn't brave enough to work with the external hard drive. I know nothing about it anyhow.
Then photos started popping up.
And it kept going.
It was a program that I wasn't familiar with, but I was lucky enough to have it be pretty easy to navigate. I was able to transfer all of the photos, they have arranged it in order of date and I transferred the photos that I needed over to Shutterfly. A photo that would work for our hodge lodge popped up lickety split and I was able to get all arranged and ordered in about an hour and 15 minutes. (I was being picky, so it wasn't any problem. I also wanted to check out card options.)
I'm so excited! I was having a tough time with my cards not being ordered or out. I'll be able to get them addressed quickly and out in the mail when they arrive.
Hooray!
Not so this year.
We have a different computer configuration since the infamous crash of early fall, so I haven't been able to get tutoring on transferring photos. The photos are locked into the external hard drive, but tonight's e-mail had me motivated enough to do some investigation on my own. I figured that the worse I could do was to get a funky screen that would call for my neighbor to come bail me out.
Shutterfly was having a sale, y'all! There was an extension of Cyber Monday, I had a coupon code that came in K's photo package from school and I had free shipping since my order was over $30. I cashed in on a savings of $97.00!
You see, I plugged the camera in and touched the computer and told her how pretty she was. I wasn't brave enough to work with the external hard drive. I know nothing about it anyhow.
Then photos started popping up.
And it kept going.
It was a program that I wasn't familiar with, but I was lucky enough to have it be pretty easy to navigate. I was able to transfer all of the photos, they have arranged it in order of date and I transferred the photos that I needed over to Shutterfly. A photo that would work for our hodge lodge popped up lickety split and I was able to get all arranged and ordered in about an hour and 15 minutes. (I was being picky, so it wasn't any problem. I also wanted to check out card options.)
I'm so excited! I was having a tough time with my cards not being ordered or out. I'll be able to get them addressed quickly and out in the mail when they arrive.
Hooray!
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Tales from the Trenches: The dreaded school mornings.
Once school started back up, K has absolutely every excuse in the book to NOT get ready in the morning. (She was perfectly fine during break.)
"I feel like I'm going to throw up."
"No, for real this time."
"My foot hurts. Look at the bruise that I have."
"My head hurts."
"Real bad."
"My stomach hurts."
"Real bad."
"I can't stand up straight."
I understand that we're going through a bit of a thing this year. Getting her up and ready for school is more painful than a mouth full of root canals. This morning, she was running so late, that she had no time to brush her teeth.
"That is it. K, I'm telling you what I am going to do. We will NEVER have a morning where you can't brush again. I woke you up at 6:30 AM and now it is 7:40 AM. I'm letting you know that if you do this same thing tomorrow, I will wake you up at 6:00 AM on Wednesday. If you do the same thing Wednesday, I'll wake you up at 5:30 AM on Thursday."
"Okay, Mom. I promise. I won't do it again."
As it is, my alarm goes off at 6:09 AM so that I have two alarm clock smack-downs before getting K up. I snuggle in with her. We talk about stories and whatever it is that she wants to talk about. It is a school lunch day, so we had extra time since I didn't have to pack a lunch.
No, it isn't because she doesn't go to bed early enough. She goes to bed at 8:30 PM, but no later than 9 PM. Bedtime remains the same for non-school nights.
For the love that is all good and right in the world, mornings wear me out. K called me this afternoon to tell me about her social studies grade. "Mom, number 8, 9 and 10 were 5 points each." Gulp. "How'd you do, babe?" "I got 5, 5 and 5." "That's great! How did you do on your whole test? What grade did you get?" "22 out of 22! I got an A!" Turns out that K was sweating her social studies test grade. She said that she was convinced that she was getting a D when she actually scored perfectly. We discussed how that may have affected her behavior and about how she needn't sweat these things. She just needs to do her best.
She has decided that she wants to wake up at 5:30 AM tomorrow. I begged her to please wait until 6:20 AM. We have her alarm set, which is always set for 6:30 AM, but we've pushed it back a bit for her. She is looking forward (at least for tomorrow) of getting up and getting moving earlier.
Me thinks that she wasn't too fond of the idea of a cranky mom at 5:30 AM. We've discussed how nice the mornings are when she can take advantage of the extra time and chill with a little bit of cartoons before the bus.
Let's hope this plan sticks.
ETA: The morning went well. K got herself up at 6:30 AM. She was delightful. She had breakfast, made her bed, brushed her teeth and we even had extra time to tie a headband in (a two people job with this one.) She has city wide writing assessments this week, so I'm glad that she shuttled off happy, fed and well. No complaining of the typical morning ailments, either. I hope that this is a permanent situation, but something tells me that it probably isn't. I'll take it while I can get it.
"I feel like I'm going to throw up."
"No, for real this time."
"My foot hurts. Look at the bruise that I have."
"My head hurts."
"Real bad."
"My stomach hurts."
"Real bad."
"I can't stand up straight."
I understand that we're going through a bit of a thing this year. Getting her up and ready for school is more painful than a mouth full of root canals. This morning, she was running so late, that she had no time to brush her teeth.
"That is it. K, I'm telling you what I am going to do. We will NEVER have a morning where you can't brush again. I woke you up at 6:30 AM and now it is 7:40 AM. I'm letting you know that if you do this same thing tomorrow, I will wake you up at 6:00 AM on Wednesday. If you do the same thing Wednesday, I'll wake you up at 5:30 AM on Thursday."
"Okay, Mom. I promise. I won't do it again."
As it is, my alarm goes off at 6:09 AM so that I have two alarm clock smack-downs before getting K up. I snuggle in with her. We talk about stories and whatever it is that she wants to talk about. It is a school lunch day, so we had extra time since I didn't have to pack a lunch.
No, it isn't because she doesn't go to bed early enough. She goes to bed at 8:30 PM, but no later than 9 PM. Bedtime remains the same for non-school nights.
For the love that is all good and right in the world, mornings wear me out. K called me this afternoon to tell me about her social studies grade. "Mom, number 8, 9 and 10 were 5 points each." Gulp. "How'd you do, babe?" "I got 5, 5 and 5." "That's great! How did you do on your whole test? What grade did you get?" "22 out of 22! I got an A!" Turns out that K was sweating her social studies test grade. She said that she was convinced that she was getting a D when she actually scored perfectly. We discussed how that may have affected her behavior and about how she needn't sweat these things. She just needs to do her best.
She has decided that she wants to wake up at 5:30 AM tomorrow. I begged her to please wait until 6:20 AM. We have her alarm set, which is always set for 6:30 AM, but we've pushed it back a bit for her. She is looking forward (at least for tomorrow) of getting up and getting moving earlier.
Me thinks that she wasn't too fond of the idea of a cranky mom at 5:30 AM. We've discussed how nice the mornings are when she can take advantage of the extra time and chill with a little bit of cartoons before the bus.
Let's hope this plan sticks.
ETA: The morning went well. K got herself up at 6:30 AM. She was delightful. She had breakfast, made her bed, brushed her teeth and we even had extra time to tie a headband in (a two people job with this one.) She has city wide writing assessments this week, so I'm glad that she shuttled off happy, fed and well. No complaining of the typical morning ailments, either. I hope that this is a permanent situation, but something tells me that it probably isn't. I'll take it while I can get it.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Deck the halls with too much glitter . . .
Fa, la la la la, la la la la.
Know the tree took 8 good hours.
Fa, la la la la, la la la la.
The gifts are wrapped (mostly) and under the tree,
Fa, la la la la, la la la la.
The outside is lit and Hubs did do it.
Fa, la la la la, la la la la.
I would provide photos, but haven't quite figured that function out on the box. Soon enough. The photos are locked inside of the camera and on the external hard drive and are begging to be let out. :)
I can say that my shopping list is DONE. What little bits of whatnot I had to do yet were complete this weekend, including K and Hubs. I have a gift to make for K, but everything for it is purchased and awaiting assembly. It won't take me more than an hour.
I have yet to carve out when the two day baking extravaganza is to be done, but I can tell you that I have 10 ladies coming to my house on Saturday for Christmas Tea. Since I did it here last year, I know what I need to do and the bonus is the fact that I found table cloths on the clearance rack, so now I don't have to phone the boys across the street to ask about borrowing their linens. (Though, I might add that they were absolutely thrilled and dropped them off laundered and freshly pressed.)
The items that I have to send off to Chicago are wrapped, bagged and ready to drop off at my in-law's so that they can send the box all together. I have a few other boxes to mail out, but one is awaiting cookies.
The boxes for everything for the holidays are back up in the attic and the pile of games is returned back to the game closet. Now I can walk through my kitchen without the lamp and three Rubbermaid totes in the way.
K returns back to school tomorrow. Schedule as usual is back on for four more weeks. The kids go to school through December 21, then they are off from 12/22 - 1/7. It seems a bit excessive to me. It is what we have though, so we'll rock it out.
I have to laugh, we had a dusting of snow yesterday. The snow accumulated on the cars about an inch, but everywhere else was just a fluff coating. K played outside and hauled her sled around gathering snow from every cook and nannie that she could find. The child absolutely loves snow, so I hope that she has a ton of it to play with while she has two full weeks off.
With that, I do believe that the bath is calling me. I also have to put some black bean nacho burgers up. I made a double batch tonight while I was making dinner. They will carry us through some of the busy parts of the holiday, when Mama is just too tired to cook.
Have a great day!
Know the tree took 8 good hours.
Fa, la la la la, la la la la.
The gifts are wrapped (mostly) and under the tree,
Fa, la la la la, la la la la.
The outside is lit and Hubs did do it.
Fa, la la la la, la la la la.
I would provide photos, but haven't quite figured that function out on the box. Soon enough. The photos are locked inside of the camera and on the external hard drive and are begging to be let out. :)
I can say that my shopping list is DONE. What little bits of whatnot I had to do yet were complete this weekend, including K and Hubs. I have a gift to make for K, but everything for it is purchased and awaiting assembly. It won't take me more than an hour.
I have yet to carve out when the two day baking extravaganza is to be done, but I can tell you that I have 10 ladies coming to my house on Saturday for Christmas Tea. Since I did it here last year, I know what I need to do and the bonus is the fact that I found table cloths on the clearance rack, so now I don't have to phone the boys across the street to ask about borrowing their linens. (Though, I might add that they were absolutely thrilled and dropped them off laundered and freshly pressed.)
The items that I have to send off to Chicago are wrapped, bagged and ready to drop off at my in-law's so that they can send the box all together. I have a few other boxes to mail out, but one is awaiting cookies.
The boxes for everything for the holidays are back up in the attic and the pile of games is returned back to the game closet. Now I can walk through my kitchen without the lamp and three Rubbermaid totes in the way.
K returns back to school tomorrow. Schedule as usual is back on for four more weeks. The kids go to school through December 21, then they are off from 12/22 - 1/7. It seems a bit excessive to me. It is what we have though, so we'll rock it out.
I have to laugh, we had a dusting of snow yesterday. The snow accumulated on the cars about an inch, but everywhere else was just a fluff coating. K played outside and hauled her sled around gathering snow from every cook and nannie that she could find. The child absolutely loves snow, so I hope that she has a ton of it to play with while she has two full weeks off.
With that, I do believe that the bath is calling me. I also have to put some black bean nacho burgers up. I made a double batch tonight while I was making dinner. They will carry us through some of the busy parts of the holiday, when Mama is just too tired to cook.
Have a great day!
Friday, November 23, 2012
"A real puppy and a pare of high hells."
A wish list appeared on my pillow shortly after Smudge died. (It should be noted that the spelling of the post title is the spelling that appears on the wish list.) A real puppy (moreso a pound rescue) is something we've talked about for a while, so it is no surprise that she wanted that. I did tell her something.
I told Santa no.
There was a second item on her list. She wanted high heels. She has wanted high heels for quite some time, but since the child suffers from atrociously narrow feet/heels and a high arch, I have never explored the possibility because, well, shoes hardly ever actually fit her well. Tennis shoes often have a bit of a heel slide on her. When she told me, "Mom, I dream of wearing high heels with my Christmas dress," I knew that I had to make that dream come true. She wasn't asking for something unreasonable or outrageous. My baby wanted her first pair of heels.
My sister and I went for our traditional Black Friday shopping extravaganza last evening. I went with an index card in my pocket with the list of things I needed and items that I promised to pick up for other people. I started out at 11:15 PM and went out to "the farm" as we referred to it all day to get her. We gathered change, stopped by the Circle K for our half gallons of soda and we were off. We arrived at Target, found the Brave movies I needed for my MIL and took a funny spin through the shoe department. Not only did they have "high hells" but they had a strap to keep them on her feet AND! they had her size. It was like the light shone down and angels themselves were singing the hallelujah chorus. I grabbed some clearance lip goo (Chapstick) and the requested Q Tips and off and away we went.
We went next door to Kohl's where we spent an hour and 45 minutes in line. The good news is that I was able to use my $5. Black Friday coupon, 15% off coupon and my Discover Card $15 off $75 coupon and I saved a bundle. That was delightful!
We pressed on to Walmart which was a big bomb, but I managed to get another box of laundry detergent since I was running low, so it wasn't all for not. LeAnne cashed in on cheapie jammies for her little man.
We cruised through Dunkin Donuts and being the dork I was, I didn't consider that someone else could possibly be out besides us and almost got plowed into at 3:30 AM by another Black Friday shopper. She was kind and didn't honk. Apparently I cut her off pretty bad. My sister said that she would have every right to be ticked. I needed food. I blame the low blood sugar.
We jetted up to the next Target where I decided to bite the bullet and just buy the danged AGesque bed for K-'s American Girl doll.
We went to the mall after that. The restroom at Sears looks like it belonged at a concert venue that had been ransacked and abused during a multi-day event. The good news is that they still flushed and that is about the only positive news I could relay. How can people be such pigs?
Old Navy was a big ole stinkin' pile. Aeropostale was where my sister had to fill in some holes on her list. She dragged me into Hot Topic and besides the fact that all of these stores were blaring music at 4 AM, it was bad music. Really bad music. Think Pink Floyd rolling through Muzak but with a funky beat. It was so wrong. The only sweet thing about Hot Topic was that I scored the Soft Kitty t-shirt that I wanted for a whole $10. Other than that, the store is one that I will probably never step into again.
Bath and Body Works had nothing. JCPenney had a gathering of people outside of the gate waiting to get in. We didn't choose to stand in line to see what the fuss was all about.
We went on to our third Target, where I found the DS game my MIL wanted me to get for her. I think that the only reason that it was still in stock is because they only had one person in electronics and no one to open the cases.
We went on to Joann Fabrics where there was another steaming pile. That is really my fault as I didn't read my circular carefully enough to see that what I wanted to purchase was on sale tomorrow. Snap!
I was able to score a gingerbread house kit at Michael's for about $5.00 and some lovely AG stuffings for K-'s stocking. They were on the clearance section and I had an additional coupon.
I introduced my sister to the fine, fine land of World Market where I was able to score some additional stocking lovelies for my people.
Since Kohl's somehow lost control of a ring that I bought for my niece, but didn't charge me for it, I went ahead and headed back out to take advantage of their continued sale. What I bought her still had the early morning extra percentage off sign up and though it didn't ring that, the jewelry counter folks were kind enough to give me that and my additional 15% off. I scored $15. to spend starting Monday, so I'll probably use that on something for Hubs.
All in all, I call this Black Friday a success, though we did find that it took several trips to stores in different areas to find what we needed. I spent $248 ($30 of that was for things for my MIL) and I saved $292. My sister spent $310 and saved $397. That is why we go out. We only buy the deals or the can't finds. We do not camp out for them and I'm not going to get in a knock down drag out fight over something. I left my house at 11:15 PM, after having only scored 45 minutes of sleep and returned home at 10:30 AM, exhausted and nearly falling asleep while driving. I would have slept longer than an hour and a half, but my mom called. Oh well. Tomorrow is decorating day. Hubs has been on the ladder hanging lights on the house and re-lighting deer. We have snow coming down and it is actually accumulating a bit.
Christmas is on its way!
Have a great weekend!
I told Santa no.
There was a second item on her list. She wanted high heels. She has wanted high heels for quite some time, but since the child suffers from atrociously narrow feet/heels and a high arch, I have never explored the possibility because, well, shoes hardly ever actually fit her well. Tennis shoes often have a bit of a heel slide on her. When she told me, "Mom, I dream of wearing high heels with my Christmas dress," I knew that I had to make that dream come true. She wasn't asking for something unreasonable or outrageous. My baby wanted her first pair of heels.
My sister and I went for our traditional Black Friday shopping extravaganza last evening. I went with an index card in my pocket with the list of things I needed and items that I promised to pick up for other people. I started out at 11:15 PM and went out to "the farm" as we referred to it all day to get her. We gathered change, stopped by the Circle K for our half gallons of soda and we were off. We arrived at Target, found the Brave movies I needed for my MIL and took a funny spin through the shoe department. Not only did they have "high hells" but they had a strap to keep them on her feet AND! they had her size. It was like the light shone down and angels themselves were singing the hallelujah chorus. I grabbed some clearance lip goo (Chapstick) and the requested Q Tips and off and away we went.
We went next door to Kohl's where we spent an hour and 45 minutes in line. The good news is that I was able to use my $5. Black Friday coupon, 15% off coupon and my Discover Card $15 off $75 coupon and I saved a bundle. That was delightful!
We pressed on to Walmart which was a big bomb, but I managed to get another box of laundry detergent since I was running low, so it wasn't all for not. LeAnne cashed in on cheapie jammies for her little man.
We cruised through Dunkin Donuts and being the dork I was, I didn't consider that someone else could possibly be out besides us and almost got plowed into at 3:30 AM by another Black Friday shopper. She was kind and didn't honk. Apparently I cut her off pretty bad. My sister said that she would have every right to be ticked. I needed food. I blame the low blood sugar.
We jetted up to the next Target where I decided to bite the bullet and just buy the danged AGesque bed for K-'s American Girl doll.
We went to the mall after that. The restroom at Sears looks like it belonged at a concert venue that had been ransacked and abused during a multi-day event. The good news is that they still flushed and that is about the only positive news I could relay. How can people be such pigs?
Old Navy was a big ole stinkin' pile. Aeropostale was where my sister had to fill in some holes on her list. She dragged me into Hot Topic and besides the fact that all of these stores were blaring music at 4 AM, it was bad music. Really bad music. Think Pink Floyd rolling through Muzak but with a funky beat. It was so wrong. The only sweet thing about Hot Topic was that I scored the Soft Kitty t-shirt that I wanted for a whole $10. Other than that, the store is one that I will probably never step into again.
Bath and Body Works had nothing. JCPenney had a gathering of people outside of the gate waiting to get in. We didn't choose to stand in line to see what the fuss was all about.
We went on to our third Target, where I found the DS game my MIL wanted me to get for her. I think that the only reason that it was still in stock is because they only had one person in electronics and no one to open the cases.
We went on to Joann Fabrics where there was another steaming pile. That is really my fault as I didn't read my circular carefully enough to see that what I wanted to purchase was on sale tomorrow. Snap!
I was able to score a gingerbread house kit at Michael's for about $5.00 and some lovely AG stuffings for K-'s stocking. They were on the clearance section and I had an additional coupon.
I introduced my sister to the fine, fine land of World Market where I was able to score some additional stocking lovelies for my people.
Since Kohl's somehow lost control of a ring that I bought for my niece, but didn't charge me for it, I went ahead and headed back out to take advantage of their continued sale. What I bought her still had the early morning extra percentage off sign up and though it didn't ring that, the jewelry counter folks were kind enough to give me that and my additional 15% off. I scored $15. to spend starting Monday, so I'll probably use that on something for Hubs.
All in all, I call this Black Friday a success, though we did find that it took several trips to stores in different areas to find what we needed. I spent $248 ($30 of that was for things for my MIL) and I saved $292. My sister spent $310 and saved $397. That is why we go out. We only buy the deals or the can't finds. We do not camp out for them and I'm not going to get in a knock down drag out fight over something. I left my house at 11:15 PM, after having only scored 45 minutes of sleep and returned home at 10:30 AM, exhausted and nearly falling asleep while driving. I would have slept longer than an hour and a half, but my mom called. Oh well. Tomorrow is decorating day. Hubs has been on the ladder hanging lights on the house and re-lighting deer. We have snow coming down and it is actually accumulating a bit.
Christmas is on its way!
Have a great weekend!
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