a few of the details

I blame my mother. No really, I do. I was perfectly content to stay at the house and eat leftover turkey all the livelong day, but Thursday morning she started in on me with the after-Thanksgiving Day sales. First it was, "Hey, look at this ad... can you BELIEVE this price?" Then it was, "Wow - you really can't pass THIS up, can you?" Then it was, "Let's just make a list..." And finally it was, "So what time are we waking up in the morning?" SHE'S CRAFTY.

So it was that I found myself sitting hunched over and blurry-eyed in my FREEZING car on Friday morning (24 degrees, y'all). Mom and I took two separate cars to further our whole shopping Plan of Attack. Which, I have to say, was totally brilliant. Mom waiting in line at one store (4AM, dudes) while I ran to another store THAT WAS ALREADY OPEN, to get Bean a $15 down-filled parka. Seriously, fifteen bucks. That was when I realized I'd left my wallet back at the house (yes, not smart) and had to have them hold the parka so I could run back to the house, pick up the wallet, then meet my mom at store #1 for the mad-dash first run through the doors. I grabbed the shopping cart, mom ran toward the back of the store to gather certain pre-determined deals, then I made a sweep through the aisles to grab a couple of other pre-determined deals and meet mom at the back, for her to then dump everything into the cart. Easy, right?

Um. I RAN INTO three different people with the cart. I nearly amputated one lady's foot. NOT ON PURPOSE. And then! With the crazy grabbing! And the people SPRINTING through the aisles! And have I mentioned the grabbing? We wouldn't have made it without the careful triangulating power of Ye Mighty Cell Phones. Dudes, I kept calling her, all, "MOM! WHERE ARE YOU? I'M SURROUNDED BY CRAZY WOMEN WHO ARE GRABBING WAFFLE IRONS FOR $5!" I have no pictures except for this horrid blurry thing that I tried to get while standing behind a woman who was filling her cart with blankets. Oh, that one and also a shot I did of my car's dashboard temperature gauge (say it with me: TWENTY-FOUR DEGREES).

But you know what? It was loads and loads of fun. If this is the only year I ever do it, I'm so glad I did. Because this is the kind of weird memory that you just can't fake, me and mom getting up at O Dark Crazy Thirty and calling each other on our cell phones talking about waiting in ridiculously long lines and watching people nearly kill each other with shopping carts. All before 9am. So yes, it was fun.

As is this trip. Chip got here on Wednesday afternoon, and we've been filling our bellies with yummy mom-made food and we even got out of the house to see a movie, just Chip and me (Fantastic Mr. Fox).

Yesterday dad made his famous grilled cheese sandwiches. I even ate one (which my family knows is a MIRACLE since I have normally expressed Extreme Prejudice in regard to the grilled cheese sandwich --yes, even dad's--).

Chip heads back in the car this morning--- he'll be working his way back home, while Bean and I are here for another day, flying home on Tuesday. How's that for complicated?

And you. How was your weekend?