Thanksgiving Week...

Hi Family,



I arrived at mom and dad's house like I was full blown moving in. I had two lunch box coolers worth of bacon, sausage and roasts along with a crock pot of a ham (Mr. Piggy came home from market and got roasted!) because my freezer wasn't working and had either begun or fully defrosted all of my food!


Anyway, I had also brought just a LOT of stuff. Didn't hardly use any of it, but I'd rather have more than enough than not enough, eh?


Arrived on Wed. afternoon after a 3.5 hr drive from Amity. It usually takes me about 1.5 hrs - traffic was INSANE in the membrane. My foot hurt from breaking so much.


Had a quiet night and woke up early on Thursday. Thank goodness too because I got my yam (1) and sweet potatoes all ready. They were, IMHO, fantastically close to perfection. I added peaches again this year and because I grabbed the wrong nuts, pecans along with the walnuts. So, if you are a nutty and fruity person, you would've loved my yams. I am both nutty and fruity and I LOVED THEM!

Thanksgiving was just lovely. The niece and nephews were just "good" enough! LOL...we danced to Shake your dragon tail and the theme song from Dragon Tails. That, and Betweent the Lions are my favorite kids shows. I adore PBSkids.org. I'm sure that parents aren't really interested in their toddlers wanting to use the only computer in the house but this is where you go to DI or GWI and get a used, working crappy lap top and let them play and learn to spell, type and have fun. :)

Anyways....Ah, I stayed up too late on Thursday even though the plan the entire time was to get up at the o'dark 30 and get to shopping. I got a txt from my friend Cherish around 10:30 and I txt'd back and said, hey gal, I'll pick u up at 5 am. She said sure. I was stoked! I woke up right around 4:30 and txt her to see if she was awake and she ---- WASN'T. That's ok, I just laid back down and went back to sleep. However, she called at 500 or 530 and I went and grabbed her and we headed out. DISCLAIMER: This was both her and my first time ever doing the Black Friday thing. I might have done it once as a teen, but 10 am doesn't constitute "early radical" shopping and working at the mall really does not count at all.

We first went to Jantzen Beach - for you non PDX'ers, this is a very large shopping center dedicated to serving mostly Washingtonians because it's just .4 miles across the bridge allowing us to shop without sales tax. Yes, it's nice, except I'm an Oregonian anyway. Back to the meat of this story. We started a Circuit City and then Best Buy. Cherish headed to Toys 'R' Us while I went in and checked out laptops. Now, listen here folks - it was 6 AM and there were no parking spots. And, all of the computers were gone - or at least committed to folks who I guessed lined up at 2 am. That is just crazy. I got the whole "You should come back at 9 to see if there any remaining" message. So, we headed over to Burlington Coat Factory and then Target. For anyone in the TV market, they had a heck of a deal at Target for 26" lcd for $299. Hard to beat...but WalMart did. WalMart at 10:15 was still chaotic and they still had 50 Wii's. This is a record because it is pretty tough to find a Wii anywhere around this neck of the woods.

After WalMart, we weren't done...no, we had to go to Ikea, back to the other side of PDX, by the airport. It's a good thing that PDX isn't that big of a city, lol...but there Cherish visited many more stores than I did. In fact, I've lost track. I did go in Dress Barn and she went into Bath & Body Works, I think. I wanted to get to Ross, but my feet were killing me and I'd been shopping for 6 hours. Ladies and Gents, this is a record for me!!!! Plus, I'm far too out of shape to shop for 6 hours. I don't know how I made it.

Then we picked up Cherish's precious cargo and headed for my parentals for left overs and to watch PS I love you and The Golden Compass. The food was even better on Friday, plus, we were HUNGRY. I ended up with a skirt, a sweater blouse, a new laptop and three movies, which I am giving to my parents. Oh, and a new mp3 player - a really great steal, 4 GB for $25~.

The next day I got up and drove home and tried to pick up, etc. because my parentals were going to come over and look at my freezer, etc. Plus, it was my plan to put my tree up and get it all trimmed. So, I spent Saturday shopping for plumbing supplies with my dad on the awful concrete floor but seriously, my dad is pretty smart after all (love ya daddy!) b/c he knew that buying the stuff would be less expensive and he was right. He also fixed the front porch light for me. Gosh I need a man who is as good as my dad. They just don't make 'em like that anymore - or do they and I'm just not cutting them any slack? That's another post.

Sunday it was lovely to go to church and see my "ward family". I had missed them.

Ok, that's enough for 4 days, seriously. It was a very enjoyable weekend and although I was busy and tired most of it, it really was the way life should be.

Oh, and for the record - I decided on November 30th, that would be Sunday? that I would read the Book of Mormon from the Introduction to the final page in December. This gives me 31 days to read it. Anyone want to join me? I plan on 20 pages a day and that takes just about 30 mintues. If you are late, you can simply read 21 or double read and catch up...it is only December 3rd. And it really only takes 18 pages a day to complete it. Come on, you can do it. Click here to join me! I am looking forward to the quick read type of study this will bring. I have already caught some very sweet whisperings from the Spirit. One about "tender mercies". Those mercies have a special place in my heart and are included in Step 2 of the churches recovery program guide. Plus, that talk was given the April after Will moved out (Jan) and how grateful I was for someone to recognize that we all have need for tender mercies in our lives.

Hugs,

Sharon