Tis the season to be SHOPPING!

I don't like the shop. It is a pain, I get angry and frustrated at people and I generally leave the store in a foul mood. There is one notable exception to this and that is black Friday shopping! As stupid as it sounds, I love getting up at the crack of dawn, standing in line in the cold and fighting the crowds for a few deals. We plan our trips with miliatry precision. We get the ads on Thursday (I actually browse them on blackfriday.info beforhand and hope that that information is close to right on the big day) and we all sit down and go through them together. We pick the stores that each person will go to, in what order we will go and figure out what time everyone needs to be up and where and when to meet after. This year, my brother, who works nights typically, stayed up and got in line at Staples at 2:45 for the opening at 6. He took a lawn chair, some blankets, coffee and his computer and camped out in front of the store. Mom and I got up at 3:30 and mom headed out while I went for more coffee for me and him. We ended up being about 25th or so in line, which was fine. It seemed like everyone in front of us where looking for a super cheap laptop that they had so i wasn't worried about getting my stuff. As the morning wore on, more and more people showed up and the line ended up being clear around the corner of the building. We also had several people who jumped in line with people in front of us but we couldn't complain too much since we did the same thing, 2 hours earlier. We had several things to get and assigned each person a task. D got put in charge of getting the hard drives because he is the biggest and the tallest and has the easiest time getting through the crowds and that was the most important thing to get. I got put in charge of my memory card and flash drives and mom came along as a third person to buy the one per person items :) I ended up getting a Maxtor 500gb external harddrive, a 2gb CF card for my new camera, and a package of CDs.

We were in and out of the store in under 20 minutes and would have been even faster (last year, we had everything we went for and had checked out before the end of the line made it in the store) if we could haven't goten D to stand still and get in line. After Staples, we went to Meijer and I got pillows (I bought some a few months ago and they horrible. They are all flat and gross) and a chicken fryer, not because I fry so much chicken but because it is a nice big deep pan and I broke my other one (it fell off the edge of the sink and the handle broke). After that, mom and I went to Walgreen's where she got a digital picture frame keyring and moon sand. Then to the mall where we had a $10 off a $10 item at Bergener's. I got the "Pop Bottle Science" kit for C, for $5 so score. Then to breakfast and home by 9:30 am :)

In other news, my back is KILLING me. It has hurt since Tuesday morning. I'm seriously thinking about going to the doctor on Monday, if it isn't better. I'm been taking Advil round the clock and sleeping on a heating pad. It still hurts to walk or stand up or sit down or bend over or pick up the kids, etc. It got so bad the last couple of nights (rolling over in bed is horrible) that I took real pain meds left over from my broken toe and my c/s. The sad thing is, I don't even know what I did to it. :(