Black Friday, or Check your sanity at the door...

Was I crazy? Check. Was I insane? Check. Was it cold? Check. Was it fun? Check. What was it? I camped out for black Friday. In my life as an avid shopper of good deals, I have never camped out for black Friday, this year I decided it was time to check this off my bucket list.

My destination, Roberts Craft, of course!

Now originally I had no intention of camping out, so here is how it all went down..... My friend Sue and I in combing all the Thanksgiving day adds, decided we both needed the Cricut Expression which was on sale at Roberts for the cheapest price I had ever seen. Plus they had a killer deal on the cartridges that go along with the Cricut. So we formed a plan.

Our original plan was to meet at 5:00 a.m. and head down to the store for the 6:00 a.m. opening. I told Sue that I was going to stay up all night working on cases because I was really behind due to the holiday, so I was to call her at 5:00 a.m. to wake her up. On Thursday night Arianne and I went to Walmart because she needed cheap flannel which cannot be located in Oregon. We finished at Walmart shortly after 12:00 a.m. and drove through the Roberts parking lot to see if any type of a line had formed. There was one lady sitting in her mini van. It was at that time I decided that if I was going to stay up all night working on cases, I might as well do it in the Roberts parking lot and ensure myself a good place in line.

I returned to gather the necessary items for staying up all night sitting in a parking lot. Those items included, the cases I needed to read, a flashlight, batteries, a chair, a blanket, at hat, gloves and two power bars. I elected to avoid Diet Coke, because I did not want to have bathroom issues. It was off to Roberts. When I arrived around 1:30 a.m. the only person in the parking lot was still the lady in the mini van. I decided just to wait in my car until the line formed, after all it was warm and comfy.

As the night progressed, I saw an endless stream of cars, with a few checking out the Roberts, but mostly getting Mexican food from the all night Mexican drive through. (You would not believe the number of people that consume Mexican food between 2:00 a.m. and 3:30 a.m., who knew?) The night drew on, cases got read, and I continually checked to make sure a line was not forming without me near the front.

Around 4:00 a.m. the first two individuals got into line. This was my cue, out of the car came me, my chair, my blanket and my binder full of cases. I found myself third in line, right under a light for excellent reading, and giggling with a bunch of silly women who had been up most of the night. We were swapping stories of where good deals were at, who had hit midnight sales, and what Cricut items we were drooling over.

From where we were sitting we could see the very large, and long line that had formed across the street at Target, which opened at 5:00 a.m. When the doors of Target were opened, we could hear very loud screams of excitement from the shoppers as they stampeded the Target.

Here I am all bundled up!

Sue arrived around 5:15 a.m to keep me company in line and join the fray.

At 6:00 a.m. the door opened. We had a plan. Sue went and grabbed the machines, I was in charge of cartridges. In order to avoid mass craziness, Roberts had carefully crafted a plan for the cartridges. All of the cartridges were located in a roped off area, with about 5 Roberts employees. You had to present a list of the cartridges you wanted to the employee, and they pulled the cartridges, and then you proceeded to the check out. Of course I was prepared for this, I had surfed their web site and made my list and checked in twice. All registers were up and running, so check out was speedy. At 6:20 I was back in my car, with both Sue and I having scored the items we so desperately needed, er, I mean wanted.....

Here is my haul.

I went home and it took about an hour for me to wind down and fall asleep, with all the adrenaline of black Friday running through my veins.

Would I do it again? Perhaps...but at least for now, its one more thing this year I have done, having never done before, and one more item off the bucket list. (Not that I am planning on dying anytime soon...after all I have a new Cricut machine that desperately needs attention.)

Popcorn

This is my neighbor/friend/visiting teacher/school teacher/secretary at my office, gift. I found the red buckets at Tai Pan Trading, cut the word "popcorn" out of vinyl on my Cricket machine. The bucket is filled with microwave popcorn, and popcorn spices. I hope it will be a huge hit!

Marks' Thanksgiving Prayer:

On Tuesday night, after fighting with Lauren, and having Katie scream at him Mark said:

"Its maybe time my harrassey sisters give me a break. I don't get any respect."

This Thanksgiving Mark will be thankful if his sisters allow him to have a harassment free day and give him a little respect.

Large Trees

Now you have enjoyed the beauty of my small trees, its time to appreciate the grandeur of my large trees.

This is the 12 foot tree in my entry way. Yes, a ladder is necessary to decorate this tree.

This is my new tree. It is lime green, silver and black. It's in my basement, and I have to say it kind of looks like tree version of an evening dress.... It matches none of the decor in my basement, but it looks cool!

This is the tree in my bedroom. It is blue and silver, and matches the decor in my bedroom, which is that silvery/blue color that is very trendy right now.

This is the family room tree, where presents are put under and Santa leaves his stash on Christmas eve.

This is called the "bird" tree, because it is full of birds and nature. This is Rick's tree. He selected most all the tree decor. Its in my house this year, because his house is in the middle of a remodel, and a tree just would not work surrounding by sheet rock, wiring, stripped wood trim, and torn up floors. The kids love this tree, they have name nearly every bird on the tree.

Finally, my candy cane tree. I left this tree up since last Christmas because it is my favorite and I could not bring myself to take it down. Its in my dining room, which only gets used once a year anyway, so almost no one realized I was celebrating Christmas in July.

Ciarran thinks I need a tree intervention.....I don't know where she gets that idea?

Small Trees

Nothing exceeds like excess, and in my house Christmas trees can be found to an excess. Lets just say I have a lot, so many that I have had to divide up my post into small trees today and large trees tomorrow. Now you may ask "How does she do it?" "How long does it take her?" "Is she nuts?"

How I do it? I design a tree, take a picture the first year I put it up, store all the decorations for each tree in a box associated only with that particular tree, and then set up then is only a matter of time the next year.

How long does it take? Well this year I have a new tree (see Wednesday's post) so that tree alone took about 1/2 a day because I was designing as I went along. The other trees I worked on over the course of about 10 days, here and there as I had time, but mostly on the weekends. Basically it took two weekends to set up all the trees.

Is she nuts? YES.

This is the tree in Lauren's room. I designed the trees in the kids room to match their decor, so I don't plan on taking the trees down after Christmas. This is a tree for a little girl who loves to dance, complete with ballet tutu's, which I found at Macy's in San Francisco two years ago.
This is Mark's tree. You really can't see the lights, but they are blue which compliment the red ornaments, and perfectly match is red, white and blue room.

Katie had to have a pink and orange tree to match her bedroom and I am happy to report the princess is sleeping in her big girl bed these days and loving it!

This is the tree in my kitchen, loaded down with all sorts of fun kitchen ornaments, and gingerbread men, which making gingerbread is one of my favorite Christmas memories with my mother, so I consider the tree a tribute to her.

Hummm.....it must have been Sunday.....

Sunday. Just love that day. What is not to love about getting three kids ready for church, dressed in nice clothes, combed hair, and telling them you have the expectation that they sit reverently on a bench in the chapel for an hour and ten minutes???

Yesterday found us absent our church back up of Grandma and Grandpa, which meant I was flying solo. With our smaller group we were able to sit on a small bench. I seated Mark closest to the wall, then me, then Katie, with Lauren on the isle. I was attempting to use the divide and conquer theory, however I have to admit with three children and only one me, its a bit challenging. But generally Lauren and Katie do well sitting next to each other.

Not yesterday. Lauren felt the need to "egg" Katie on, not only with encouraging rough play, but also pushing buttons designed to make Katie squeal. Mark, well he thought kicking the vent grate next to the wall would be fun, because it was metal and made a really cool noise when kicked. So here I am like a ping pong ball turning from one side to the next trying to control my children, and maintain an acceptable noise level. Meanwhile the people in front of me are turning around to see what all the commotion on my bench was about. (That is the problem when you sit in a place you don't normally sit in the chapel. The people we usually sit by are used to our noise and not bothered by my kids!)

Well as I am mediating a dispute between Lauren and Kaite, actually it was me telling Lauren to act like and 8 year old and not do things she knows are designed to elicit a scream from Katie, I feel something wet on my arm. It felt like a drop of water, which struck me as odd. I turned away from Lauren and Katie to inspect my arm, only to discover that Mark had been picking his nose, flinging his boogers, and yes a big fat wet one landed on my arm. Did I have a tissue or wet wipe in my bag? Of course not. That is just how we roll.

Christmas tags.

I found a wonderful pack of holiday scrapbook paper, at the Hobby Lobby of course, and it is black, red and white. Sue and I made cute, and chic Christmas gift tags, and had a great therapy session at the same time!

Lost in translation.

As you know from an earlier blog post my work has been demanding and overwhelming to the point that my cushy part time job as morphed into a full time job, which is still a wonderful job, but I am working more hours that I would like to work. As a result I made the decision to hire a housekeeper. (In reality Rick found her for me, because he knew left up to me I would never take the leap, it just seemed too indulgent.)

She is a very nice Hispanic lady, whose name is Rosalina. She comes one day a week, on Wednesday morning, and spends about three hours mopping, vacuuming, and cleaning my bathrooms and kitchen. It really has been wonderful, and I LOVE Wednesday afternoon, because Mark goes to school, Katie takes a nap, and I enjoy two hours in a wonderfully clean house!

The only problem is, she does not speak very good English and my Spanish is well...limited. On a good day I can count to 10.

The first time she came she found my daily shower cleaner and fell in love with the product. Now when I say she loves the product, I mean she LOVES the product. She uses it to clean everything. Kitchen counters, stove stop, microwave, bathroom counters, it really does not matter, if it is a surface it gets cleaned with daily shower cleaner. I have tried to explain to her what the product is designed for, but my explanation has been lost in translation. So when she leaves at noon on Wednesday, I have an entire house that is shower fresh.

Because I LOVED China sooooo much.

You know the squatter toilets in China were my favorite part of the experience, because after all, its so fun to squat, and then aim straight.....so I decided I MUST have my own squatter toilet. I mean after all what could be better practice for future travel to third world countries?? And besides think how trendy I will be!

Meet my squatter toilet. And for authenticity it actually looks like Chinese toilets. But fortunately it does not smell like Chinese toilets, a little bleach took care of that. So if you are planning on traveling to a third world country and want some practice taking care of business or perhaps you just want to experience what it is like when mother nature calls and you lack the luxury of a western style toilet, come to my house and indulge your self in a third world experience and style.

NOTE: This is a limited time offer, I anticipate a return to a fully functioning western style toilet on or before December 10, 2009.

I am so stinkin spoiled!

Sunday was by birthday, and rather than it just being a day long celebration, it was a whole weekend celebration! After all isn't that how it is supposed to be?

On Saturday Rick took the kids to Cold Stone Creamery to select my cake. I have a known LOVE of peanut butter so the cake was a Recess's Peanut Butter cake.

It was yummy and rich....in fact Jeff, Linda, Brian and Courtney came over on Sunday night and I forced left over cake upon them, and I STILL have half a cake left!

Rick and the kids selected two fine presents for me, an electric throw blanket to keep me warm while sitting on the couch and reading cases, and the second season of Designing Women.

My friend Carol, who is seriously one of the most talent, creative people I know, if fact I envy her style, because it is amazing, gave me a luscious purple scarf that is going to look totally HOT with this new grey coat I have, and a really cool frame with the best picture that has been taken of me in years. (Carol took the picture, I tell you her camera is magic.)

Sherry, who knows and understand my love of a fine cookie, gave me four of the finest sugar cookies know to man. In fact you can see one of the cookies did not completely make it into the picture....what can I say I have no self control when it comes to these cookies.

Finally my friend Sue, who knows my love of jewelry gave me this great pearl necklace set! Which I will be pair up with a super cute outfit to wear under the grey coat with the stylish purple scarf.

In addition to wonderful gifts from great friends, I had a ton of friends who sent birthday wishes, and called to wish me birthday happiness.

I was totally and completely spoiled for my birthday weekend, and the partying continues this week with treats at work today, and several lunch dates with friends. I am so stinkin spoiled!!!

The corruption continues....

On Friday night, to honor my birthday, I got to do things I love, going to the craft store and going out to dinner. Rick came over and we loaded the kids into the car and headed up to Salt Lake to the place I call the mother ship, Hobby Lobby. (If they don't have it, you don't need it.)

The Hobby Lobby provided me with some wonderful Christmas tree ornaments for a new tree I am doing in my basement. (Its very chic, line green, silver and black.) My basket was full, my children had enough of the mother ship, and it was time to stand in line to pay. As Rick and I were standing in line we began discussing where to go for dinner. I asked about a place called McCools that I saw when we drove into the shopping development where the mother ship is located. Rick told me it was a sports bar. Mark, who was listening to our discussion of dinner plans, asked what a sports bar was. Rick explained that it was a place where guys go to watch games and drink beer. Mark then began discussing wanting to drink beer, and wondering if McCools also had Sprite. We told him McCools has Sprite and that he probably didn't want to drink beer because it tasted nasty. Then it was my turn to pay.

The kids were getting restless so Rick said he would take the kids outside and see what other restaurants were in the area. Mark, who suddenly realized we were not going to McCools, started yelling, loudly I might add, "I want to go to the restaurant where the beer is!" Everyone within a 20 foot radius of me began looking at my five year old and then me, probably wondering what kind of a mother has a five year old who want to go to the restaurant where beer is served?

Apparently I am the kind of a mother who has a five year old who takes into consideration the service of beer in his restaurant choices.

Frames

I was looking for some more inexpensive decor. I picked up these frames at Ikea. The large frame was $4.99 and the two smaller frames were $2.99. I dug through my supply of scrapbook paper and found coordinating brown and blue papers. I used my Cricket to cut out the designs and then placed my designs in the frames. Again, it combines my two favorite things, cute and cheap!

The Joker.

Last Saturday it was time to take down the Halloween decorations, and conclude our fall season, in preparation to move right into Christmas. (As I have said in the past Thanksgiving is simply a warm up for Christmas.) Mark and Katie were helping me take the decorations down. Lauren was mysteriously absent.....

I turned on some music for background and selected the 70's channel from the vast array of musical choices available via Dish Network. Well in the process of taking Halloween down the song "The Joker" by the Steve Miller Band came on. For those of you who were not a child of the 70's as I or simply do not recall the song, the song praises the virtues of smoking pot, smoking the mj, doing a doobie, in generally getting high.

Well pretty soon I heard Mark singing part of the song and saying "I'm a joker, I'm a smoker, I'm a midnight toker." Apparently he found the words catchy and clever, and proceeded to add them to his vocabulary. Hummm.....what is a mother to do? I am not too worried about him singing the song at church, because I think it would probably be over most people's heads, but school that could be another matter.....

I wonder how much trouble I could get in for allowing my five year old to sing about smoking pot?

Twirly skirts.

Last Friday night the kids and I decided a meal of Costco hot dogs and/or pizza seemed like a good dinner. Besides I needed a few essentials like trash bags, and all the other "must haves" that Costco sells. (Well that is how I justified my trip anyway...)

On Friday night they were doing a special store event featuring these absolutely adorably twirly skirts. They came in several different colors, but Lauren and Katie decided the orange and pink was just right for them. The skirts are reversible so can wear either the pink side or the orange side.

The girls love the skirts, they can twirl, the skirts are bouncy and fluffy, and in general just a delight.

It's Sherry's fault.

I have a problem, actually I have had this problem for several years. Whenever I go out of town my friends sign me up for things, projects, test, etc, and then say "surprise" when I return.

When I was in law school my best friend Rob wanted me to take the ethics section of the bar exam with him so we could study together. I had no intention of even taking the bar because I had no intention of practicing law (another blog post entirely...) so I told him I was not going to take the test. I went to California for the weekend to visit my then boyfriend, and while I was gone Rob decided to sign me up for the test. When I returned he told me of his actions and justified it by telling me the deadline for signing up was while I was gone and he was just sure I had changed my mind and wanted to take the test. Yeah right.....he just wanted to someone to study with. So I relented, studied with him, took the test and beat his test score by 10 points. Well by then since I had already taken the ethics section of the bar I figured I might as well take the bar and practice law. So you see it really is all Rob fault that the world has been inflicted with my legal skills.

The most recent occurrence of my friends looking out for my best interest occurred while I was in China. In Relief Society they were passing around a sign up sheet for Christmas enrichment, although in keeping with the ever changing names to church programs it is being hailed as Christmas Relief Society Meeting. Sherry decided to sign me, Sue and herself up to create Christmas tags and have kits for sisters to make a tag or two. Now you have to understand out of the three of us Sherry is least the crafty person, and she is the first to admit it. In fact Sue and I have drug her into crafting against her ill founded objection that she lacks crafting skills. So basically it was Sherry saying "Sue and Tiffany would LOVE to design Christmas tags and I will cut or measure, or glue anything they tell me to do."

So last week we go together at my house, designed our tags and created our kits.

Here is our end result.

Four super cute tags, and if you are in the area tonight stop by our "Relief Society Meeting" and you can create one of these cute tags. As for how I felt about being "roped" into this project, well with our crazy schedules lately it has been far too long since the three of us had gotten together. I think Sherry's intention of signing us up to make tags was less about making tags and more about forcing the three of us to get together. I am glad she did.

My mom when to China.....

My mom went to China and all I got was this silly panda hat!

They are just so stinkin cute I can't stand it!

New look.

Some of you know and some of you don't but I will let you in on a little secret, computers scare me. I know, quit laughing, but its true. I get easily frustrated if the computer does not work in the manner that I expect it to work, and sometimes new computer things seem a bit overwhelming.

When Rick and I first started this blog it was after Katie was born, which was almost two and a half years ago, and the intention was to post pictures of our new baby for all the world to see. Our blog was then neglected for 10 months with only random postings here and there. The reason for this neglect, was I did not know how to use blogger, and had to rely on Rick to post things. At the time it just seemed easier to nag him to post rather than figure it our for myself.

Well I got tired of nagging, and Rick got tired of being nagged, so I learned to use blogger, and well the rest is history, as you can see from my frequent posts. I have conquered blogging.

As this blog has evolved, the focus shifted to my writing voice and my perceptions of the world around me. The title of "Rick and Tiffany Vincent" really did not reflect the voice or purpose of this blog any longer.

It was time for a change.

"Where the story ends..." seemed to reflect the stories and recollections I like to write about on my blog. Arianne, who does not share the same computer inhibitions that I do, used photo shop to create a new blog header for me. Over the course of the next few weeks we will be tweaking the blog header, and she is going to design several different headers so that I can change out my background.

Finally, rest assured, the look is changing, but the content will not. I will keep those Mark stories coming!

Boxes

I purchased these brown stacking boxes at Ikea for around $6.00 for all three boxes. The boxes were plain, so of course that simply would not do in MY house. I added the ribbon to the middle box, and used my Cricket machine to cut out the design from scrapbook paper that I then glued on to the other two boxes. I am loving it, because its cute and it was cheap!

Number 8

October 31, 2009, eight year old Lauren, "lost" tooth number eight. For some unknown reason Lauren has designated me as her dentist, and to date I have pulled all eight teeth. Lauren's job is to wiggle the tooth loose, and then I go in for the kill. After eight teeth I am getting really good. All it takes these days is one grab, a twist and the tooth is out. I can do it in two seconds flat, provided of course the tooth is properly loose.

I have to admit I derive some sort of sick pleasure in pulling her teeth....I know very twisted.

Effects...

While the rest of the country may be feeling the effects of a bad economy in terms of lays off, decrease in business growth, and lower sales, I too am feeling the effects of the recession.....

These were my cases for the first three weeks in October. (Please keep in mind all these copies are double sided.) So if I seem a little scatter brained, if I seem a little overwhelmed, if I seem a little grumpy, please understand the recession has hit me HARD.

Halloween Fun!

When Halloween falls on a Saturday, the result is Halloween is a weekend event rather that just a day long event.

It started out on Friday morning with Mark and Lauren needing to be decked out in their Halloween finest for school, I mean really, you can't party if your not in costume.

Here is Lauren, errr, I mean Taylor Swift.

Here is Mark, ready to rescue on a moments notice. I wisely chose to forgo the ax.....Mark and sharp tools, well that is just an invitation for trouble.

After school was over it was on to Omniture, where uncle Brian works for the all out Halloween blast that they produce every year. Here is Princess Katie patiently waiting her turn for scary rooms and CANDY.

Seriously, after their haul at Omniture, which included mini candy bars to an excess, doughnuts, and Hostess treats, their pumpkins were full, and there was really no need to beg the neighbors for more. However my kids did not see it that way...

Here are the kids in the "Simpson's" room at the Omniture party.

Lauren in a diva pose, well after all she is Taylor Swift!

No Halloween is complete without the use of our fog machines. On Saturday afternoon, just in time for the Halloween rush they made their debut. One cool machine that we added this year that my kids, and every other kid loved, was a bubble fog machine. The machine spits out bubbles, and when they pop, fog is dispersed. You can see Lauren and Mark in this picture with the bubbles. I have to admit it was really cool!

We had a ton of trick or treater's on Saturday night. I had oodles of candy, and we still ran out and had to shut down about 9:00 p.m. The saddest thing about running out of candy, (which has never happened in the past) no left over Halloween treats for me! Oh, well with the stash my kids got they will not notice a few mini candy bars missing here and there.....

Pumpkin Land!

On Mark's third day of his new school they had a field trip. (Talk about good timing!) Pumpkin Land was the destination. It is a land filled with pumpkins, corn stalks, mazes, animals and fall related activities. Parents and younger siblings were invited to attend. Katie and I decided we could not miss this opportunity to see Mark in action leading the pack of his peers.

Mark and Katie are sitting inside a giant wood pumpkin.

Katie insisted on bringing her pink purse to Pumpkin Land.

They climbed to the top!

"Do I want to jump?"

"No sliding is much better."

"Hey, the hay is making my nose itch."

All in all a perfect day to be at Pumpkin Land with 100 of our closest and newest school friends.