Black Friday...

...Equals crash Saturday in my book.

Could it get any busier? Yesterday, I got up around 3:05 am. That's right. Since stores open at 4 am, that's what time I got up. Add to that getting two little girls ready and getting to the store just a few short minutes after 4. Yes, this is a tradition. This would qualify as the earliest I have ever gone out on Black Friday.

When we arrived, we saw my parents to which my dad said, "you really are hard core". Yes, I guess we are. All in all, we had fun and the girls did remarkably well for the early hour. I made sure to prep Aliyah by explaining what we do on Black Friday and the tradition. I know she understood because as we were eating breakfast at 6 am, she asked me "Mom, did we find a lot of good deals"? I told her that we did. We do not go to stores such as WMT or Target or Best Buy. I have done the Target & Best Buy thing in past years and determined to never again. There isn't anything that important to me to wait in line that long to get or have to squeeze in with hundreds of people to compete for. Not Oprah, not EHM, not any of that stuff. I'm not really a line waiter or a person who arrives way ahead to sit and wait. Sit and wait is a waste of time by me.

So, after Bergners--our first stop, I headed over to a neighboring city to the mall and another Bergners. For us, Black Friday isn't really gift shopping so much as it is finding stuff that we as a family need or would use at a great deal--I'll explain. My finds consisted of: Paula Deen spatulas with wooden handles two of them for $2.16 including tax, Paula Deen saucepan (red mottled enamel) for $4.32, 6 pack of socks for me for $1.35, 2 pairs of tights--one brown, one black for FREE, a 3 pack of earrings for $4.32, Dora Crocs with 2 Jibbitz for $10.79...the list goes on and on. You get the idea.

You could tell that stores were making the deals a little sweeter this year. American Eagle had their tops BOGO at 50% off plus 25% off your whole order, Gymboree had 30% off your entire order in addition to any coupon you had that you may want to use (I also had a 20% off coupon) plus earned Gymbucks. After shopping, I met my family for lunch at Firehouse where Josh joined us. He went in to work at 5 am. Following lunch and arriving back home my house looked like a Christmas/shopping mess.

We went out last night for dinner and then back to Bergners and a few other stores. This time, we were pretty much the only shoppers. I had told Josh that I would like a new bedding set for the bed for Christmas. We decided to look since they were on sale due to the obvious. After looking, we thought we had decided on a set. I took another look around and saw one that I had been looking at online. Not only that, it was on CLEARANCE--shout for joy! We took it up to the counter and had them check the price--yep getting that one. The next thing was curtains to match & pillows if any. This is a neutral color set so we could mix other sets with it. After debating, I decided to look at the shelves of clearance where I found the matching curtains & pillows to the set I was getting--another shout for joy!! We ended up getting the bedding set, curtains, pillows and two rugs for LESS than what just the bedding set in the other type was by itself! Hooray!

I took last evening to clean, put away, wrap gifts, finish some decorating, do the new bedding items, and crash into bed.

Today, Josh is working on the bathroom and feels like he is under the gun. He goes on business the next few days so he will be gone. I am working on laundry, cleaning, Christmas stuff, ordering Shutterfly, and a whole host of other things that just need done. AAGGHH!! It's one of those days where no matter what I do get done, I can't get it all done. I'm chipping away at it, chipping away at it.