Black Friday... but first, Thanksgiving!

Okay, okay... we bit. There are a couple of "Black Friday" deals that we just had to move on.

The first is an iPad for Mal. It went on sale last night at 9 PM... it had been $329 until then, and that's still a pretty good price for a brand new iPad. Mal has a 3rd gen tablet now (they're on to the 7th gen at present) because I hadn't wanted to pay full price when we didn't know if he'd like it. We moved on to iPad after Mal got into games that were just killing his $40 Kindle. But now, there are a lot of games he loves, like Sonic Forces, that just aren't compatible with an older iPad. So when we saw they were going to be on sale for $250 last night, we knew now was the time! That's about $100 more than I paid for the older refurb, and it should run everything he wants to play. I just have to get an app to move his game data over. That sound like fun, right?

The other thing we got was a Ninja Foodi Air Fryer Oven. It's basically like a big toaster oven. And it's usually around $250, but was on sale for $229. Then it was even lower for Black Friday (I mean, I bought it Monday... the Monday BEFORE Cyber Monday; I don't question the timing on the savings.), with something like 20% off at Kohl's. Anyway, we got it for $152 AND we got $45 Kohl's Cash to spend next week, so it is almost like we got it for just over $100. D won't use our toaster oven because it is old and smoky. This thing is allegedly easy to clean, and can cook a batch of cookies or a 13-inch pizza. We'd been eyeing the June Oven when it was in pre-release, but it's still $500-700, and that's a lot to spend on a countertop cooker. So I'm super excited about this one!

Now we don't have to do ANYTHING tomorrow, except go pick up the Panda Express I ordered for lunch. We got a 20% off coupon from them on a family feast, and that sounded like it would probably be a welcomed change after Thanksgiving lunch and associated left-overs.

We're going to my parents' for Thanksgiving lunch in a bit. Right now, my guys are still asleep. We're taking some stuff for the younger kids to do (magnets, marble maze, etc.) as well as three dishes made with sweet potatoes: Chocolate cake (the batter was good; the icing was a little meh so I added powdered sugar), savory sweet potato mash with Morningstar Farms "bacon" and Swiss cheese (DELICIOUS!), and sweet potato mac and cheese (D taste-tested this one and pronounced it "so good" accompanied by rapturous eye-roll).

Those dishes are my passive-aggressive way of addressing two things: 1) Sweet potatoes deserve better treatment than marshmallows and cinnamon. (Cinnamon alone is fine; with salt.) 2) Sweet potatoes are GOOD (that one's for my husband). Basically, family love and all that. I mean, I like providing delicious treats everyone will love, too. I think even the kids can appreciate the macaroni (technically pennette) dish; the other might be a little much but if so, I'll gladly polish it off!

James worked from home yesterday, and I got done with my T-day prep pretty early, so we went down to Mozart Coffee Roasters to see their annual holiday light show.

It was a nice evening, and we enjoyed it. The last time we went, Mal was a year old and not feeling well. I think the finale that year was "Let It Go." This year, it was... "Baby Shark." Mal said, "That's not a Christmas song! But most of the kids were singing and dancing along, so it worked.

We need to leave in about and hour and a half, so it's time to get ready and start putting things in the car so I don't forget anything! Happy holidays, weird-os

ALSO... if you leave a comment, know that we read them all. For whatever reason, I can't leave or respond to comments. James can. Not sure what the deal is, but my email address is my first name dot last name at hotmail dot com, and you're welcome to email me any time! I'm going to add that to the comments area so everyone will know. Thanks for being here!

Christmas came early! (kind of)

I should have taken pictures of the whole thing, but I didn't.

This year, James and I decided to give each other something a little different for Christmas: genetic testing! Woo hoo!

The packets came in the mail yesterday, and we should have results by the holidays. It says not to eat or drink 30 minutes before, well, it's gross, but... spitting into the vial. And I didn't. However, the last thing I'd eaten, about an hour or so before that, was a red Airhead. So my sample is decidedly pink, and it'll be interesting to see whether that makes a difference or not.

I didn't notice until I'd produced enough to pool, and then I wasn't sure whether I could empty and rinse the tube out, so... I sent it in with my best wishes, and time will tell.

Incidentally, the paperwork said it most people could fill the vial in about six minutes. It took me half an hour. Another thing I read said it took this lady's male friend 4.5 spits. It took me like 20. It took James under 3 minutes, and his spit was super bubbly! Weird! And gross, I know. But you read this blog, and you get what you pay for.

So, you have to sign some permissions and acknowledgements, including opting in to receive three medical reports that they say professional organizations recommend you DON'T receive: namely late-onset Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and I forget the third. However, we both opted into those because we're not worriers and because the knowledge will just be a tool in our arsenal if, thirty years down the road, we need it.

This was interesting to me:

"There may be some consequences of using 23andMe Services that you haven't considered.

"You may discover things about yourself and/or your family members that may be upsetting or cause anxiety and that you may not have the ability to control or change.
"You may discover relatives who were previously unknown to you, or may learn that someone you thought you were related to is not your biological relative."

Dad and Mom, is there anything you want to tell me?

More updates as we get 'em!

The Internet of Things (not *that* one)

I'm going to share with you some excerpts from long-ago blog posts. The place: Spokane, Washington. More specifically, D's dad's friends' basement, where we'd been staying for a couple of months while looking for gainful employment after a very stressful separation from Girls and Boys Town of Nevada.

September 22, 2002:
"It's 51 degrees outside and I'm wearing shorts and sandals! Why? Because everything I own that is even remotely warm is behind boxes and boxes and taped securely so as not to get dusty. I don't even know where my socks are (or underwear, which, fortunately, I don't really need more of at this point) or the shoes I'd wear with long pants or skirts, if I had any of them... Thursday I'm going to storage to take out every stinking one of the wardrobe boxes. I hate to clutter up our room, but it's going to be cold soon and I'm not planning to risk exposure just to save a few square feet. But, mark my words, three weeks from now I'll be complaining about how cramped our room is because of all the boxes."

D and me in the gondola over the Spokane River. Even early September, I'm wearing one of Ken's shirts because I'm SICK of the week's worth of tops I'd packed, as we ended up staying for three months.

October 11, 2002:
"Woo hoo! Motherlode of britches today. :) Amy's shipment of slacks (for which I grossly underpaid her to ship) arrived today. Nine pair of pants including jeans (blue, black, light blue, white, rainbow-colored... okay, maybe not), slacks, a dress, a sweater and shorts that won't see the light of day until next year are now lying across my bed, just so I can look at them. I need never wear the same pair of pants again! (Assuming I die toward the beginning of the week after next.) Anyhoo... thanks, Amy!"

Pretty cool story, right, bro?

Well, here's something you need to know about Amy: At the time, she lived in NYC, and we had never met. We had become acquainted online, more specifically in a Yahoo group dedicated to Rockapella. We had been chatting for more than two years, and when she read in my "online journal" (the word "blog" wasn't very widely used yet) that I needed some warmer duds, and since she had just lost weight and "ingrown" stuff that was just my size... She offered what she had! It was awesome!

Okay, so let's fast-forward to the present day, or just a little before; let's say to some time the week before last, maybe? Amy doesn't live in NYC, anymore, but is still over there on that coast. We have still not met in person. I was going to say, "I don't even know if that group still exists," but, dang it... If you click here and you used to be an active part of that group, you'll see a lot of familiar screen names!

Anyhoo, as fortune would have it, Amy has once again lost enough weight not to be able to fit into her (smaller than that time) pants! And guess what? SHE SENT THEM TO ME AGAIN! That's right, MORE PANTS. I did pay fair shipping this time, so that's better. But, goodness, it was a crapload of slacks, jeggings, two dresses (the colorful one is my fave!), a couple of athletic pants, some crops, etc. So. Excite.

See, you might not have noticed this, but I don't have an outside-of-the-house job. I haven't had an excuse to buy nice pants in years, and so even though my grey slacks had all three fasteners that had broken (yes, beyond repair), I had just permanently secured the waistband with a safety pin, because... why should I waste money on slacks when I can wear fleece shorts 24/7, really? Same with my black slacks, on which the hem had come out (YES, BEYOND my desire to REPAIR), but they were kind of short to begin with, so I just left the unfinished bottom the way that it was? (Oh, and have I mentioned that Amy is even taller than I am, and so the pants are all tall, and so they actually, you know, cover my ankles if they're supposed to?!) I have other pants with stories I could share, but it just makes me look bad and you can rest assured that those pants have gone to a much better (or worse) place now.

So, first, thanks again, Amy! You're still awesome, and yay pants!

If someone ever tries to tell you that "internet-only" relationships don't qualify as real relationships, then you can testify by singing them this little diddy...