Aplogies for my recent blog errors

I never noticed after I made my most recent blog makeover that it appeared to show okay in FireFox, but it was all over the place in Internet explorer, my goodness. Why didn't someone send me a friendly hint comment or word to the wise that my blog was showing up as a hot mess? Lol! Apparently not all templates are compatible with all browsers, excuse me for not knowing this. (duh)

As you may have guessed by now No I'm not a computer suave techy type of person (doesn't it show) but I'm trying here so give me a pat on the back at least, okay lol! I'm going to get this all sorted out. I'm like super persistent and when something just isn't right I have to keep fooling around until I make it better or it nags at me.

Anyways If anyone has been visiting me lately (sheds tear) and was wondering what has been going on with all my many screw ups, you now know why, sorry about all this. I guess this one will just have to do, at least for awhile since it is showing fine in both my browsers, finally. (geez) Okay now I have to reload all my widgets but it's time to prepare dinner so I'll get to this later, at least I'm up and running again and looking better on the eye's, lol!!

Thanksgiving and the after rush

We enjoyed our Thanksgiving and ate a great feast. Afterwards the children went off to play and we adults still gathered around the dinner table full as bulls and moving in slow motion reminisced and laughed while talking about the older days within our generations.

My mother ended up tricking me into cooking up the chitterlings this year. I was supposed to buy them for her to cook this year but I wound up cooking them instead. I don’t mind cooking them but sometimes I just don’t feel up to the cleaning of them and when I do I like to buy them clean them then freeze them ahead of time and not the night before the holiday. In case some of you have never heard of chitterlings you can read more about them here but perhaps if you have a weak stomach I’ll just say they are pork. I know pork itself is pretty unhealthy and chitterlings is down right gross to many but I have been eating them for as long as I can remember and even as I got older I just continued on eating them. I can’t eat just no anybodies though so more often than not I usually do cook my own. They have just been traditionally served within our family once or twice a year at the most usually Thanksgiving or Christmas. I never knew the real meaning behind the tradition until I was an adult myself and I don’t think many others do, but despite what they are when well prepared and cooked I just love them with me some hot sauce.

It was almost midnight when our family members departed and after tiding up a little bit I went straight to sleep. I just knew I was going to oversleep and truly not make it out to go shopping this morning. Wrong, I didn’t even set my alarm clock my body just woke up and after sipping my morning cup of coffee I gathered the store’s I was trying to shop with all my items highlighted and off I went solo, leaving my purse at home and caring only what I needed zipped away in my pockets.

First stop was 3:45am at Kohl’s. They opened at four and I made it there in good time because shortly after I made it to the line to get inside the crowd was just coming and the line grew super long so fast. I was in and out of there as I only had to pick up one item so the line was like no waiting. I left there and headed over to Jcpenny and picked up quite a few items before making my final stop at Walmart. They opened their doors at midnight I believe but no one was allowed to grab any door buster deals till 5am. I arrived there at about 4:45 thinking I would probably get nothing since people were already inside so early but I figured I would try my luck anyway. I could not believe it that I got every single item off my Walmart list this year, that’s something I’m rarely able to do.

I even picked up a HDTV for my Aunt. I told her I would try to get it for her while I was out. Walmart was well prepared for the crowds this year, they even had the Police on duty inside the store mostly around the electronics though just incase a fight broke out I guess. Everyone was really waiting to grab those TV’s. Soon as the worker yelled it’s 5:00 you can shop people just dived into the TV’s I noticed everyone was reaching for the top TV’s so I just patiently watched as a few got cleared away then I slide my little self right under the crowd and came out with me a TV in peace. I heard a little commotion trying to get started as I was walking away but I didn’t turn back I kept moving right along. One guy that was also waiting but didn’t grab his laughed and asked me how did I get one? I just laughed back and told him I guess because I’m so little I slid in and out the crowd rather easily.

I loaded up my trunk and back seat with all my goodies and made it back home at 6:30 am in time to kiss my husband out the door. I waited for the boys to wake up and have their breakfast then I told them to come and watch TV in the family room and I laid across the couch with my blanket and pillow and off to sleep I went. I had to get me a nap in after that adrenaline rush.

I’m Thankful what about you

I’m thankful for every morning I wake up in good health
I’m thankful for having 3 handsome active boys
I’m thankful for having a hard working supportive husband who is in good health
I’m thankful that although my son has some disabilities he is able to walk, run, ride a bike
I’m thankful although he is speech impaired he is able to talk
I’m thankful to see my parents still happily married after all these years
I’m thankful for everyday that I get to talk and laugh with my grandma
I’m just thankful for my family, a large family I’m a part of
I’m thankful for being able to own a home while the economy is in an uproar
I’m thankful to have been able to live and see our first African American President Elect
I’m thankful to be able to say I’m thankful

Be thankful for what you have it’s not always about what you want it’s also about what you have right in front of you
For everything not going the way you planned there’s another thing going the right way
Be Thankful on Thanksgiving and Happy for whatever food you put onto your plate

I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!

Are you a Black Friday Shopper?

Black Friday shopping is only a week away, are you going to be one of those crazy shoppers out at the crack of dawn, sleeping in tents and running people over in the stores? Joking, well not really as there does be some craziness going on during the sales. I have been shopping the sales for the last five years straight but I don’t know about this year but I guess I have to really see something that catches my eye. I used to shop toy crazy but with my boys getting older I don’t have many toys on my list this year so I may decide to actually sleep in for once. I have yet to find anything that would actually encourage me to camp outside the stores in a tent, no offense to anyone but I’ll pass on that one, have fun if you are one of those campers. Have you checked out ­ Gotta Deal I was ahead of the crowd last year when looking through the ads they be pretty accurate so if you want some sneak peaks into the sales you may wanna give them a peak or two if you haven’t done so already.

So, what will you be doing sound asleep and in peace or getting your adrenaline rush on out shopping? Got any shopping strategies you use while dealing with the crowds and trying to get everything you want? How long are you out shopping, just one store or do you spend the whole day out, lets here it?

Proximidade Award

It’s great to know you have visitors that actually read your blog but it’s even better when you know you have visitors that return often to your blog. Today I would like to give a very special thanks to http://glue4families.today.com/ for passing on to me my second blogging award. Thank you so much!!! Go over and check her blog out she posts regularly with some great well written and interesting posts. Here is the award I received from her.

“This blog invests and believes, in ‘proximity’ [meaning, that blogging makes us ‘close’ - being close through proxy]. These blogs are all charming and they aim to show the marvels of friendship. Let’s give more attention to them! So with this prize we must deliver it to eight bloggers that in turn must make the same thing and put this text.”

It is now my turn to pass this award on as well and here are the blogs I’ve chosen:

http://meandtheblueskies.blogspot.com/

http://www.baltimorehousewife.blogspot.com/

http://www.mydogatemyresume.com/

http://sassyblackfriend.com/

http://www.iluv-pink.blogspot.com/

http://www.ordinarymomss.com/

http://olliemckayschicboutique.blogspot.com/

http://reginasfamilyseasons.blogspot.com/

Give them a visit and Thank you to all my visitors!!!

Festive Weekend

Had a joyous weekend we took the boys to an annual tree lighting ceremony and festival of lights at an outdoor shopping plaza near us. It was nice they enjoyed it and thanks to the crowd it wasn’t to chilly out plus we were bundled up. We all song Holiday carols together and gathered around as Santa appeared and began the display of lighting the tree and watching all the decorated lights on display go to dancing around to several tunes. It was really nice to watch and I couldn’t believe that I forgot my camera at home. That’s what I get for changing purses. I had my camera already in my bag and ready to go but I decided I wanted to carry a smaller bag and well yea that’s how my camera got left behind.

Even woke up this morning to see some snow actually on the ground. Not much but enough to where it was able to stick a bit in the lawn and atop the rooftops. Brrr on comes the freezing weather, snow, hats, scarves, gloves and all that good stuff for keeping warm.

Random Deal of the day in arts and crafts

My random deals of family arts and crafts supplies for the week were at  Michaels. Great deals on painting supplies, the 16oz size bottles of washable poster paints are currently on sale for $0.99 which are regularly priced at $1.99. I stocked up and purchased 10 bottles creating a savings of $10 not much but in these days any savings you can get counts, plus my boys will have enough painting supplies to hold them over for awhile. Along with the paints I picked up a refill roll of poster paper for their easel for $4 and a variety pack of paint brushes originally $4.99 for only $2.50 after using the clip out coupon from the sales ad. I love to shop during deals and bargains, every penny saved adds up.

Christmas shopping has begun

It sure is something how fast the Christmas Holiday season appears. Halloween barely makes it in and then its like bump here comes all the Christmas decorations and sales, after that Thanksgiving sneaks on in there somehow. Christmas is my favorite holiday of the year and I am officially in the mood. I got started with some of my Christmas shopping this weekend but I have a long way to go before I finish up. Plus, I am one of those crazy black Friday shoppers so I typically start early and finish up that day after Thanksgiving, but this year I got a later than usual start. I like to beat the crowds with the exception of black Friday and get the items I want before they sell out. I brought some new outdoor decorative items at the end of Christmas sale last year so I can’t wait to set them out. We don’t get decorating crazy just a bit but in all we do celebrate with a big family Christmas.

Obama historical victory rally

I know some may have read my previous post about if I was going to decide to go to the Obama election night rally downtown. My plans when leaving home was to get downtown to be near the event and after getting with friends we decided to just watch from a nearby lounge. All around the town there was much excitement awaiting the results and when they finally came in everyone around us was jumping, screaming and crying as we celebrated this historical moment. Once he came on and began to speak everyone was so glued you could almost hear a pin drop and once again at the conclusion of the speech tears of joy and shouts of yes we did filled the room. When I got home I was so proud, happy and still full of excitement I was barely able to get to sleep. I woke this morning so hoarse I nearly lost my voice.

My Book meet got canceled

A friend and I started a book club almost a year ago. We both enjoy reading and would often swap books so we decided to round up some likewise readers for a monthly meet over appetizers and cocktails. The last couple of months our attendance has been dwindling down and yesterday we had our first official cancelled meet of which it was my turn to host. Do to the low expected turnout and transportation reasons this that the other it got cancelled.

Thanks to me for waiting around till the last minute to go out and grab the food and cocktails I didn’t go out my way to spend any unnecessary money preparing for the night. I for some reason had a funny gut feeling then I was also tipped off the night prior of the possible cancellation. Hopefully we will continue to get together for our monthly book meets if not it was fun while it lasted.

I <3 your Blog award

I received my first blogging award and it was given to me by Brandi over at
http://mrsbigcountry.blogspot.com/ so I would like to give a big Thank You to her, yea!!!

Now I have to pass the award on and here’s who I choose:
http://afrogtokiss.net/
http://www.petulaw.com/
http://glue4families.today.com/
http://azlynne1972.blogspot.com/
http://mariucasperfume.blogspot.com/
http://absolutelymoms.blogspot.com/
http://workathomemomrevolution.blogspot.com/

I <3 your Blog award
There are some rules for this award:
1. The winner can put the logo on his/her blog.
2. Link the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of the persons you've nominated.