When Shopping Becomes An Adventure Sport

I was awake before anyone else this morning. Partly because I was cold and partly because I was sore. The new mattress that my parents bought a few years ago, for the bed in my old room, is a little on the hard side and my back really doesn't like it. So for the first 3-4 nights here, I wake up in a bit of pain. My mom was up shortly after me. She claims that the reason was that she didn't want me downstairs alone in case I snooped through the presents. Ha! She's the biggest snoop of us all.

When my dad and I got back from shopping yesterday afternoon, we hadn't been outside of the car for more than a minute and I looked over and someone had her head sticking out the front door, trying to see what bags we had. She did the same thing today but from the front hall window this time.

I went shopping with both parents this morning (and we only lost dad once) and then we had a nice lunch together, after which we dropped off my mom at home and dad and I ventured out into the wildest shopping place of the day: Walmart. The place was a zoo. My dad was even blown away by just how bad it was. He didn't think it would be that bad. He really has no grasp on Walmart shopping. The line up for the photo studio was down the Christmas cookie aisle, the seasonal and toy departments were like a giant ring of bumper cars, but with karts, the bakery was sold out of mincemeat pies and the 1 main thing that we went there to find, was no where to be found. Thankfully we were able to find the rest of the stuff we were looking for.

After Walmart, we hit up Shopper's Drug Mart so I could mail off my last present - headed to Calgary. The lineup there was actually pretty short and quick, so that was nice. Next we headed to Zhers so we could get the damn mincemeat pie (which my dad couldn't see, despite looking right at it!) and my dad got my mom some pretty holiday flowers too. Our final stop was Food Basic for a gift card and then we came home.

After dinner, dad started on a wrapping spree which seemed to be a success despite the occasional swearing I heard coming from the dinning room. For me, it was arts and crafts time. My friend Stephanee was making a Christmas tutu for her niece and I decided to make one too. For the record, I hate tulle. That stuff is terrible to work with/cut! Somehow I managed to get it all cut and believe it or not, I made a tutu. It actually looks pretty cute. I think it might be a bit on the big side for my niece though. We'll find out on Monday I guess.

All in all, it was a good day. I have finished all of my Christmas shopping and just have to worry about wrapping everything now. I can sit back and relax and not stress about any last minute things.

I think it's getting close to bed time. My mom got tired of me bitched about how cold it is and she shut my bedroom window this morning. My room is still cold, it's just not damn cold anymore :)

Good Night!

Sarah

Christmas 2008 - this is what I have to do to keep warm at home!

Garlic and Ornaments and Planes, Oh My!

Work was just a typical Friday. Lots to do and hyper people everywhere. LOL. Steph came in for a "surprise" visit. I knew she was coming but some of the peeps she used to work with didn't know so that was the surprise part. Especially Giggles. Their reaction was by far the best :)

Steph kidnapped me with the promise of free admission to a rather large craft show and sale. Can't say no to that. But en route to dinner, I got us side tracked. As we were driving and chatting, I suddenly told her "pull in here!". I've been looking for a specific item for my brother for Christmas and figured that this particular store would have it.

OMG. I have to say, that was the most poorly laid out store I've ever been in. Not only could you not find anything, but we couldn't find staff to help either. I'm convinced we could have played hide and seek in there for hours. By some miracle, we found what we were looking for and it was in the "Clearance" section. Except it wasn't marked down. Didn't care. I found what I wanted. Next trick: find the cashier. That was actually harder than you think it should be given that stores typically want you to pay for things. We finally found a till an thankfully, there was a staff member there. I asked her about the shirt since it was in the clearance section but wasn't marked down. She was nice and went and asked a manager. The manager knocked $15 off the price. Sweet. I paid for my purchase and the clerk put it in a ridiculously oversized bag. In fact, Steph asked if she could get in the bag and have me carry her out of the store.

We continued on our way and made it to a mall to grab some dinner. We both must have been rather hungry as it only took us 2 minutes to decide where to eat. This is usually a much longer and drawn out process. While eating, we had a bird's eye view of Santa's Village and got to watch people having their photos to Santa. It was rather entertaining, especially when the two teens girls got their photo done and Santa keep squeezing them in close to him.

Now that we had some food in our system and had the energy to shop and explore, we hit the Craft Show and Sale. It really was quite large. One of my former co-workers was working at a booth there so she took our coats for us, so that was handy. We wandered and explored and bought some gifts and ate a bunch of free samples, a surprising number of which contained garlic. Since we were both going to be in the same car together, we felt it was safe for us to eat the garlic. Nothing's worse than smelling garlic on someone else. But if you both eat it, it's all good! It was very nice and a good way to spend a cold, rainy evening. Even better was that Steph got the admission tickets for free! Before we left, we hit up the bathroom (no great shock there). Since the show was getting ready to close, several women made the same pit stop as us.

While we were in the stalls, a cleaning person came in and she was talking to a supervisor on her walkie talkie. The man said "once we have evacuated the facility..." What now? The lady in the stall next to me said "Well that doesn't sound good." Everyone laughed. I said "I wonder what they're not telling us" and she replied "I don't know but it can't be good. Pee faster!". The woman on the walkie talkie was now laughing at us all. I'm sure the supervisor meant that once the facility emptied out, not evacuated. But still, it was amusing.

Once we got to the car, Steph was getting bottles of water from the trunk and we're just chatting away. All of a sudden, a jet takes off from the airport (which is literally right across the street from where we were) and both of us jump a good foot in the air. Since it was so cloudy, the sound was really bouncing back and it sounded like the damn plane was in the parking lot with us. And it kind of startled us. I guess we were on the jumpy side tonight.

I really need to get to bed. I'm still sleepy from my late night last night and now from my long day today. Sleep is sooooo good!

Good Night!

Sarah