My First Ever Black Friday! Yikes!

I love to shop! But, I've never participated in the whole "Black Friday" hysteria because it never seemed worth it to me to save $10 on a pair of kids jeans for Christmas. But this year's budget is a little tighter than years' past so the thought of saving $25-$50 on some Christmas presents had some appeal. Wal-Mart was selling toys and housewares stuff at 12:01 a.m. I figured I could just stay up a little late and head over to Wal-Mart to nab a few items. That seemed totally doable vs. the idea of 4 a.m. at Target.

I decided to head to bed at 9 p.m. to catch a few winks. I was too excited! I maybe slept for 30 minutes before I got up at 11 p.m. This is me right before I left, bloodshot eyes and all. (I was sleeping on my face too, I'm all puffy and wrinkly.)

My friend, Amy H. met me at Wal-Mart and we browsed around until midnight, waiting for the bloody noses and scratching eyes out to start. I was pleasantly surprised that most shoppers were giddy and having a good time. There were a few grouches who should've just stayed in bed.

Total saved on Jack's present at Wal-Mart: $15. Saved $15 on Juliet's presents. Got a stocking stuffer for Merril, saving $5. And bought some towels, a $1.96 DVD of P.S. I Love You, and $12 Corel dishes for me (normally $30). I was saving so much money on everything else...how could I not? They were such a great deal!! Tried to admatch a present for Maxine from a Target ad but it didn't work out. So I ended up paying full price for Max's gift instead of saving $11. So I checked out after waiting in line for 20 minutes (not too bad) and waited for Amy. She got stuck in a slow line after we were separated in the madness. I called her to talk while she waited in line. Asked her if she got everything she wanted. She said, "I got some stuff but I'm going to Old Navy after this and then to Target at 4 a.m!"

Now I was torn. The gift I wanted for Maxine was at Target and I could save $11 instead of paying the full price. So after talking with Amy on the phone for a few more minutes, I decided to stay up all night and go with her to Target. I drove home, hid all the loot from Wal-Mart and waited for Amy to come get me.

We went to Old Navy, she picked out some stuff and we waited in line to check out for a solid 45 minutes to an hour.

Then on to Target. We got there a little after 3 a.m. and got in the back of a HUGE line!! We were all the way down by Lowe's (if you live in my area, you know how far away that is from Target.) My hopes of saving $11 for Maxine's gift seemed to be vanishing quickly. We froze our tails off waiting for 45 minutes and chatted with the friendly people waiting in line. Then the doors opened and we started to move. As the line started to move Amy said, "When we get in there, it's every man for himself." I totally agreed to split up and find her later. We got to the doors and I sprinted to Maxine's gift. That's me:


Okay, so that's not really me but you get the idea! Look how happy everyone is, maybe except for that Target employee on the left. When I got to the gift area for Maxine, there were tons left and I grabbed it! YEAH! Ran through the store and grabbed another gift for Jack, saving $15, and a $3 DVD of the movie ELF, also for me.

Then I went to go find the end of the checkout line. Yikes. It was around the back of the store.

(Pardon the stock photos, I left my camera at home.) Called Amy, she got what she wanted and was still browsing. I told her where I was and saved her a spot. She showed up a bit later with a cart full of stuff. We chatted for probably an hour and a half waiting to checkout, during which I had to run back to the food area of Target and grab a bag of pretzels and a lemonade to eat while I waited. I was starving and it was 5 a.m. by then! I hadn't accounted for the enormous appetite all the shopping would bring on!

So we stayed up late, giggled and saved some cash. She dropped me off around 6:30 a.m. I hid more presents. Then as I was about to get ready for bed, I kept thinking of an electronic item I'd seen in the Wal-Mart ad for way cheap!! I've wanted one for several years but they've always been too much money. I had $50 of my own money, not Christmas money, in my wallet and the item cost $49. Wal-Mart's electronics had gone on sale at 5 a.m. What were the odds that one was still left? So I decided I wouldn't be able to sleep until I checked. I drove back to Wal-Mart and asked if they had any left. The Wal-Mart employee radioed another employee and she said there were 3! I RAN to the back of the store and grabbed one! I'm going to wrap it and put it under the tree to give to the family but the tag should really say To: Jamie From: Jamie.

The store was empty and I walked to the front, checked out and was home by 6:45 a.m. I changed into pajamas, talked to Merril for a minute and then passed out.

Conclusion: I thought it was super fun, especially with a pal (THANK YOU AMY!!) and would totally do it again. Except next year I might just go and sell hot chocolate at 3 a.m. in front of Target. I could've made a killing. :) Merry Christmas!

UPDATE: After talking to some Black Friday pros, I was told that it's against the rules to run in the store, for the obvious reason of someone getting trampled. I feel like a total bonehead! No wonder no one else was running! They all knew better. I didn't. I apologize for running.

New Jeep Paint...

Sorry to be rude and not post the pics of the painted Jeep but it was a busy week with Thanksgiving and my first Black Friday experience! So here we go!

First off-the Jeep taped off:

And ta-da!

We've since cleaned the plastic panels so everything looks better. These pics still had the dust on the panels.

It is super shiney!! I could go out and do my make-up in the reflection. It looks soooo much nicer!

There is one little problem: The garage was a couple of degrees too cold and paint doesn't stick to cold metal. We had heaters in the garage but heat rises. Result? The paint ran in a couple of spots on the bottom of the Jeep (where it was the coldest). Solution? Problem areas can be lightly sanded and repainted most likely in the Spring when it warms up. Overall, the Jeep looks a million times better. The roof and the hood look superb simply because it was warmer up top.

So there it is. Conclusion? I don't think I'd ever do that again. It was an insane amount of work!! In the end, we got some super wonderful paint with a ton of shimmery metal flake in it so the quality of the paint itself is 100 times better than a paint job at Maaco. So in the end, I think we ended up with a way better paint job but man, that's a lot of WoRk!

It seemed like a good idea...

Our Jeep is old and the paint has been peeling on the hood and roof since we bought it. We looked into getting it repainted and it was $500. Hmmmm....we only paid $400 for the whole Jeep so the paint quote seemed a little steep. Merril has a friend who used to do body work and paint so with his expertise, we decided to paint the Jeep ourselves and save $325. Seems like a brilliant idea eh??

It was a great idea until I realized that sanding a vehicle take a lot of time and energy! We started sanding yesterday at 9 a.m., thinking it would take a couple of hours. We were wrong. Merril left for work at noon and I kept sanding until 2 p.m. when I ran out of sanding pads.

Merril brought home more sanding pads yesterday night and I made a goal to finish today. Merril's doing a Japanese tour so it's all me. I started at 9 again and just finished again at 2 p.m. I think it's mostly done, except for a few places that need to be sanded by hand.

I have 2 fears about this project.

#1-Merril's friend comes to paint on Tuesday and say we didn't sand it right.

#2-We paint it and it still looks crappy.

Yikes! Fingers crossed, I'll be posting pics of our beautiful paint job on Tuesday!!

Poor Jacky...

We went to the dentist last week and Jack had a bunch of cavities. The Doc recommended sedating him for the cavities because Jack FREAKED over getting his teeth cleaned. So he went this morning for his sedation. He was given some stuff to calm nausea and help him relax. He relaxed so much that he peed on the floor. The nurse said it's common and they even had dry clothes for him to change into. (Super awesome Children's Dental!!) Merril said that Jack was laughing hysterically when he was changing him, like he was being tickled. Then he got his teeth fixed. The Doc said he did great. I was there to hold him as he came out of anesthesia. He cracked his eyelids and said, "Mom, you have 4 eyes.....and 2 noses." After a 1/2 hour, we were able to leave and bring him home. He gets a day in front of the TV. Juliet decided she gets equal privileges so both beds came out to the living room.

The double vision is gone now but earlier he was saying things like, "Mom, the second Mom behind you does the exact same things you do." and "When you walked around the Jeep, there were 3 of you."

It's almost lunch time and he seems normal again. He was starving and has eaten a bowl of soup, a peanut butter sandwich and a string cheese. He's supposed to have Jell-O all day. I guess he eats like his father. :)

This just made me thankful that my kids don't have major health problems that require them to be in and out of the hospital!!

Maxine's Baptism...

We've been crazy busy around here! But before I forget, Maxine decided to be baptized!! We made a push to finish the Book of Mormon before she was baptized and finished the evening before! To learn more about our church click here. She was baptized on a Saturday morning by her father, Merril, and then we had muffins and juice at our house afterwards. Here we are at the church before the baptism.

This is the gorgeous dress that Maxine's Grandma C. made for her. She loves it and wants to wear it all the time.

Maxine's Aunt Rachel gave her a set of pearls too. She feels very grown up when she wears them. After I was helping Maxine change out of her wet clothes, I asked her how she felt. She said, "I'm cold on the outside but warm on the inside." We're very proud of her.

Triple Combination Challenge Update...

Well I've been busy and have gotten behind but I just finished the Doctrine & Covenants. I'm downloading the mp3 of the Pearl of Great Price. I still need to book it through the Book of Mormon by December 19th. It's going to be close!