Black Friday!

Sorry yall but I'm to old to go shopping on black Friday!  I want to be out there, I really do BUT....  I just don't have the patience.  I really don't think you save that much more money either.  Working in retail has clued me into one thing.  Never pay full price, because eventually it's going on sale!  Within two weeks of receiving shipment in the store I work for, it goes on sale.  I'll never pay full price again.  So black Friday in my opinion, is just a gimmick.  That same stuff will be on sale next week, and on clearance the week after.

Thanksgiving was blessed.  Hubby and I made our first turkey, and small dinner!  It's kinda hard to create your own family traditions when you have in-laws and extended family. Everyone wants you to come to their house, when you really want to start establishing your own holiday rituals.  The logistics can be tricky, because people get real sensitive about this kind of stuff.  So this year I suggested that since my in-laws eat so late on Thanksgiving, that we make our own dinner early and have Thanksgiving lunch.  Now I think this is a great compromise, where I can start to create a little at home tradition for the kids, and still keep the other traditions intact.  As you may have already guessed some people didn't think it was a great thing....  My in-laws didn't come out and say it, but they were perturbed that we didn't invite them....  Which I don't quite understand, since I wasn't trying to make a huge dinner or anything, and I definitely didn't want the pressure of preparing a dinner for other people....  Sometimes it seems like that whatever you do, you can't please everybody.  So anyway it just so happened that my in-laws decided that this year of all years, that they would eat early...  Umm yeah.. I know..  Family, ya gotta love them!  Enough said.  Hubby and I still had our "Thanksgiving lunch " and it was great, and then we ate again at the in laws.  Now the in-laws made me pay for this infraction by defiantly overloading the kids with candy, and slinging veiled insults at
my parenting skills, but I had my Thanksgiving lunch!  You take your power where you can.  And guess what?  I'm having my Thanksgiving lunch next year too, so there!  Oh, and Christmas?  Well I'm going for the prize on Christmas.  I'm having my OWN Christmas dinner, and I'm going to suggest a Christmas brunch at the in-laws.  I know it's suicide but what can I say, I like to walk on the dangerous side. I'll let you know how it pans out.

 So I'm working part-time/seasonal and the job is very interesting.  I've never worked in retail before and I struggle everyday to find appropriate clothing that doesn't look like mommy gear, to wear to work.  I never realized how "mommy" my appearance had become until I started working in retail.  Those young girls with their leggings, and high heeled boots...  Their makeup is perfect, manicures fresh, clothes fitted and they know just how to put together the clothes and I feel incredibly inadequate next to them.   Here I am almost forty and some little twenty year old is outdoing me!  I want to yell sometimes, "don't you know who I used to be!" but then I look at my mommy slacks that could be taken in a bit at the waist, and my boots from three years ago, and my nails that desperately need a manicure, and I sigh.....  I've been slippin.  How does that happen?  How can you be turning heads one day, and then the next day your just the "mommy"?  My "boss" is 23!  Twenty-three!!!!!  She was in high-school when I had my first baby!  Ya gotta laugh at it though.....  What else are you going to do?

So the other day I'm dropping my kindergartner to school and I overhear this conversation these two girls are having.  They are both Korean exchange students and one girl said she was going to stay home with her kids when she married.  Well the other girl ripped into her, and told her that all she would end up doing is laundry, cooking and driving people around.  Now as I was just about to "drive" my other child to preschool, I was highly offended.  It really made me think about how as parents both stay-at-home and outside-working parents, we do so much and these kids don't appreciate it.  This teenager dismissed what her mother does for her in a few sentences, and it makes you wonder....  Is that how my kids will see what I've done for them one day?  I guess my point is as parents we have to be so careful not put all of our energy into these kids.  I'm not saying we shouldn't put energy into raising our kids, but sometimes we put everything into them, and have nothing left for ourselves.  Ya know what?  Kids our selfish.