Black Friday Fun

After a lovely Thanksgiving Day with both families, Ken and I made it up by 6 am to do some Black Friday sale shopping. My mom and niece Nicole picked us up and we went to Younkers, Menards, Wal-Mart, Kohls, Sears, and finally a fabric store. The one with the worst lines was Menards. There was this one entrance to all the check-out lanes and you and to snake your way around the store. At various points were sales people who then told you to get into one long line or another where you then proceeded to snake your way around more of the store until you got to the checkout lanes at which point you met up with all the other people in all the other lanes that were separated from you at an earlier checkpoint. What seemed to be a system of reassurance that you were making progress was indeed a system of just shuffling people around to different parts of the store. Along the way, many "impulse buys" caught your eye. Proof: My mom ended up with two fleece balnkets for $1.99 each that someone left behind on a nearby rack. She wasn't planning on buying them, but the waiting in line convinced her she needed them.

Ken and I like to use this shopping day to stock up on new bedding for the year. Last year we got the most amazing flannel sheets for our bed for about $20 at Younkers. I love them! But to buy flannel sheets -- or sheets of any size for that matter -- for a King size bed at other times during the year is a bit pricey. Today, we made out with one new set of flannels ($24.99), one set of cotten sheets ($14), and a new down comforter ($20) for the bed. I think we're set for the year. I also picked up a new lovely light blue quilt plus shams for the guest bedroom for about $35.

Other purchases included gift items for Ken that he picked out throughout the day and some new items for me as well. No surprises here. Ken's already in "deployment planning mode" so we're trying to think of things he'll want to take to Iraq with him next year. He wants a digital camera of his own plus a small MP3 player for music (not an expensive one as one never knows what will get lost while over there). There were several good camera deals but we got to the stores too late to get them. I'm sure they'll be more sales later so I'll get him one soon.

Tonight, we're driving to Cedar Rapids, which is only 40 minutes away (people in Iowa speak about distance in terms of time, not mileage!), so that we can visit with my friend Lynsey who is in town with her husband and son for Thanksgiving with his family. They live in Wisconsin. Lynsey is my friend from my first year at UNI (1996) -- she lived across the hall from me in the dorms!

Well, I better get moving so we can get on the road! I have some wedding flower pictures to post sometime.

Thanksgiving On My Mind

I'm not thinking about Thanksgiving for food purposes -- I simply can't wait for the break! I have to teach on Monday this week, but then have the rest of the week off. Monday will be a busy day with grading and meetings in the morning, but students are working on revising now, so the ball's really in their courts, so to speak. I also have to go to my "new faculty" class tomorrow afternoon which is seriously a bore, but there's really no way out of it. It'll just make for a long day. The piles of grading on my kitchen table seem overwhelming, but just knowing I don't have to teach all week makes them seem much more bearable. I should have done more this weekend in terms of that, but I just didn't feel like it.

The weekend was pretty typical except my Aunt Beryl came in from Chicago for a visit, so we spent Friday night and Saturday afternoon at Grandma's visiting. Today after church, Ken and I did some errand running and then pretty much spent the day inside doing odds and ends around the house. He's been "working", i.e., watching football, and I've prepped class for this week, did laundry, graded one set of journals, and well, that's about it. Oh, I guess I did write the Xmas letter we'll send out this week. I just need to get it printed and get the envelopes mailed.

We had some light snow Friday night, which we awoke to Sat morning. I even had to clear off the driveway! That was kind of fun to have. Of course, it melted by late afternoon, so it wasn't a blizzard by any means. That's about it for things around here.

This weekend found us at home -- both of us at home. Thank goodness too because we've been running around like crazy. Friday night we just chilled at home with Sister Kathy who was in town. She and her daughter Kristina came by for a chili supper. Then Kathy left to take Kristina to her father's, returning later to stay over at our place. It was nice to catch up; plus having company forced me to clean the house Friday night instead of my usual Saturday morning deep clean. It was nice to wake up to a clean house on Saturday.

Having a Saturday at home meant trying to get projects done. I set Ken to work on cleaning out the garage that still hasn't recovered from our last summer garage sale. We really wanted to get it ready so that come the first big snowfall, one of us can park it in. We finally got the landlady to get Larry the Maintenance Man to get us a remote for the garage door, so we can enter without having to go into the side door first. After 5 months of waiting, she finally got him to do it and we now have a remote! Seriously, we probably should have just done it ourselves!

Anyway, Ken cleared out the remaining no-sell items and set them in the basement for next summer's sale, and we can now park in there. The only problem: it's a 1 stall garage, so we'll have to take turns. Ken says well each take it for a week at a time. I told him I get it the weeks that it snows! :)

A few weeks ago, Ken and I took a short overnight trip to Pikes Peak, IA -- a spot that's great for hiking and overlooks the Mississippi River near the Iowa/Wisconsin border. Here's a couple of pictures from the absolutely beautiful day. This is a black and white one I like of Ken walking toward the steps leading away from teh waterfall. It's a cool shot though you can't see how nice it actually was outside. The next picture is better for that.

And so, wedding plans continue to progress. Last week, we met with Pastor at church to discuss some of the details and this weekend had an appointment with the cake lady and met with one photographer. We still need to settle on a photographer and invitations. I'm planning to make some real "save the date" cards and get them out over Thanksgiving when I have more time. I feel like I'm saying that all the time! Well, I will meet with the person doing the flowers next Saturday, so hopefully, I'll get some good ideas for that then.

Who knew there could be so much work involved in getting one of these things ready? And to think that Ken and I are actually trying to do things on a much smaller, more simple scale!

Yay, Election!

So this was the first time I really truely remember being happy about an election! I was so excited to go home on Tuesday night after my UNI class to watch the coverage. Seriously, that has never happened before! Ken and I hunkered down at home in comfy pants with popcorn and watched the results come in. We stayed in the living room until about 9:30 at which point we decided to lie down and watch it all unfold. At that point Ken fell asleep, but I stayed up for another hour. The next thing I knew, I'd fallen asleep myself around 11, waking up long enough to decide that I really should turn the TV off and go to bed.

I wish I would have stayed up a little longer though as it was shortly thereafter that they called the election in favor of Obama! Yah hoo! I really wish I could have seen his speech and felt the excitement of the moment. I got up super early on Wednesday though and managed to catch most of the highlights on TV before heading to work.

It was such a good feeling to know that our country is starting to move in a different direction. Like so many others around me here at school and at home, I really feel hopeful that things will get better. And while we know the war isn't going to end anytime soon and Ken is going to have to go back to Iraq in May of 2009, at least I feel better knowing that someone is in the White House (or soon will be) that really and truely wants to get us out of these wars.

On my drive into work on Wednesday morning, it was a dreary rainy day, but as I made it up toward campus, the clouds broke and the sun peeked out. As I sat at a stop sign and looked to the right watching for oncoming traffic, I saw a rainbow -- a perfect rainbow! It stretched across the whole sky and even had a double band to it. I took a picture with my cell phone to remember it; now I really wish I had a picture for this blog. It just made me feel somewhat better about the state of things. I hope it's a good sign of what is to come with the new administration.