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I've been putting off writing these posts for a few weeks now, mainly because I'm lazy, but also because I wasn't sure what to write.  I started regularly blogging again in the second half of the year, so the first half of the year was a blur.  Luckily, I have my Facebook Feed, Twitter Feed and my Google Calendar to remind me what happened during that time.  So without further ado…I present to you the first installment of my 2011 year in review (better late than never).  I decided after writing out the first few months, it would be easier to break it down in 3 month chunks.  It's too overwhelming for me to write it all out at once.  I will continue with April-June tomorrow.

January

I was working at Kraft at the beginning of the year, and I just accepted a new Customer Service Coordinator position in December.  I was learning slowly that I hated the job and started looking for employment outside of the company.  I had an interview at a local paper company in Moosic on 1/14.  This was my second interview for this position at this company.  The last time I interviewed for the job was after I lost my job at Commonwealth/Frontier.  They passed on me then and passed on me again.  Oh well…their loss, not mine. 

I also got my performance review, in which I did really well, except Kraft restructured their rating systems, so I was only given an "average" review.  The company also did "average", so my yearly bonus was going to be next to nothing. 

I started taking my Spring semester class at LCCC – I only took one course – VB.Net.  However, with the stress of the new job, and all of the snow days that occurred, I ended up falling dangerously behind in the class.  More on that later.

I also started my Penn State SCM course which was something that was taken though Kraft at the office.  The latest course in this certificate program was "Transportation Systems"

I decided to join some of my former co-workers from my old department in a "Biggest Loser" competition at work.  Every Friday we'd pay 5 dollars and get weighed in.  Here's the problem:  I never seriously watched what I ate.  I think the first week I lost two pounds…anything after that, I stayed the same or lost maybe a pound. 

Oh yeah, and I thought I should maybe make the big switch to contacts from glasses.  I went to my doctors office to get fitted for contacts, which ended up being a complete nightmare the first time around. 

From my count Lake Lehman had 3 snow days, which means I worked from home 3 days – Jan 18, 21, and 31.

February

Another mainly boring and quiet month…this changes soon, I promise. 

There was a snow day to start off the month on February 1st.

Owen's Kindergarten registration started in February.  I took off time from work to take him to the programs, and before the end of the month he was ready for the fall. 

I had lunch with a "Senior" manager at Kraft….because I was forced to…not because I wanted to.  It was one of the "requirements" as a an employee new to the department that I moved to.  Don't get me wrong, the manager was nice enough, but I really hate eating lunch with people that I don't normally associate with.  I get terribly nervous that I'm going to say something stupid, spill something on myself or get stuff stuck in my teeth.  I made it out without any embarrassing incidents, thankfully.

I continued plugging away with my SCM class, the VB.Net class and the biggest loser competition. 

It snowed again on February 21st.  Yet another Lake Lehman snow day.  I usually like shoveling, but this was getting out of control.  On one of the snow days (although, I can't remember for sure which one…I interviewed with the Craft Oil company in Avoca for a Sales/Marketing Analyst position, I didn't get that job either)

I began to express how overwhelmed I felt with my new role to my supervisor and manager, we had a meeting on the last day of the month to discuss my concerns.

March

This is where things start to get interesting..

I took off 3 consecutive days on March 8th, 9th, and 10th to take care of some outstanding doctors appointments and also Owen had another Kindergarten Registration.  Owen's KG registration was on my first day off at 9am.  I was exhausted because the previous night, I had to pull an all-nighter because I needed to play catch-up with my VB.net course.  I think I maybe slept for 3 hours tops.  I got Gabby off to school without a hitch, and got Owen and myself ready and we went to the KG registration.  We were some of the first people there, so we got in and out pretty quickly.  After I returned home, I was called for a job interview at Geisinger in Danville.  It was a job I applied for in January, and they were just calling me….IN MARCH…to interview for the position.  After talking with the hiring manager, I decided it would be best if I drove down THAT SAME DAY to interview for the position.  Aye aye aye.  What is wrong with me?  During the drive, I was pretty sure that I was lost even though I had the GPS with me.  It took me through Millville and Iola, an area to which I've never traveled through.  If you haven't traveled through there, don't worry, you aren't missing much.  You could blink and be out of the town.  I felt the interview went positively, but I ended up not getting the job.  It was a shame, I really liked the hiring manager.

In the 3 day span that I was off, I also went to a hockey game.  Yay, I love going to hockey games!

Also, I decided to take my MOS 2003 exams, I passed the Powerpoint and Access exams with no issues.  Microsoft (those assholes!) decided to change the test requirements to get the MOS Master certificate.  Previously, you had to pass Word, Powerpoint, Excel and Access or Outlook.  Now you had to pass Word Expert and Excel Expert to get the MOS Master certificate.  I didn't think that this would be an issue…WRONG.  The expert test versions were extremely difficult and I failed them.  You can read more about it on my blog post here. 

In March, I signed up for 2 workshops at PSU for Adult CEU's.  They were taught by my VB.Net teacher!!  The first class was a Windows 7 overview, and the next class was a Transitioning into Office 2010 class.  I needed the training so I could prepare to take my Office 2010 MOS exams. 

I marched with Kraft Foods in the Wilkes-Barre St. Patrick's Day parade, which was televised on WYLN TV.  We had several costumed individuals, including the Kool-Aid man.  I suggested that we should have the Kool-Aid guy jump out of a brick wall, like he does on Family Guy.  We got some banner paper, drew a fake brick wall on it, and had him do that right near the mayor's judging station.  OH YEAH!  We also got the Oscar Meyer Wiener Mobile to show up.  Here's a photo with me and Gabby in front of it. 

After the parade, I put in my two weeks notice with Kraft.  I couldn't take another 10 hour work day and the stress that went along with having the work load of 2 people.  I did not have another job to go, but my mental sanity was at stake.  I left with the hopes that I would eventually find something better.  I had my fill of cookies and crackers.

I came to terms with the need to drop my VB.Net class.  I fell too far behind and there was no way to catch up.  I called my advisor and she understood my situation.  I made plans to stop on campus and meet with my advisor in person to formally drop the class.  I felt like a big fat failure.

I also scheduled surgery for women-related issues I was having, the surgery was to happen in April, but before that happened, I had to go for a slew of lab work before that could happen.  If you didn't already know, I FREAKING HATE BLOOD WORK.  You can read more on how much I despise it here. 

On the last day of the month, I had a job interview with the Topps Bubblegum/Baseball card company which ended up never materializing.  I was really starting to feel like something was wrong with me.  I kept going on all of these interviews and not a single solitary job offer.  I was seriously getting depressed.

In my Black Friday adventure (which you can read about here), I noticed that a lot of the stores we had traveled to had the following item as a doorbuster sale:

It is the "Discovery Kids Cardboard Color Me Play House", here's the link to the Amazon Product Page:  http://www.amazon.com/Discovery-Kids-Cardboard-Color-House/dp/B0045H4GNG/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

For the low low price of $27.99 this piece of cardboard can be yours for you children to decorate as they see fit.  Are.  Ya.  Kidding.  Me?  Whatever happened to normal cardboard boxes?  My brother and I were entertained for hours by old cardboard boxes from the grocery store or old appliance boxes.  We could have a fort, clubhouse, rocket ship, a car, or a castle all at the blink of an eye….and need I mention, it was FREE.  What the hell is wrong with these kids today?  Do they not have the imagination to come up with these ideas on their own? 

You know what I should do?  I should market a box containing pillows and blankets and call it "build your own fort" and sell it for 50 dollars.  Of course, now that I told all of my blog readers this, I'll have to kill you all.  Don't even try to steal this get rich quick scheme…IT'S MINE MINE MINE MINE.  ALL MINE.

Needless to say, my kids will not be getting a 28 dollar piece of cardboard from Santa this Christmas. 

When in doubt: go to food.

1.  What’s your favorite ice cream topping?

I like rainbow sprinkles.  That's it.  Nothing else.  I'm pretty boring with my ice cream selection too.  I usually only eat vanilla. 

2.  What’s your favorite pizza topping?

I like sausage and 'shrooms (of the non-psychedelic variety).

3.  What’s your favorite thing to sprinkle cocoa powder on?

I don't sprinkle cocoa powder on anything.  What an odd question to ask.

4.  What’s your favorite thing to put whipped cream on?

Hmmm….do I answer this question pervertedly or not….I keed, I keed.    My favorite thing to put whipped cream on is on a Strawberries & Creme Frappuccino from Starbucks.  This is my favorite drink to get from Starbucks, btw.  I almost fainted when I went to the webpage and noticed the amount of calories in one of those drinks.  But it is sooooooo worth it.

5.  What do you like to put upon a cracker?

I like cheese with my crackers.  I like cheese and crackers with my whine (which incidentally, I'll be doing a lot of this weekend given my most recent injury).

I haven't blogged all week because I was partially pissed at WordPress and partially busy with other things.

My WordPress to Twitter feed mysteriously stopped working after I unlocked my Twitter account for the POTUS visit and then re-locked it in the same day. I changed my password, and I suspect that may have been the cause of my grief. I spent 3 days fucking with it to try to get it fixed.  It turns out, I had to login and create a brand new "Twitter" app to allow oAuth access though the API.  After screwing with that for an hour or so yesterday, I got it working.  Hallejuah. 

Speaking of Twitter….

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I need to immediately stop the Twitter Timeline recap posts that appear on Sundays.  There's a long story there, that I really don't want to get into at the moment.

What else?

I installed a caching plug-in on WordPress in hopes that will speed up the load time of my blog.  I had a bitch fit with my hosting provider, Dreamhost, last week and they believe the problem to be on my end.  Trust me.  It isn't.  I'm on a shared hosting server, and the other domains hosted here are chewing up all of the server's allocated resources.  I'm not stupid.  But, I will do what they say to "optimize" my blog.  My next "opitmization" step will be moving my domain names to another provider.

I started a new blog, for photos only.  I take a lot of sunrise photos, and have been itching to try out Tumblr to see what the fuss is about, so I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone.  The new domain is http://sweetvalleysunrises.tumblr.com/.  I have it linked from my blogroll and also installed a wordpress widget to display some of the posts on my right side bar.  I'm sure you can view it now if you scroll down far enough.

That's all I got for now.  I'll be back to blogging more this weekend. 

I absolutely love this song.  It makes me feel at peace in a hectic crazy world.

I'm feeling particularly stressed at the moment with Gabby's Birthday party on Sunday, the upcoming holidays, and everything else imaginable.  The pain in my foot is only making things worse.  I need to watch this music video about 25 more times before I start feeling any better. 

1.  What’s your favorite thing about cold weather?

I actually like shoveling.  Does that make me the antichrist?  I was raised in the Poconos and shoveling equated to Snow Day.  I embrace shoveling like I embrace having a vacation day, even though that doesn't necessarily happen when there's a snowstorm.  Also, I go outside in the winter with short shorts and flip flops.  I could totally be in the polar bear club.  I just have to get over that whole "I don't know how to swim" thing.

2.  Soups and hot beverages seem to be everyone’s favorite cold-weather culinary combatant, but what’s another food that seems to take the bite out of the cold?

Spicy chicken wings and hard licquor.  I'm sure "Posts from the Fringe" is with me on this.

3.  When the weather is just starting to turn cold but is not yet in full frigidity, what do you add to your bed until it’s time to break out the heavy artillery? (I said what, not whom!)

I sleep on the couch.  I just add another blanket (crocheted by my grandmother).

4.  What household chore seems especially unkind in these colder months?

Gardening.

5.  Among people you know, who seems most oblivious to cold weather?

Me.  I walk outside without a coat and flip flops and people are all like "Aren't you cold?", "Where's your coat?", "What's wrong with you?".  I feel numb to it all, just like my toes do when I step foot in the snow.

Gabrielle turned 7 years old today.  SEVEN.  I am getting too old.  I still remember the day she was born like it was yesterday.

December 2004

Screaming, pooping bundle of joy.

December 2011

Second Grader Extraordinaire. 

Here's the Birthday Announcement:  http://www.timesleader.com/community/birthdays/Gabrielle_P__Davies_11-30-2011.html

I got to see the President of the United States on Wednesday when he visited Scranton. You can check out my Flickr Set of pictures to view how close we were.

Late last week, Karla Porter walked around the office and asked everyone if they would like to go see the President.  My answer was, of course, YES!  She had a connection to get tickets for the event and needed to respond quickly to reserve them. Fast forward to Wednesday morning.  I got to work late that morning because my son forgot his bookbag at the house, and was having a pantyhose-related wardrobe malfunction.  In addition to that, River Street was an absolute mess, so I detoured through Kingston.  As soon as I step foot into the office, Karla and Pam were ready to leave to start our journey to Scranton.  Literally, I walked into the office, set my stuff down, and walked right back out.  Best day of work ever!

Our first stop was Perkins in Pittston.  We needed the carbs to keep our energy up while standing in line.  I had already stopped at the McDonald's Drive-Thru in Shavertown on my way down, so I ended up only getting a plate of bacon and coffee.  It's a good thing that I did, because I didn't eat again until 8 or 9pm later that evening.  At the Perkins, we met up with Pam's friend's son who is a Political Science major at an area college.  After we finished up our breakfast we all hopped in the same car and headed to Scranton High School. 

No trip to Scranton, no matter who I go with, is complete without getting lost at some point.  I never know where I am going in that town.  In our case, the GPS was giving us two options for the same exact street address but with 2 different zip codes.  I had this problem a few weeks ago when I traveled to Harrisburg.  We ended up pulling over and asking someone how to get there, and luckily he pointed us in the right direction.  We parked the vehicle in some strip mall and getting on the shuttle bus, which took us right to the high school.  Then it was time to get in line.  We were almost toward the front of the line, but it was early and the doors were not opening until 12:30.  Here's a picture of my ticket w/ a glaring typo in it:

"Please not parking is limited".

Notice the "Admit One" yellow strip?  I quickly noticed that people standing around us all had different color strips.  I seen some blue strips, some red strips, yellow and orange.  I asked if anyone know what this meant.  No one was really sure if it meant anything or if the printer they were printed on ran out of ink.  I later found out that this strip determined which section of the Scranton High School Gym you were allowed to stand/sit in.  Yellow = Right in Front; Blue = Behind the podium of the president; Orange = Behind the yellow section.  I'm not sure about the red section, but I'm thinking they were probably in the bleachers. 

We stood in line for about 90 minutes which isn't a big deal if you consider how many hours I stood in line during the Black Friday nonsense (see previous post), however, it was COLD.  And….I decided to wear a skirt.  Not the brightest idea I've had in recent months.  Also, the pinched nerve in my foot was still bothering the crap out of me, so standing on the concrete was really taking its toll on me.  By the time we did get into the High School the only thing that I wanted to do, other than get warm, was to sit down.  Karla did not want to sit.  She wanted to get right in the front row so she could be face to face with the President.  I wasn't happy about this at first, but looking back, I'm so glad she dragged me (kicking and screaming) to the front row.

This is how far away we were from the stage:

You could have literally spit on the President, or threw a shoe at him (like some of my Facebook Friends were egging me on to do).  By the way, those lights on the upper right were messing up my photos.  Everything I was taking was super washed out in the upper right hand corner of my photos.  I was alternating taking pictures with my iPhone 4 and regular digital camera (a Fujifilm FinePix F72EXR).  

While standing in the front row, waiting for the President, we connected with some friends from Facebook that happened to be at the event as well.  Duke Dallas was sitting in the bleachers and Beth Hartman came down to stand with us in the front row.  I have photos of them in my Flickr gallery.  Someone decided to mention that I was going to be Live Tweeting the visit on Twitter, and my battery was running low the entire day (even with the charging case on my iPhone).  The word spread, and before I knew it, I went viral.  I felt responsible to share the experience with the Twitter community, so to conserve battery life I restricted my iPhone to the Edge Network, joined the wifi in the High School and turned the brightness on my phone ALL THE WAY DOWN.  These are all techniques I learned during Hurricane Irene (you have to learn to be stingy with battery life after not having electricity for 5 days).  My other challenge was finding a way to temporarily unlock my Twitter account without having access to a PC.  I had my brother do that.  I had to guide him how to do it through text message.  The Scranton High School wifi thing was funny.  They had the SSID and password to join on a paper taped to the floor, btw…password = 12345abcde.  At least it wasn't "hello" or "password".  I'm thinking this was probably for the members of the press that were stationed in front of us:

There was an Invocation, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the singing of the National Anthem.  President Obama was supposed to arrive at 2:45, but I feel like he got there before that.  I wasn't watching the clock though. Here he is, in the flesh:

I'm not much into politics, but President Obama is a great speaker, and you couldn't help but feel inspired after listening to him. 

After he was done speaking, he walked around and shook hands.  I got to shake his hand, although there are no photos of this because normally I try to be behind the camera, not in front of it.  This isn't the first time that I shook a President's hand.  I also had the opportunity to shake President's Clinton's hand back in the early 90s when he was campaigning.  He stopped at the Avoca airport and my Mom was able to score tickets from campaign headquarters.  After the hand shaking was complete, it was time to head home.  However, I received a direct message on Twitter from Chris Hughes at "Go Lackawanna" wanting to know if I'd do a phone interview with him.  Of course, I said YES.  Here's the article:  http://www.timesleader.com/news/Middle-class_message_receives_a_favorable_response_12-01-2011.html

Michelle Davies, of Sweet Valley, was in the front row for the speech.

“I was kind of hoping to hear some positive news about jobs and the economy,” she said. “I’ve been experiencing some trouble with the economy. Prices are all going up, and you’re not making any more money. I have two kids, so I have to be concerned about saving money for college along with trying to go back to school myself. I’m trying to balance my budget just like the president should be balancing the United State budget.”

• Karla Porter
  
• Yonki
  
• Gort
  
• The Blogfather
  

I'd just also state for the record that I did not break Gort42's blog.  Blogger broke Gort42's blog.  I trust Blogger with HTML code about as much as I trust my daughter left alone with a pair of scissors. 

I know everyone hates me and will throw things at me for posting that I went Black Friday shopping this year, but oh well.  I've been going Black Friday shopping every year for as long as I can remember with my Grandmother, Aunt and Mother.  It's kind of a sick and twisted Thanksgiving family ritual.  We put the fun in dysfunctional.

This year, our Black Friday actually started on Thursday evening…at 7pm to be precise.  The players:  My Mom, My Aunt and me.

Stop 1:  Toys R Us in Wilkes-Barre

They opened at 9pm on Thursday evening.  We got there early and found parking without a problem.  We then stood in line for approximately 90 minutes.  Toys R Us would only let in so many people at once due to the fire code occupancy regulations.  We got into Toys R Us easily enough, it was getting out that was the problem.  They had the store blocked off with various shelves, so you could only go into certain sections if you wanted to checkout.  The checkout line wrapped around the store.  Thank god I didn't have to buy anything!  Here's a picture of the line wrapped behind Toys R Us:

Stop 2:  Wal-Mart in Wilkes-Barre Township

I specifically recall a TV commercial from Wal-Mart that said "Don't stand outside in line, come inside where it's warm."  Yeah, not so much.  By the time we got to Wal-Mart (around 10:00pm), every parking spot in the parking lot was taken and two lines formed outside at each of the entrances to the store.  My Mom dropped of my Aunt and I to get in line while she tried to find a parking spot.  And, when I said every parking spot was taken…I literally mean, every parking spot was taken.  People even resorted to parking in nearby restaurants, hotels and quadruple parking (forget double parking)!  My Mom eventually found a spot, where no one else parked….BECAUSE A GLASS BOTTLE WAS SMASHED ALL OVER THE PARKING SPACE.  So what does she do?  Pulls in, and parks it.  I'm like "Well, at least we are at Wal-Mart if we need to buy a can of fix-a-flat."  I received a text message from a friend that told me that Wal-Mart was "at capacity" and the police made them lock the doors because of fire code regulations.  There was security standing at the door letting in people only as others were exiting the store.  After waiting around for about 20-25 minutes, we all finally got in the door.  The Wal-Mart commercial was chalk full of lies.  Here's a picture taken from the line at Wally World:

Wal-Mart has THE WORST setup for Black Friday that I've ever seen.  They have doorbusters, some started at 10pm, some started at 11pm and some started at midnight.  However, all of the electronics were at midnight.  If you wanted any of the electronic items, you needed to get a ticket and stand in a line which is nice because it makes it fair for everyone.  I'll give them that.  But here's what I really want to know:  How do they expect people to leave the building to make room for the others coming in if all of the specials start in 2 hours.  You have to stand in line for 2 hours to get something…therefore no one is leaving the store.  If no one leaves the store, no one else can get in.  I guess I'm the only person that is missing the logic in this setup.  Why not start the deals ALL AT THE SAME TIME?  Does an hour really make that big of a difference between the specials?

My aunt wanted a 13" TV that cost 98 dollars.  Both her and I got a ticket and stood in the line.  We had the third ticket issued for this item.  Once we got to the area of the store where the line was, we decided to sit on the floor and wait for midnight.  OH MY GOD.  You'd think we had just committed a mortal sin.  The Wal-Mart lady who was assigned to watch our line yelled at us and told us we were not permitted to sit on the floor because we could be trampled.  I looked around at the other people in line with us.  Two old ladies were in line with us.  Yeah, I'm sure Grandma will take us out with her Hoverround if we're not careful.  Are ya kidding me?  Meanwhile, we watched people walk past us with printers, computers, DVD players, freezers, and other "big ticket items" in their carts, but yet we have to wait until midnight to get a fucking 99 dollar no-name brand TV.  Makes perfect sense to me! 

Anyway, we people-watched for the next hour while waiting for the stupid TV.  Can I just ask….what the hell is wrong with people?  Do they not think about what they are wearing before leaving the house?  If your shirt doesn't cover your beer gut, don't wear it.  I think your jammies are adorable and all, but I don't think they are appropriate to wear in public.  Finally midnight arrived and we got the TV with no issues.  There was no trampling.  The line moved in an efficient and orderly manner.  By the way, I was up to Wal-Mart earlier today, and check this out: 

Look at how many fucking TVs are there now and at the same price!  Why does God mock me?  I'm debating on whether or not to sue Wal-Mart to get the 2 hours I wasted of my life in line back as well as other punitive damages.

Stop 3:  Target in Wilkes-Barre Township

All told, I'd say we got to Target around 1am.  Parking was no issue, because at that point they were already open for an hour.  Once again, here's another place that was easy to get into, but IMPOSSIBLE to get out of.  I forget who was going for what at this store, but I ended up walking out with a cheap DVD, a bottle of lemonade, earbuds and a tube of facial cleanser.  4 items, 30 dollars and 90 minutes of following the leader in the line maze that started way over in the frozen food section and we were finally on our way to our next destination.

Stop 4:  Kohl's in Wilkes-Barre Township

We got here about 3am.  We parked right up front and got right in.  There was hardly anyone shopping in the store…know why?  BECAUSE THEY WERE ALL STANDING IN LINE.  Don't get me wrong, every register had a person working at it, but it was the person at the beginning of the line directing people that was clueless.  They would make it so that only one person would go to one line at a time.  Wow.  Why not stack each line with 3 or 4 people to get things moving?  Why does it have to be so nitpicky?  I got all the way up to the check out and realized I didn't have my wallet.  Thus, my first panic attack of the evening began.  I figured I had left it at Target, or it was stolen or I dropped it somewhere.  Then I started thinking about all of the credit cards and ID that was in there and started hyperventilating.  My Mom tried to steer me in the direction of her car to check the back seat.  Yeahhhhh, it was back there.  Apparently, it fell out of my purse and I hadn't noticed.  Who can keep track of these complicated details when you've been up for close to 24 hours?  I took my wallet back inside and paid and left feeling like a big embarrassed dumbass.  Oh by the way, I seriously considered buying these shoes:

I get distracted by shiny things.

Stop 5:  The Mall / JC Penney's

At this point, I could not be more thrilled to see the sight of the Wyoming Valley Mall.  We rolled in here at 4:30, and my iPhone's battery was completely dead.  Twitter was keeping me entertained, so I had to figure out a way to charge the battery.  I took a walk down to FYE which did not have any iPhone battery chargers that would work for my purpose.  I needed an emergency charger.  The AT&T store did not open until 5am, so I had to kill some time.  I decided to walk around in Spencer's because I noticed that they had some funny hats.  I ended up buying one.

Also, did you know that they make Pacman Snuggies?  I had to take a picture to show to my friend Brian, because he'd never believe me.

Finally, the AT&T store opened and I was able to purchase the most awesome charging device known to man.  It's called the Mophie Juice Pack.  It's a charging phone cover.  Instead of charging your iPhone, you charge the cover essentially giving you double battery life.  You can check out more about it here if you are so inclined.

Stop 6:  Toys R Us in Wilkes-Barre

Yep.  At around 7:30am we went back to Toys R Us, because going once wasn't enough abuse.  This is the part where I began to get irritated with my Mom.  She wanted to buy Gabby and Owen something each for Christmas and Gabby's birthday.  Fine.  But, I don't know what to tell her to get because Gabby lost her wish lists.  She kept asking if she should get this, or get that.  I DON'T KNOW.  JUST PICK SOMETHING AND GET IT.  I was less than amused.  We were in Toys R Us for what seemed like an eternity.  I was seriously considering committing suicide with a nerf gun. 

Stop 7:  K-Mart

After the hell that was Toys R Us part deux, we made a pitstop at Dunkin Donuts to have a quick breakfast.  We couldn't go to the one near the mall because there was no where to park, so we stopped at the on on 309 by K-Mart (after the big cow).  The girl behind the counter screwed up my order three times over.  I mean really, how hard is it to get a sausage sandwich and a coffee wrong, but I digress.  According to my Foursquare, we got to K-Mart at 952:am.  K-Mart was pretty busy, but nothing like Wal-Mart or Toys R Us.  We had no trouble finding parking or getting checked out here.  I didn't buy anything, but my Mom did.  I forget what.  She was also picking up stuff for people she worked with so it may have been for one of them.  She's nuts.  I found these rejected gifts for your the special people on your Christmas list this year:

A Santa Thong, with free included Santa Sack.  I laughed so hard when I seen this (probably because I was punch-drunk due to lack of sleep).  How can you go wrong when you are getting Santa's sack free with this purchase?  You know what I say, if its free its for me!!!!  Anyone who's on my "naughty" list this year will be getting one of these.

Come on, is this for real?  It can't possibly be real.  A THREE WOLVES SHIRT IN MY LOCAL K-MART.  This is almost too much for my giddy geek heart to handle.  By the way, if you aren't getting the geek reference on this, then you need to check out this:  http://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Three-Wolf-Short-Sleeve/dp/B002HJ377A – Read all of the comments, from top to bottom.  You will piss your pants with laughter.  I think I originally learned about this from Slashdot.

Stop 8:  Boscov's in Downtown Wilkes-Barre

You know, I love me some Boscov's.  If I ever met Al Boscov in person, I'd probably pinch his cheeks.  At around 11:15am we rolled into the parkade at Bosco's.  We headed for the curtain section first which is on the 4th floor.  I sat down on the floor, indian style and waited while my Aunt and Mother perused the selection.  I was just there last month, and didn't feel like looking through everything again.  Yeah, sitting in the curtain section.  I am a rebel. 

Something you should know about Wilkes-Barre Boscov's….in case you have never been there before, know that it is hotter than the surface of the sun inside of that building.  Do not bring a coat.  I don't care if it's 35 degrees below zero outside.  Do not bring in a coat, trust me.  You will melt.  On Black Friday, the temperature of Boscov's seemed ok.  However, I found out something new.  The lower the floor, the hotter the temperature.  It's like taking the escalator to hell if you go down to the basement.  We spent most of our time in the basement, because that's where all of the kitchen crap, toys and savings auditorium are located.  I just about damn near had a heat stroke.  I didn't bring my coat, but I was wearing a light sweater layered under a tank top.  MISTAKE.  I found a new toe ring!

My Mom was feeling ill after that, so this was our last stop, we drove back to my Grandmothers, and I drove home after that.  This was around noon.

The damage:  I figure I spent about 150 on stuff I probably didn't need.  I got a few Christmas gifts.  We shopped for close to 18 hours.  I was awake for roughly 32 hours. 

Also, I think that all of the walking and activity injured my foot.  I woke up writhing in pain and couldn't feel the toe and outer step of my left foot.  I thought for sure I was having a stroke or the diabetes grim reaper was coming to pay me a visit. 

Cue late night, Black Friday-related panic attack #2 (this happened on Sunday evening).  As soon as I was able to, I called the doctor in the morning.  After looking over my foot and poking and prodding around, he determined that I have pinched nerve somewhere in the left part of my left foot.  There apparently is no magic cure for this.  Basically, you just have to wait it out.  Let me just tell you….I'm not happy about this.  I'm ready to call for a second opinion.  Like, I know my pinky toe is physically there, but I can't feel it.  All I feel is numbness and tingling.  It's not a fun time.  At all.

Still in all, I look forward to the Black Friday adventures again next year. 

I must be crazy.  But between me and you, all of the good people are.