Stimulating the Economy

Happy Belated Turkey Day, Blogworld!





Thanksgiving was a joyous celebration here at casa de phillips as we enjoyed the company of various of Tobe's family members. This year I was in charge of the turkey (and various other things) and am happy to report that as of right now (Saturday afternoon) no one is dealing with food poisoning due to eating undercooked poultry (however, two are dealing with stomach issues....but we are blaming that on some Cracker Barrel eaten last night and not my little turkeys I prepared). I brined one turkey breast overnight in a solution of apple cider, salt, and fresh herbs and coated the other in a mixture of fresh herbs. Both were roasted in the oven inside a brown paper bag and came out quite juicy for turkey, a meat known to be dry. I was a tad bit proud of my accomplishment.

Here is a photo of a portion of our Thanksgiving Group

My Black Friday actually began on Thursday when my incredibly gracious mother-in-law offered to meet me at Garden Ridge in order to buy a new Christmas tree for our little home (she drives a mini-van...aka The Nana Mobile....that was big enough to cart the tree to our house). Although we arrived a mere 20 minutes after the doors opened that Thursday, there were only a handful of trees remaining. We were able to load one up in our basket and I only managed to knock over one display and run into my MIL a handful of times while I attempted to navigate a shopping cart filled with a 7 foot pre-lit tree.



Friday morning I got up way before the sun to hit a few Black Friday sales. I had attended a Black Friday sale at our local Wal-Mart a few years ago and found the whole experience to be relatively calm and organized. Not the case this year my friend. Wal-Mart was a mad house at 4:52am and I had quite the difficulty locating the cheaply priced portable DVD player I was in search of (ours broke a while back). Seems people get a little crazy over reduced televisions and computers and are a bit grouchy so early in the morning. I eventually had to abandon my shopping cart in the lingerie section (one spot where electronics were being sold...not sure why) and contemplated crawling over racks in order to escape, as I tend to experience a tad of the claustrophobia in large, pulsating crowds. I secured a DVD player and then set out for the Crayola Wonder Magic Paintbrush set, which apparently was a hot ticket item. Once I found the display, I was left looking at empty shelves. I questioned a lady who happened to have one of these toys in her basket if she had found it somewhere else. Nope. Seems she had been standing in line in front of the display a little after 4am to get one. Who knew that I should have ran for the Crayola item first?



I eventually left Wal-Mart and the crazy people getting a tad too worked up over Kung-Fu-Panda being sold for seven bucks and set out for Target. As I was exiting my car to join the ranks in line outside Target's door (who did not open for another half hour), the skies opened up and rain began to POUR. Now I love me a good bargain, but not enough to stand in the rain. I waited patiently in my car with a good library book and didn't join the line until the last five minutes of wait time. I was pleasantly surprised how organized Target was with their sale and am happy to report that I was able to locate a Crayola Wonder Magic Paintbrush set at a cheap price. I hit a few other stores that morning, one being a local unique toy store that was selling everything at 30% off. I eventually made my way back home, with several names crossed off our Christmas list.



Yesterday afternoon we attempted to take the children and some relatives up to our local tourist trap hotel to be awed by their Christmas decorations,but the line to even park one's car was at least 30 minutes long. We settled on a trip to the local Cracker Barrel for some tasty eats and yummy desserts.



Today has been all about the Christmas decorations and it currently appears as if some sort of holiday bomb exploded in our living room. My way of decorating for Christmas is a slow, intricate process that requires me to do the majority of it myself. The family is eagerly awaiting trimming the tree, a decorating event everyone can participate in. Hopefully I will have done the rest sometime soon so we can all adorn our new little tree.



Hope everyone is finding something to enjoy about their holiday weekend!