Black Friday

On Friday, we woke up a bit early…2 a.m. to be exact to check out the Black Friday Sales. I had never been out that early on Black Friday and I really wanted to give it a try, so I convinced Alex to join me and we ventured out in to the great open wild of Black Friday. We arrived at Kohl’s at 3:15 a.m. (15 min) after the store opened and there was already a line forming with over 100 people in it. We promptly left the store and headed to JcPenny to wait until they opened at 4 a.m. We I had a lot more success at JcPenny. A few things I picked up include:

Except mine is red.

Another pea coat in black and white

tights, tights, and tights

watch

new pillows

By then I was all tired out and wanted to go back home and sleep. We spend the rest of the morning sleeping and did some online shopping in the afternoon. Ann Taylor was having a 40% off sale, so of course I hit that up. A few things I purchased include:

Skinny Jeans

Gold Belt

Sooo..my thoughts on the early morning Black Friday shopping experience….anyone who can do that every year…KUDOS to you! It is not for me, but hey maybe if a store had a good enough deal I would think about it again… J

Thanksgiving 2010

This is the second year that I wasn’t able to go back to ND to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. L Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays with the great food, family, and all of the things that we can be thankful for. Since I was unable to leave TX this year, Alex made the trip down here to celebrate with me. A.K.A Our FIRST Thanksgiving Alone Together…EEEK!

He ended up leaving Wednesday after work, so he didn’t arrive until about 10 a.m. on Thursday morning. When he got here we took a quick nap and then I started in on preparing our Thanksgiving feast.

Even though there were only two of us, I wanted to prepare all of our favorite foods. The list included:
· Crescent wrapped brie
· Ham – I don’t do poultry
· Pioneer Woman’s Mashed Potatoes

· Brown Gravy
· Rolls
· PW’s Green Beans
· PW’s Corn Casserole
· PW’s cranberry sauce
· Olives – When you were a kid did you put the black olives on your fingers, too? Alex still does this.
· Blueberry Cobbler
I think we may have a thing for recipes from Pioneer woman!

Everything turned out great, but there was a quick mix up in the kitchen. I was setting out all of the food and was telling Alex it was time to eat and as we started to dish up our food I realized I totally FORGOT to make the mashed potatos…so we took a 30 minute break while I quickly whipped some up.

After we ate, we spent the afternoon watching Grownups and Toy Story 3.







Grownup was completely hilarious. I would definitely recommend it if you want a good laugh. Toy Story 3 was very cute and a great ending to the series…trust me you will want to check it out.

Thanksgiving day was a total success and I can’t wait to see where we spend it next year…hopefully with our families.

Relief

RELIEF....Is exactly what I felt at 10:39 a.m. today when I turned in my thesis to my major professor! I won't lie I haven't been able to stop smiling all day. Yes, I still have a million things to do like:
* Prepare for my defense
* Read more papers
* Pack
* Get more my lab notebooks in order, so that future students know what I did
* Make corrections to my thesis
* Finish doing my orthogonal contrasts
* Have I mentioned starting to pack?
* Finish my experimental design test

But when I came back to my desk this morning all I could think about is WOW! I have nothing to do. The last 6 months have been crazy as I have been trying to finish up and the last month has not been fun. Too many 15 hour workdays at school before heading home to work on the comfort of my couch, but for right now it is done.

So, what am I going to do with my free time??? I am going to actually try to start blogging again. Maybe if I get in the habit of it now, I will keep it up when things start to get crazy as I begin my PhD next spring. Plus, I need a way to document my final 30 days in Texas...wait make that 29 days! Can't even believe I am saying that either...it seems like just yesterday I was moving here and didn't know how I was going to last more than two days living this far south. Now I am actually starting to feel a little emotional...ha!

Have a great day. And Go State!