Pushing and Shoving and Sales Oh MY - Black Friday

Who would want to go out on Black Friday??? Not me! I got talked in to going out on Black Friday - Why you ask? I have no idea. I told you before that I don't like to spend money, and there is nothing much that I need, so why would I do such a thing? My brother, that's why. My brother got this hairbrained idea that he wanted my mom to take him out early on Black Friday. We don't like to shop when it is necessary, or when we want something, why now? He thought it would be an adventure. An adventure? It was. We have a friend that is a girl, that we have been friends with since I was 4 years old, so she calls herself our sister, and she decided that she wanted to go out on this Black Friday adventure too. She is a tiny thing, not even 5 foot tall, so I thought I should go with them? Protector? Studpid? Of course we did not go to bed until late or early, depending on who you are talking to. My brother got up at 4 am ready and raring to go. So we got up and out the door, our destination? Walmart. The traffic was horrible, the parking lot was mass chaos, and we haven't even parked the car yet. Getting in the door was not so bad, but then the obstacle course started. Where did all of these people come from? Where did they get all of the money for all the stuff in their buggies? Where did the lines start and stop? Where to go first? Electronics of course, the most crowded area of the store. By this time all of the TV's were gone, the one thing my mom wanted, we should leave. No! Ashley spotted the sale movies, and the craziness swallowed her up. In a matter of minutes, she had a stack of movies. I got in line for a game I wanted, and then had to get the Best Buy ad to price shop, but I did get a good buy, now I am ready to leave. Leave? No chance, we have to get in line to pay for the movies. We stand in line for 2 hours to pay for her movies. $115.00 worth of $5.00 movies, she will have a lot of TV time in her future. She is happy she came, she got a lot of movies for not a lot of money and 3 Christmas gift bought too. Guess what happened next? We had to stand in line for another 20 minutes to get our ticket scanned and marked to get out of the store. Where to next? Best Buy! Not a whole lot there, some movies and a deal on I tune cards, although we did get a good deal on a Digital Picture Frame. By now we are starving, here we come McDonalds. After we got some food for nourishment, we head off to the mall. We about got sideswiped, had to park at the back of beyond, but we made it to Aeropostle. You would not have believed the line in there, it was as bad as Best Buy, I went off and left them to walk in the mall. I did go buy a couple of Video games and a book. We are all tired and are ready to leave, and my brother gets another brilliant idea - let's go to the movie - he will pay. This is another miracle, but he did get a movie gift card for his birthday, and he loves movies, and has not been for a few weeks, but Twilight?? I am thinking, what the heck, at least I can sit down for a couple of hours. It was a couple of hours I will never get back, but he enjoyed it. Now to eat and go home. I took my food to go, got home, ate it and decided I would lay down for a few minutes to get rid of this Black Friday headache I had gotten. I woke up at 12:30 am, just as everyone else was on their way to bed. I think next year, I will find my adventure by staying in bed.

Family Holidays

My family, like countless others are nuts. I am a quiet, laid back kind of a person but I am used to the chaos of my family. This year has been no different. We usually spend Thanksgiving with my dad's parents. They don't live far away or anything, only about 45 minutes, but my mom's mom lives in the same town as us, and we see her pretty often. We used to try to have lunch at my dad's parents and then dinner with my mom's, but we were always still full, and my mom felt so guilty about my Nana cooking that we just quit going over there, and usually got together sometime the weekend after Thanksgiving to celebrate my Papa's birthday on the 27th. This year my Papa has been in Florida and was coming home for the week of Thanksgiving, so my mom thought she would cook and have both sets of grandparents over to our house for Thanksgiving. Her parents were leaving on Friday the 27th, to go back to Florida for a cruise, and for the first time in her life, her parents were not going to be home for Christmas. So she wanted to be able to spend some time with her dad and her mom before they left. She told my dad's mom about what was going on and asked them to come over for Thanksgiving dinner at our house, but my maw-maw said NO! She said that they would just go out and eat or something, and maybe she would cook and we would come over later or over the weekend. Not very likely, my mom was ticked. She was very hurt and angry. My mom does a lot for others, and she always makes sure that my grandparents get to see us, by taking us to visit them, without my dad and other things she does. So she was very hurt. She told my Nana and Papa that she would cook for them, but my Papa said NO, we would just go out to eat at Cracker Barrell or someplace else. On Wednesday night, my dad was talking to his mother, and she told him that she had been cooking all day, and that even if we didn't get to come out there and eat with them, that he should make a trip over there to pick up the food that would be left. There are only two of them, and she had cooked for all of us, even though my mom had told her we would not be there. I thought that would be the end of it, but on Thanksgiving morning, my Maw-Maw called my mom, who did not answer, my brother, who did not answer, and my dad, who did not answer, but she left a message for him. A message of guilt, that she had cooked all of this food, and she hated to see all of it go to waste and she hoped we could come over later that day or maybe Friday. My mom was seeing red by then, but always feeling sorry for others, told my dad that he should take me and my brother out to his mom's house to eat Thanksgiving dinner with her. My dad and I did go, which I hope made my grandmother happy. My mom and brother went out to eat with our other grandparents, who would have been happy no matter what had happened that day. Everyone got fed and everyone had someone to visit with.
My mom on the other hand is still ticked, so it is anybodies guess at what will happen at Christmas.

I Phone/ My Phone

Okay on with the story of my brothers new phone. He was going to turn 16 on the 17th of Novemeber, and he wanted a phone as his gift. He waited the whole week, without much comment or complaining, but when Friday came around, as soon as my mom picked him up from school, he was ready and waiting to go to the A T & T store. We get there, get signed in, and ask for the same salesperson that my dad used the week before. We figure we had traumatized her enough that week, that even though he knew exactly what he wanted, she deserved the commission from the sale. Of course he had to look and play with several other phones, even though he knew he wanted an I Phone. My birthday is coming up at the end of December, and my mom kept asking me if I wanted a new phone too. I have an old flip phone, over 3 years old. It has none of the bells and whistles, and I rarely use the phone. Like I have said before in the blogs, I have very little to say, and even less to say on the phone. The only reason I got the phone to start with, is because everyone else in my family had cell phones, and my mom decided to get rid of our home phone. Since I was at home for most of the day by myself, doing schoolwork, and my mom never knows what will come up for her in the day, where she may have to go, who she has to pick up, etc. etc., she wanted me to have a phone to reach her, and for her to reach me. So I agreed to get the phone. I probably have used the phone a total of 30 minutes in the 3 years I have had it. The I phone looked really cool, and it has a lot of good qualities and applications, even some that will come in handy, so I told her sure go ahead and get it for me. Let me say, I hate to spend money, even other peoples money, especially if I feel like it is being wasted, and I thought this would be a big waste, the cost of the phone and the cost of the plan every month. My brother and I both got I Phones, and have been having a blast with them. He has a lot of stupid apps on his, and I am sure he thinks the same as mine. The phone has come in handy a couple of times already, we looked up directions, a phone number and I can get onto the school website to check emails and other things. I still don't talk on the phone, and I have only sent about 5 texts, but I am enjoying the phone. So maybe it wasn't a waste after all.

My brothers breakthrough.

Well, I told you the story of my dad and the trip to the A T & T store to get a new phone, what I didn't tell you was that my younger brother ( I can't say little brother, because he is a little taller than I am, and outweighs me by about 40 pounds but is 3 years younger) wanted a new phone too. My mom spent so much money on my dad's phone and all of the accessories he wanted that she told my brother he would have to wait. Usually this would have brought on a 3 hour rant, but tonight, and I still cant believe this, he just said okay. First let me tell you that I thought my Nana and Mom were going to have heart attacks, they didn't. Next I could not believe my ears and eyes. Lastly, my mom kept waiting for something to be said or done to make him blow his top, but all that was said was when can I get my new phone. She told him he would have to wait until the next Friday when she got paid. That was it. Well, not really, but all it took was for him to get a TGIF meal in him to put it to rest. Maybe their is hope for him after all, he truly is growing up and maturing. Or maybe he just has gotten really good at faking us out. We will have to wait this week and see.

Another Week

It has been another wild week at my house. When I left school on Friday the 6th, my mom said we needed to stop by her friends house. Her dad has been sick with cancer, and was not doing very well that morning, and neither was her friend. I really wanted to go back home, eat and lay down, but I knew this was important to my mom. So we went for what was suppose to be a short visit. It turned out to be an all day long event. With my mom helping her friend feed, wash up, and help this man to the bathroom. I stayed out in the car for awhile, read a magazine and even went to go get a haircut. I thought we would leave after I got my haircut, but we stayed even longer. I am a pretty easy going person, but this was not what I wanted to be doing on a Friday, and actually, I had an English paper I needed to be working on. When we finally left that night, hungry and tired, my mom was apologizing to me. I told her it was no big deal. She just kept trying to tell me that sometimes, we have to do things we don't want to do. Sometimes we need to put other peoples wants and needs ahead of ours. I thought about that, I already knew that was true. Our friend passed away on November 10, 2009, after battling cancer for a year. A year is really not a long time, and his health was pretty good until the last month, but he was in tremendous pain, and we wanted to be happy he was no longer suffering. Then came the call..... "Do you think Zac would be a pallbearer for dad?". My mom said yes, without even asking me. When she did ask me, she again apologized that she has said yes without asking, and told me I did not have to be a pallbearer if I did not want to, they would all understand. I did not really want to do this, I did not know any of the other pallbearers, as they were from his extended family. My parents talked about it being an honor to be asked, again, there are things we have to do in life that we don't want to do. So me being me, and like in my other blogs, I truly do try to do the right thing, I said if no one else is willing to do this, I will. I had to sit right in front of the casket, at the front of the funeral home, my mom right behind me. You know what I found out? It was not as bad as I thought it would be. Isn't that the way life is? If we would just go ahead and jump in and get the job done, it might just turn out, it wasn't, isn't and won't be as bad as we thought it would be. Go live your life!!!!

Decisions

Again, I have put off the "Blog". I have come to think of this as a major chore. I keep going back to the thought that my musings are not very thought provoking or interesting, but this is an assignment that is required of me. So I tried to think about what has gone on the last few weeks. Not alot in my mind, other than the English paper, math exam, and Psychology paper I had due. The Communication paper about put me over the edge though. I could not pick a topic, which is becoming a topic in itself. My mom is continually picking at me that my decision making skills have become almost non-exsistant since I started college this fall. Where did they go? This is something I am going to have to think about. But I am not going to think of it as a topic. My topic for this blog is going for more than we need. My dad, who is a workaholic, broke yet another phone. Lately it has been only the phone cases he seems to destroy, but this time it was his phone. Last year he decided he needed a Blackberry, it would help him keep his work in check. That was a laugh, and a clue that this was not going to turn out well. But he got the Blackberry and the $30 extra a month Media package. So he has been paying for this Media package that he has used twice in the year. He never did take the time to set up his email on the phone, or anything else for that matter. So when "the phone came out of its case, and flew across the floor", the pearl that manipulates the menu, broke. Actually, it shattered, and the piece of metal that held it in place was never found. So now he decided that he needed an I Phone, and not just the 3 GB I Phone, the most expensive one. That and a hands free device, and a solar speaker for the car, and a case - a shell to protect the phone and a belt holder, a car charger, and extra wall charger and last but not least an extended battery pack, because the battery does not hold its charge for long usage. I thought my mom would have a cow in the A T & T store, but she didnt, although that would have been fun to see. So it has been several days now, and finally he asked me to set up his email account. I did this in no time, but he has not even figured out how to set up his voice mail. This will be another case of having something more than you need. When will we ever learn? I dont hold out much hope for him.

Volunteer

Do you ever think about what we could do, if only we would? I do. I think of all the things I want to accomplish, and should accomplish, but don’t ever take the time or initiative to get them done. I like to volunteer. I think it is a way to help out the world, for very little expense (time or money). Recently, I volunteered 2 hours of my time, not much. I could have been writing this BLOG or studying for my PSYCH test, but I decided to go and spend some time filling boxes. When I signed up for my 2 hours, I thought, do I really have time for this, and then when I saw the pictures of all those starving kids, I thought, how can I not? There are 18,000 children, under the age of 5, dying everyday from starvation. Then I thought about how we complain when our pizza arrives 5 minutes late. Most of us have food at almost instant disposal. So today, in 2 hours, I helped a group of 300 people, fill 365 boxes with 72,840 meals inside. This will feed 216 children, 1 hot meal a day, for 1 year. Amazing Then I bought a T-shirt for $15.00, which $10.00 of that will go to feed a child. This will feed a child for 59 days. I also donated some money, as well as my time and when it was over I felt a whole like I actually did something, and was surprised at how fast the time flew by. When they announced that we only had 10 minutes left, I wondered how that could be, it seemed like we had only just gotten started. It made me think of all the opportunities that are around for volunteering, and why people don’t volunteer more. Be it Time, Transportation, Greed or Uncertainty all of which are obstacles that can all be overcome, and the feelings you get for helping out, far outweigh the little bit of effort and time we give up. So as the Holiday Season approaches, the volunteer opportunities are abundant. Take the time to do some research, and go out there and make a difference in the world.