Ugh, I have a headache that won't quit. Today I have already done 30 minutes of work (blech) and now I need to finish dishes from yesterday, do some homework, start switching decorations over from fall to Christmas, and do a bit of online shopping. Over the weekend I plan to start on addressing holiday cards, do more crafting for Kelly's wedding, and sleep as much as possible.

Made agreement with family that we are only doing $30 gifts this year, except for mac.

I think I spent all I can for the next couple of weeks. car stereo & install was $361. Getting up early saved me enough to get it connected to the steering wheel controls which adds more safety for mac. Still, that's a chunk of change.

Seeing the everything 50% signs in Old Navy was too tempting, so I dropped over $100 there.

Then two little stops at BB&B for a new duvet cover, and B&N for Pops. Those two together came in under $50 since I also hit sales at both.

Done for the day/week.

Thanks to Black Friday, I got a baby shower gift for Tim's nephew's GF. And I will probably restock our razors because Dorco has 50% off everything. Land's End also has 50% off everything, but I don't really need anything Lands End-y.

I was surprised at how little I wanted from Lands End, that they had in my size, anyway.

My family decided to do all books, no drawing names, which is fine but I really only know what to get for a couple of people, and now there are 10 to buy for.

Strix, your 'friend' is being a jerk.

In other news, I had a very Buffista moment at Thanksgiving yesterday. The conversation at the table turned to grammar and (im)proper word usage.

A family friend who was sitting next to me talked about how when he was young, he had a teacher who insisted that you should never use 'hopefully' to indicate that you were hoping for a certain outcome, and that you should instead say 'it is to be hoped that.' 'Hopefully' should be only be used if you are talking about doing things in a hopeful manner.

Before anyone else could chime in, I said: "Well, hopefully these days people aren't so pedantic about it."

Ha! Hopefully no one will count my hopefully abuses.

As usual, I am pretty awful at Christmas shopping. I just suck at it. I need to figure out a way of getting my MIL to do it for me because she rocks at shopping.

We're not doing gifts this year, since we're spending so much on the Africa trip. It's really quite relaxing.

Took the dog for a walk, and coming back into the house I realized that I was so tired last night, that I put my compost in the recycling bin. Woops!

Just had the mandatory first slice of leftover pie for breakfast. Tasty! It's apple-cranberry-cherry, just tart enough.

Now I should get off my ass and see if I can get a massage somewhere...

In handing out printed recipes to my minions yesterday I inadvertently gave a really rather complex one to my DIL. (shifting from son's girlfriend to daughter-in-love because this is totally happening, they are getting ready to put an offer in on a house together) Anyway, she really has zero experience cooking, but is all up for learning, and this cranberry gingerbread recipe from the NYT was challenging for her, but 100% yummy. [link]

shifting from son's girlfriend to daughter-in-love

That is so sweet!

I was so prepared to be stressed out yesterday, but Thanksgiving went pretty smoothly for me. I'm feeling it right now, though, I guess my brain is burning off all the residual anxiety it had stored up. It doesn't help that there is absolutely nothing to do here at work today.

Of course, my analyst took the day off today; this is the one day of the year that need therapy the most!