Pink Thoughts

After failing to keep up with nablopomo this month, my incentive to post has trailed off it seems. I do want to recap some of the highlights of thanksgiving weekend

Wednesday: Alan's class international feast. Alan sang well and his cookies (the Lofthouse sugar cookies) were a hit. But a lot of the international food was enjoyed more by the parents and teachers than the kids. Alan's teacher was very smart and brought in pizza (representing Italy) - I think just about the entire class ate that!

Thursday: Thanksgiving at my cousin's. We had my cousin, his wife, their 3 children, his mom, his ex-wife, her dad and her niece and us. Although it sounds weird, everyone gets along. And even though my cousins children are much older than Alan (they are 18, 15, 12) - they have fun with him. I can't believe the youngest is getting bat mitzvahed in June. I remember the first Thanksgiving I was at my cousin's - on my own after seperating and moving out from my ex's - she was a little 3 month old sleeping in a baby car seat (bucket) in the corner! A lot has changed since then (1997)!

Friday: I got up and did my black friday shopping. I was able to get everything I really wanted with not too much hassle. One freebie at Staples was gone and Rite Aide had only 1 of the 2/1.00 Hot Wheels left when I was there. I did score the 3.00 coffee maker @ Target (cheaper than a garage sale one for camping) and the Nintendo DSI bundle for Alan (still in my car trunk). I did make the mistake of going by Toys R Us for a gift for a charitable item I am doing. The specific item apparently is an exclusive to them but wasn't on special sale. Seeing that the line was 1/2 way around the store after 9 AM, I bailed. I was also quite happy to find a pair of jeans for 10.00 at Sears that fit. So I have 2 pairs of nice jeans (from Sears and Walmart - no expen$ive ones for me) - I am glad that I figured out with stretch jeans I need to go down 1 size and get petite ones.
Also on Friday, DH's family reconnected with a long lost cousin and her family that had moved to Florida 30 years ago. My SIL googled them on Thursday and on Friday e-mail and phone calls were exchanged. I said hi, although I'd never met the person before. They had moved to Florida to get a new start because one of the sibilings was having legal trouble as a juvenile. Oddly enough this cousin is a business owner with a judge as a long term girlfiend!

Saturday: Stuck at home waiting for Verizon to fix the connection issues that I had been having. The service window was 8-5. I ended up calling 3x that day as I heard nothing. I was on the phone at 4:45 only to be told they weren't coming and had been doing stuff from the outside - anyway I did get them to send a new modem and will be continuing to complain to the higher ups - the whole process has involved long holds waiting for the "CENTRAL OFFICE" which I can not talk to directly and lots of miscommunication. Sadly, I'm not sure what alternatives we have here other than Verizon. We checked out Time Warner (my other dislike) and they didn't have any good deal and google hasn't turned anything else up for residential DSL. (Windstream looked good, but they don't service NJ). (We face the wrong way for sattlelite).

Sunday: Looked at a house FSBO by owner in our town - turned out to be too much work at the price for us to move to and not really a property that could be rented. We met with friends and their friends at the local bowling alley - the kids bowled one game, Alan got 2 strikes and scored a 99 (with bumpers, but still very good). Later we went to the park and Alan tried his Razor Scooter a little. I'm glad I got him the basic one and not the fancy Spark model (some sort of sparks appear when you use the brake).

I ended up writing a bit didn't I? I guess I've been the blogging equivalent of tounge tied lately!

I forgot nablopomo last night again :(

Managed to lock myself out of the apartment doing laundry again and while DH and Alan were on errands. I was supposed to be cleaning for friends coming for dinner who cancelled - sort of at the last minute. So we have 5 lbs of marinated chicken. But others are coming over later, so we will cook it and enjoy anyway. And I did get some cleaning done, place looks better.

Something wound up in the trash while cleaning up, fortunately it was found before the bag was tossed and the items were still in their bag from the store, so no harm done.

Just feeling lazy but need to get ready and stop wearing messy knockaround clothes.

Although stymied by a last minute room change (and fear of not having a room available). I did get my presentation done today. What a relief!

We have a big international feast at school next week. We are doing "USA" for lack of any distinct ethnicity (county specific). The teacher was fine with that, I just hope I can track down his favorite Loft House cookies. We brought them for his star of the week/birthday treat since we happened to pass a Superwalmart that sells them. The company website doesn't list specific stores that carry them which is annoying. Our Shoprite doesn't always carry them, so hopefully I can find a nearby supermarket that does.

The monitor is looking really blurry now, so I'm going to crash for the night.

Overdue Library Books Returned Half-Century Late

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I'm impressed that the books were returned!

Not sure if it was the day off or other things but at least today I didn't feel all grumpy and grouchy. But I was working from home today (and made spinach lasagna). We'll see tommorrow.

I'd write more but someone doesn't want to go to bed and is next to me reading the menu of a new restaurant in town - the Viking Restaurant (what would a Viking eat).

He just read "2 Litter Soda Bottles" - I have to chuckle at that one :)

A Science Spin is a Hole-in-One in New York Hall of Science Rocket Park Mini Golf

Interesting article from Exhibit Builder about the construction of the course



(Yes, those are real rockets in the background - the New York Hall of Science is at the old NY World's Fair site).

Not that much to write about

We have the open enrollment at work (Select your benefits time). Fortunately nothing really changed except the cost of the medical insurance. Not great, but at least I don't have to run around and figure whos in/out of network.In a year with no raises or a bonus for our division, it stinks to have something we pay for go up.

At least we get an employee only Xmas party. Surprisingly they are having it where they've had it the last 3 years. Either they got a good deal or are lazy. (It may be one of the few places that works for an office half in NYC and half in White Plains)

Been feeling kind of blah lately - work stress, low vitamin D, depression...not sure. trying fixes for the last two.

Trying to get a post in this morning before we are busy for the day - to the Meadowlands Flea market and off to visit friends.

Making a shopping stop later on the way to our friends, returning a sweater to Old Navy (just doesn't do anything for me, cute cream/gray argyle with sparkly buttons - looks better on the maniquin). Then to Walmart for jeans for me. I finally found some I like and fit - "Faded Glory" in a size 10 petite and only 12.00. So I might as well get another color or black if they have it. The world is rushing to Walmart for the X-box 360 deal today and other pre-BF sales. Not jeans :)

Alan has started to develop a taste in clothes these days. He likes the clothes at Kmart a lot - we stoped there yesterday. He's even willing to wear shirts with buttons which he would do before - I think he can do fly pants too now. I see my cutie Gymboree matching days fading away. I'm not crazy about somethings he choses (not a big Camo fan) but there's other battles.

I also took him to Garden State Plaza (biggest mall here) for the first time in years. I stopped taking HIM there when he got out of the stroller stage because I feared him running off. We shopped nicely, he even put a with a little ladies stuff. But he loves the Lego Store and Game Stop. He's learning to be good at video games - surprising as we don't own any of the major games (yet). All we own are some odd handheld toys and one game-in-controller on his TV. But the DSi is coming soon - Kmart has a Black Friday deal for 5 games + DSi for the price of the DSi. But what 5 games I don't know. If it isn't anything he likes, I'll pass and try something else.

The really bad Sponge Bob is on again now - almost over though. At least this time it fit in a hour! (I just realized the tune at the end is "Oh Christmas Tree" with words of "Oh Crusty Crab"!)

I guess I did find something to blog about after all :)