I totally made a mistake. I made a cookie bar. I took my favorite cookie mix and added white chocolate chips and salt. Remember when I was talking about the fudge? Well, I had the same idea. My friend Sarah makes an impossible cookie bar. And it's got salt in it. It's perfect. She sort of got me hooked to the point where I went through my stash and had the nerve to call her and ask for a fix. Seriously. I don't know how much it would take for me to look all sweaty and have the shakes hovering furtively around her door. So, I was trying to do my thing. I made a big deal out of it to the kids. I fed them a new dinner. I'm a big fan of rice (think Ready Rice or Rice-a-Roni) mixed with a meat product (chopped up cooked chicken, ground round, Italian turkey sausage). I'm probably playing that card a little too often lately. Tonight it was the Italian turkey sausage crumbled and browned with Parmesan and Romano cheese Rice-a-Roni. It was fine. 5 out of 10 Jenny's jewels. It was sustenance. And sometimes, that's all I hope for. But I made the cookie bar - using two boxes of mix and my biggest pan and it showed very big promise. It was successful in getting 3 out of 4 to eat their dinner. That's right. I bribe 'em. We all gotta do what we gotta do. This is what I do from time to time. It came out and I proudly served it up. Then I got mine and took a bite. Salt. Lots of salt. Too much to be a pairing for the sweet. Bugger. Princess didn't even finish it. Scooby finished his but made sure to go on about it being too salty. Hubs was lovely. He lied. So I made a powdered sugar glaze and drizzled that over the top. Then I made another batch of powdered sugar glaze and poured that over the top. I just took a sampling. Unless some sort of miracle of osmosis occurs, I will be throwing these out. And making regular cookies with no additional ingredients involved tomorrow. Scooby and I have dubbed this batch Bikini Bottom Cookie Bar. Not good y'all. Not good at all. 3 out of 10 Jenny's jewels only because every now and then there was the ability to discern a chocolate chunk product.
Okay. Let's talk Black Friday. I didn't anticipate going out for anything. But the pull was just too strong. So strong, in fact, that I started the night before. That's right. I went out shopping on Thanksgiving night. Sure, okay. Some of you are thinking that's like sacrilegious or something. I understand. But I would prefer to consider myself patriotic instead. I am doing my part to help our economy. Let us not dwell on how many products have a made in a foreign country sticker or stamp on them. I did the very best I could to avoid slave-made products. Next year, I will do even better. I am happy to report that other like-minded patriots were out en force to boost some NASDAQ numbers. Actually, no, I have no idea what I'm talking about. I was there at 11:00 pm at WalMart. I know. WalMart sucks. But they had Leapsters for $25. And since I was buying 3 of them, that's a significant savings. Those were part of the midnight sale. There was another sale that started at 5am. I kid you not. There were people who brought or borrowed lawn chairs and camped out next to the pallets for some of the items that went on sale - in 6 hours. Laptops. I thought I was hardcore. Nope. Not even close. From there, I went to ToysRUs. Not anywhere near the insanity that was WalMart. But that is only because the crowd had moved on. Next up, Target. Oh. My. Word. I have truly not seen anything like it. I have been out on Black Friday before, believe it. But this was a whole new animal. I didn't take a coat out with me. I don't know what to tell you. I didn't plan on being outside much. I planned on parking and walking in and getting all hot in the stores and then walking to my car. No need for a coat to slow my roll. I pulled up just about 4 am. The doors opened at 4. This is a big Target. Not a Super Target but still. There are 2-3 stores next to it. Small ones. Then there is a Staples store. Then there are a few more stores and then there is a Panda Wok or whatever at the end of the strip. I hope this gives a fairly good idea of the distance I'm talking about here. So, I pull into a spot. I am looking to just kind of wander in but I can't. Because the line extends to the Asian food establishment at the end. There were people who stopped at a point to flow in when told to do so. You know what I did? I said, "screw this noise! I am freezing!! I need to keep moving!!". That's what I said. So I walked all the way to the end and started walking in the direction I had just come from so that I could go in. I was still cold. But at least I was moving. And the pisser is that those people that were waiting at the point where I made the oh so smart decision to go to the end? Yeah. Those people were nowhere to be found. They got in. I was in line long enough to see people come out - with big ol' TVs. One guy couldn't even put it into his car because his doors had frozen shut. And when I got in there, there was this swarm around a bin that you would have thought had free gold in it from the activity surrounding it. It was $2 gloves. Those people were looking to warm up and I mean right now. Which I get because I am now the proud owner of a super cute reversible pink/orange puffer vest for $7.50. I picked up all the bargains I could find. I got 2 $85 dual screen DVD players for the car for our road trips. I got a hard drive for Hubs. I got pjs and jeans for the green giant that is Scooby. Now, I will try to explain the line to check out. It was a very very large square that ran through the store and started doubling up on itself. My strategy at this point was to find a cart for all the things that were straining and breaking my arms and fingers. Also, to look like a thief as I made my way past the checkout area to the Starbucks to get coffee and a croissant for sustenance so that I may continue my quest towards giving them my money. Also to look and look and look for more items because the longer that I wandered around, the shorter the line would get. Which of course became problematic. Because I walked out after $450. Yeah. I know. It's okay. I returned alot. Including the dual screen dvd players. Both of them. It was nuts. And I loved it. It was totally up my alley. Hubs can't shop. It's just not in him, at all. He physically depletes as he goes. I have seen it happen and it is so fascinating. I don't mean that to sound as though I delight in his discomfort. It's just so contrary to what I feel like when I go shopping. I get more energized as I go. So, the 6 hours I spent from Thanksgiving into Black Friday gets 7 out of 10 Jenny's jewels. If I had had a coat, a bottle of water and a few snack bars, I would have ruled the school. Not in a camped out in lawn chairs looking like hobos around some pallets kind of way but still...
I saw "The Expendables" the other night. I had high hopes. I am a fan of testosterony movies. I came up with a phrase for those kind of movies that probably someone else came up with already. Plus, it's kind of naughty. I won't tell you what it is but I will allude to it and you will get the idea. You know how they call Rom-Coms (that's romantic comedies to you lay folk...) chick flicks? Well, I would refer to Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone, Mickey Rourke, etc movies as Richard flicks. Only I would use a nickname for Richard. And it would rhyme with flick. And it wouldn't be Rick. I told you it was naughty!! But truly, these are movies that are all amped up and bad ass and macho and heroic and what not. And I dig those movies. It had some good casting. But Stallone was a co-writer. Which I would have thought would have been good as he has been in so many of these that he would know what to write but then I realized that he would also be responsible for dialogue and he's never been much of a talker in his movies. Put him and Keanu together and you really might as well do it as a silent film for all their speaking contributes to what they are doing. And Sly looked awful. I don't know what was happening with his hair but it was weird and the botox has not been kind. I like Jason Statham. I think that he is charismatic and truly lends himself to the movies he does but it was painful to watch him trying to carry this film as Sly's best friend. And Dolph Lundgren? Ouch. If they could have at least attempted to make fun of what they have done in their roles, that would have been crazy awesome. But they weren't. They were serious. They were really trying. The only one who actually looked comfortable was, God love him, Eric Roberts. Because he has done the same role in the same kind of movie for pretty much his whole career. It was so bad that I actually fell asleep during the climactic near ending. 2 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.
So, here is what is happening on our quest for a different Christmas this year. It got sketchy right away. As a reminder, our goal is to take all the gift money from all the gift giving parties and pool it together giving each child 3 presents each. So. It started with the Leapster. If you buy one, it doesn't have much to offer on it's own. You need the games/cartridges. So, I got three. Each. I've already gone over the 3 gifts each situation!! What the hello kitty is it that I am supposed to do now?? So, after some breathing and some coffee, we decided that the Leapster with the games is a gift - gift number 1. So, for Princess, her next gift was to be a craft like product. But it felt so LAME to just hand her a Color Wonder packet or something. It totally wouldn't be a Color Wonder packet. There is nothing wrong with those but she's way more crafty than that. We agreed that bundling 2 or 3 crafts together would constitute gift number 2. And that's what we pretty much did for the remaining presents. I know. It totally looks like I fudged it all. But here is exactly why I feel so at peace with how this turned out. It made us really consider what it is we are buying. As I said, my nature is to squeeze as much present as I can out of every dime and we end up with tons of crappy stuff that isn't even noticed or played with. Hubs and I really thought through each gift. Here is a for instance. Big Stuff is getting an Imaginext Bat Cave. I know. Totally awesome!! But at the same price, they also had this Imaginext Aircraft Carrier. It was killer. I bought it. I also bought the Imaginext Space Shuttle because the shopping strategy for Black Friday this year was buy it all right now and return most of it later. Whatever. It worked. The Bat Cave was a no-brainer. That's a keeper. And we were going to keep the Aircraft Carrier as well. But then I came across this Buzz Lightyear backpack. It looks like Buzz's space ship. And I thought about all the pretending that Big Stuff likes to do and I decided that I would get him binoculars and a cool flashlight and turn it into an adventure pack because he likes to say "I'm goin' on a adventure!" and then he does. It was going to cost a little more than the aircraft carrier but it is going to be so much fun for him. That aircraft carrier was really cool. And it was a good price. I have a little bit of returner's remorse. It's stuff like that - we just really thought about the gifts this go round. The next reason I am at peace is because I fully believe that we have spent far less money on Christmas than we normally do and that is a direction we want to continue going in. Our children have been mentioning how kind of bummed out they are about only getting three gifts. I could focus on the fact that they are being materialistic greedy little so and sos. Instead, I look forward to the morning when they are surprised by the quality of those three gifts and how satisfied they can be with less. And the final reason - Yes. Three gifts was good enough for Jesus and therefore, three gifts is more than enough for our kids. But God's love is abundant and surprising. He is not stingy. He looks to bless us at every turn. And that is a facet of God that I truly want to share with my kids as we celebrate the greatest gift He ever gave us. Which, by the way, is what Christmas is actually about. Ahem. Anywho.... Staying the course and seeing our Christmas plans through gets 10 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.
This is what I have to tell you. I shared how much our church raised for the 4 initiatives that we are trying to accomplish. That number has actually gone up. By about another mil. Hubs and I have actually already seen some amazing, unexpected financial blessing as a result of our walking out in faith and committing God's money right back to Him. It wasn't huge but the reality is that if you don't see it coming, anything can be generous. And this is generous. It means that the commitment we made to start making good on our pledge by the end of the year is a little less nebulous. Some of it fell straight into our hands. It's every indication to me that He truly does just want to know and give you the desires of your heart. So if the desire of your heart is to please Him, He totally just pleases you right back and gives you the means to the end. There's this diamond cut called the Gabrielle cut. It is 105 facets. Based on my extensive research (inclusive of a google search and perusal of about 2-4 sites to verify...), this is the most faceted cut for a diamond. Imagine that God has ever shifting infinite Gabrielle sections. And every time that He allows me to gaze upon one of those facets and glean a better understanding of who He is and what He is about - it's a sweetness like no other - with no salt to be found.
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