“I smell soft news!”

OK! We’re home, blah blah blah turnpike, blah blah blah 1000 miles, etc.

Friday a.m.: My sister and brother I braved the Black Friday mobs at a popular freestanding department store. It really wasn’t that bad! The teeming throngs were so … so Midwestern! They were smiley and polite and it was really quite enjoyable. And I finished all my holiday shopping except for three gifts, which I have all month to purchase. Woo!

Friday afternoon: I got really cranky and I think I took a nap. At least I should have taken a nap, if I did not. Owen had a lovely time hanging out with an assortment of relatives and impressing them with his vocabulary. Iain drank the beer I bought him and watched the National Geographic channel, possibly with my dad.

Friday evening: Lights Before Christmas at the Toledo Zoo. It’s been a Black Friday tradition for like a hundred years in my family. Owen was slightly disappointed that the chimps and monkeys and gorillas were all asleep, but he seemed to enjoy the lights and whatnot quite a bit. And we all enjoyed being goofy and showing the sights to him. And … then we came home and fell asleep. Stupid sleep.

Saturday we left for Owen’s other grandparents’ house, unfortunately too late to catch his cousins. But it was good to see the in-laws, even if it was only for a few hours.

This morning we spent about 5 and a half hours on the road and got back in time to see the Steelers get shamefully trounced. I seem to have gained one and a half billion pounds of holiday cheer, and Owen can now say several more words (some quite questionable) than he could before we left.

I am looking forward to the day we don’t have to spend eight hours in the car to have dinner with my folks. Maybe some day, eh? The upside is that, since I am the one who does the driving, I get a lot of time to think Deep Thoughts and to plan for the future. Other people do their best thinking in the shower, but I do mine in the driver’s seat. As a result, I have a post on family and motherhood swirling around in my head, plus ideas for another quilt or two, a decorating scheme for Owen’s room and a detailed Five Year Plan for Iain and I. Now I just need to write this stuff down.

Anyway. I wrote this post to make up for the totally cheaty ones I wrote over the weekend. The carefully detailed boringness is just gravy!

November 26, 2006 | Filed Under daily grind

Comments

One Response to ““I smell soft news!””

LL#2 on November 27th, 2006 8:55 am

To me Thanksgiving means games (Scrabble was noted). If you haven’t seen it before, check out the game Sequence. That’s what we played this Turkey day.