pixelated

Hi there! I bought my camera yesterday. It's an unknown brand to me, but it was less than $50 INCLUDING the 512MB card, after the rebates, so I decided to take a chance on it. I got it at ecost.com, which is offering $10 off any $30 order (before shipping) when you use Google checkout. sweeeeeeeet. Last week, I bought P-chan's Christmas presents from Buy.com, which right now is offering $20 off $50 order (before shipping) when you use Google Checkout. PLUS, there is no limit to the number of times you get the discount, it just has to be multiple orders that qualify. When I made my purchases last week, it was only $10 off $30, so this is a much better deal! I almost wish I had more to buy. LOL

I found a great resource for titles and phrases to use on scrapbook pages: Miss Mint's Collection of Titles and Phrases. Fun stuff! :)

I was on the phone with my DSL provider for over 6 hours yesterday, over 4 phone calls. ugh!!! I have parental controls set, and for some reason, I (the master account) could not log on, but all the others could. I eventually had to re-install the port, which took over 40 minutes. Good thing I'd installed the external hard drive, because the re-install of the DSL took a lot more space than the original, and I still had to "emergency" move a lot of files. *sigh* Well, at least it's done with, and everything is working okay. On a "it's funny now" note, one of the customer service rep's tried to tell me that my Internet Explorer is what controlled my parental controls, and since I couldn't access the internet with IE, that is why my DSL wasn't logging in. what the freak?? Then she kept telling me that parental controls weren't set, since the command prompt I typed in the CMD kept coming back as nil. Later I found out she was telling me to type it in the wrong spot. ... I hate her. LOL

shopped out

Thanksgiving was great! :) And the day after was exhausting! LOL

Okay, first the food: GINORMOUS turkey (27 pounds, and only 10 people, LOL), gravy (made with pan drippings), yeast rolls, red jello, green beans with onions (which I had to pick out), stuffing (which had onions, so I couldn't eat! LOL), yams and blueberries (very different but YUMMY), and my special mashed potatoes. I went over to my friend's house for the giant feast, and another 2 families also showed. We're all military, and it's the last T-Day we'll all have together, as I am moving in 5 weeks. For dessert, another family came over, and we had pumpkin pie, cheesecake, and chocolate cake (because my bday is the 24th). :D yum!!! Then we played a roaring 7 rounds of Catch-Phrase (girls vs guys). I LOVE that game!! I will have to buy it. :)

For the sales: I truly HAVE to get a new camera (I've been without one for over 2 months), and an external hard drive is a close second, so that's what we went out for.
Since we have 2 cars this year (first post-T-day that we've had 2 cars), I went to CompUSA while P-chan went to Best Buy. P-chan reports that BB had a line ALL around the store, then winding across the parking lot. And they'd only let people in a group at a time, to stop the mobbing. Police were there, etc. And then the employees came out and announced that such-and-such was out of stock, and people would leave the line. LOL
When I got done at CompUSA (it only took me 10 min, once the doors opened), I headed over to our rendezvous spot, armed with my walkie-talkie, and after waiting for about 15 min, I decided to go find my husband's car and leave him a note. I found the car, was writing the note, and P-chan walkie-talkied and said he was driving out. LOL I had "found" the wrong car!!! Good thing I didn't get to leave the scrawled love note written on the coupon. So I started driving over to Target, and while maneuvering the parking lot, a car HIT me!! She totally backed up into my car!!! I was so stunned, I didn't even honk. Then she pulled in the parking spot, so I pulled in behind her, imagining all sorts of damage. Turned out my car didn't have a SINGLE scratch!!! Man, I am LOVING my old, plastic bumper!! LOL Her car didn't have any damage either, so I said, "Next time, check your rear view mirror." and got back into my car. Then we headed over to Target.
We ended up with 3 external hard drives (one is no-name brand, so we're probably returning it), an LCD flat screen for the computer, and some items for the move -- air beds, car emergency kit, and luggage (with snazzy 360-degree wheels, NICE). Notice I did NOT get a camera. LOL I'll have to buy that online this week. I had wanted to buy some long-sleeved shirts at Target, but they didn't seem to have them. :( BUT I did get Spiderman 2 and Batman Begins, for $4 each. They also had the Harry Potter movies for $4, but they were only in full-screen, and I'm a widescreen-movie kinda gal. I was sooooo tempted to buy Nanny McPhee, but the cheapskate in me won over (it was priced at $9). Then P-chan took the boys home, and I went over to Sears for some Christmas presents for E's daughters. And, amazingly, that's all I bought there!!! LOL I got home around 9:30.
Getting up at 4am was making me tired, but I let P-chan sleep until about 11, then the boys decided to lay down, and so did I. I slept until 4pm, and then decided to do all the returns from the shopping I'd done on Wednesday, and take a carload of stuff to the thrift store. I didn't get home until around 8, and by that time, I was exhausted again. AND, Fed-Ex decided not to deliver our packages (even though I called them that morning!!!) because of "a local holiday" (P-chan reported). Well, all I can say is, they better get it here on Monday!! *grrr* ....because I have to return one of them. teehee, it was an external hard drive, but I got a much better deal on Friday.

So how many gifts still need to be bought? I think it's 5 now. Not bad, for a starting list of 30. :D

birthday girl

okay, so I'm probably old enough to stop talking about it, but I really like it when people call me to wish me happy birthday!! :) So thanks to everyone who called today! Even if I wasn't home and you had to talk to my voicemail. :P

relieved

update on Kenshin: he's doing great! He still has allergies, but the worst is definitely over, and we're only doing the breathing treatments about every other day now. Eventually, he won't need them. I'm exhuasted. TTYL.