What did you score on Black Friday?

At 12:33am on Black Friday, I finished going through my emails, entering the sweeps that were about to expire, and making out my shopping list, and I decided that with two hours to go until I needed to get up, I might as well not sleep at all. So, I went to:

When I walked in the store, I was quite pleased to see a tasting booth offering bottles of 5 Hour Energy in pomegranate flavor. I gulped down half the bottle right off the bat. Ewww. Artificial sweetener aftertaste! I saved the rest for later.

I picked up a few DVDs for $1.96 and one (Taken with Liam Neeson) for $5. I bought two electric blankets on sale for $19, because my mom mentioned that she wanted to buy a couple. I also stocked up on water and cat litter for the week.

I was home by 2:00am, drank the rest of the 5 Hour Energy, and bounced off the walls until 2:45am, when I called my mom to make sure she was up. Then I bounced off the walls some more. I put my diet pill in my purse so I could take it later, ate a Lärabar, and cleaned up Trickster yak until she arrived just after 3:30am.

First stop: Target. I had hoped to pick up some of the Chefmate Sandwich Makers for Christmas gifts, but all they had left in the assortment were Hand Mixers, so I loaded up on those. Mom wanted to look at a couple of larger appliances, but it was too crazy, so we checked out. While waiting in line, I noticed a pair of Star Wars gloves on an outwear display, so I'll be getting those for Christmas.

Then we headed over to University Mall, where Mom and I picked up a few things for Tim, and I bought a sweater and two fleece pullovers for myself.

It was time for Best Buy to open and I wanted to get The Tudors: Season 3 for $14.99. The line was wrapped around the building, and while it was moving right along, Mom suggested we head across the street to Kmart. We couldn't find the $5.99 shirts we were looking for, so I found an employee who looked all around, scanned a few things, and decided that the $8.99 shirts were supposed to be marked $5.99. She made a note on the tag and gave us her name so we could check out. I grabbed a two-gallon wet-dry vac. Mom offered to get me the two Star Wars LEGO clocks that were $19.99 each. It seemed a bit steep for what it was (I'm not all that into LEGO, even Star Wars LEGO, because they're so expensive and kind of funny looking), so I said she could get me the $19.99 vacuum instead, and she was cool with that.

Oh, look. The sun is coming up!

Back over to Best Buy, where the line was gone outside the building because everyone had lined up inside the store to check out. Mom was waiting in the car, and I debated stashing my "Tudors" DVD behind something that was not on sale, but the line wasn't all that long.

20 minutes later: Oh, I see, you have two lines that start on opposite sides of the store and now we're moving side by side.

20 minutes after that: Ah, now we're being merged into one line. "One from line A. Now one from line B. Line A. Line B."

::sigh::

By the time I got back out to the car (I think I was in line about an hour), I was starving. Mom gave me a cookie and suggested we head over to Wal-mart to have a deli corn dog for lunch. At 9:00am. Also she wanted to get more electric blankets.

Then she brought up printers, which we had talked about Thursday night, so we decided to go to Office Depot, which is basically in the Cordova Mall parking lot. They didn't have the HP Color Laser Printer that was on clearance for $149.99 and the associate said he was not allowed to call another store. Really. That's very strange. But he was able to give me the number of the Fairfield store, and I called over there, and they had two of them, but they weren't able to put Black Friday specials on hold, necessitating a mad dash across town.

It took them a few minutes to actually find the printers, but they did, and Mom bought one for herself and one for me for Christmas, plus the three year extended warranty on both. I'm excited; we haven't had a working printer at home in a while.

Lowe's was right next door and Mom bought poinsettias to go on Daddy's grave and a bunch of stuff for family Christmas gifts. I got a couple of things for Tim and a couple of different things for family gifts. Our get-together for my dad's side of the family is at the beginning of December, so I needed just a few more things to make sure everyone was covered.

After that we went to Wal-mart. We were planning to go to a different store than the one I'd been to nine hours earlier, but that's the one that was closest. On the way in, we ran into an old friend and colleague from Channel 3, collecting for Communities Caring and Christmas, and Mom made a donation. Once inside, she bought another electric blanket and a heated throw. She's giving her old electric blanket to the cats and she'll use the new one. I bought some "bandage strips" because I have been tearing up my fingers lately, nervous habit. And we got corn dogs and soda, which we ate in the car. Mom's car. Not Tim's and my car, in which no one is allowed to eat.

At that point, Mom was really starting to slow down, but she wanted to go to the new Big Lots, and I wanted to check out the DVDs there, plus I wanted to go to Anna's Linens in the same plaza, and to Petsmart, in the next plaza over. I didn't find any DVDs, but Mom found a Perry Mason set that she wanted and a couple of other things. I spotted a Star Wars calendar for $7. At Anna's, I bought some fleece throws, which completed my shopping for the big family shindig. Over at Petsmart, Mom bought Purina Cat Chow on sale for $9.99, and I got nothing, because Iams isn't making cat food right now, apparently.

Then I dropped off Mom at her house, went to lunch with Tim, went by a different Big Lots near my house, where I found a few different DVDs, and then I came home. I took my purse inside and started to go back out to unload the car.

Oh, look. it's raining. I got an umbrella and ran to the mailbox, then settled into the house for a little while. I wrote out the bill that arrived today, and during breaks in the showers, I managed to unload everything that was coming home with me today and change the litterboxes. Then I went by Office Depot for the things I forgot ($5.99 spindle of DVDs for making restore disks for our computer and my mom's, and some video editing software that's free after rebate) and headed over to mom's house, where I unloaded her haul, changed her litter boxes (well, her cats' litter boxes), backed up her files, and created the restore disk.

By the time Tim arrived, I was starting to drag. We stopped by the vet (about two blocks from Mom's house) and bought some dry cat food there, then came home and took the bag off the chimney so we could light the furnace, because crimeny, the temperature was dropping fast. I moved my tomato plants under the back porch and we tacked up some old shower curtains around to help block the wind. It's so strange that they didn't do anything all summer, and suddenly in the fall, they got huge and are making tomatoes hand over fist, even as their leaves are all dying off from the cooler weather.

So, now I need to go enter the rest of the sweeps that are expiring at midnight tonight, finish looking through my emails and hit the sack for some much-needed sleep.

Happy Holidays!