Preparing for Black Friday Shopping

I am not one of those crazy people who gets up extremely early or never really goes to sleep on Thanksgiving night so that I can hit up the good deals on Black Friday.  My mother and I do go out every year, but it is usually not until 8:00 a.m. when most of these people have probably retired home already.  I usually try to get all my Christmas shopping done on this day so we still find great deals, we just don't have to deal with such big crowds.

Here is how I prepare for this big shopping day:

1.  I gather all the Black Friday shopping ads and my iPad together on the kitchen counter.  I also have my Christmas list and a notebook to create my shopping list in.

2.  As I go through the ads, I compare them to my Christmas list and jot down anything that is on my list onto my shopping list.  I also look for possible gift ideas for the people on my Christmas list who I don't have anything for yet.

3.  When I jot down the item that I would like to get, I also jot down what store I need to visit and if the sale only goes until a certain time.

If there is something that I really want that is one of the early morning sales, I will see if I can order it online on Thanksgiving.  This way I don't have to fit the big crowds and some stores will have Black Friday prices earlier online so I can order the items on Thanksgiving or even earlier.  Some stores even offer good deals on shipping if you purchase a certain dollar amount.

4.  After I have gone through all the ads, I look at the shopping list I have created and use this to compile a new shopping list categorizing the list by the hours of the different sales I need to hit.  For example, if there was a sale that ended at 9:00 a.m., I would list that store and the items I need to get there first.  This becomes like my agenda for the day.

On Thanksgiving, my mother and I will sit down after dinner and discuss a game plan for the next day.  What time do we want to leave? What stores do we need to hit up first? etc. 

The morning of the big day, I grab a smaller purse that is easy to carry and only holds my wallet, phone, keys, and shopping list.  I also try to dress a little warmer than usual because I don't want to have to carry a coat around with me.  Usually this means that I am wearing a vest, long-sleeve shirt, and jeans.  

It is a long day of shopping, but I enjoy spending time with my mother and kicking off the holiday season with this tradition.  How do you prepare for Black Friday shopping?

What I Wore Wednesday

A couple of the blogs that I follow have been participating in What I Wore Wednesday for a while now.  I enjoy seeing all sorts of different outfits and thought that I would join in and share what's in my closet.

Thanksgiving Decor

Sometimes I just don't feel like decorating for Thanksgiving.  We put out alot of decorations for Halloween and then for Christmas and I often feel like I am putting out Thanksgiving decor only for a couple weeks and then taking it down to put up the Christmas stuff.

However, Thanksgiving is late in the month this year so I did put some stuff out.  Here is what the dinning table looks like:

My mother painted and stained these bird house gourds several years ago.  I love how they look on a couple of cake stands.

Here are the corner shelves in the dinning room:

I added a few decorations to my daughter's toy room.  Of course I made sure it wasn't anything that she could easily break :)

I also updated the front and back doors for the holiday.

What I Wore Wednesday

A couple of the blogs that I follow have been participating in What I Wore Wednesday for a while now.  I enjoy seeing all sorts of different outfits and thought that I would join in and share what's in my closet.

Thanksgiving Toddler Crafts

Saturday's in my house are craft days for my daughter and me.  Just about every Saturday morning, my daughter wakes up asking me to paint :)  Most of the time that is what we do.  We paint on paper plates, on construction paper, on bulletin board cutouts.  Sometimes, we glue googly eyes or pom-poms on our paintings as well.

I thought with Thanksgiving coming up, I would try and find some crafts that we could do that were related to Thanksgiving.  Below is our first craft for the month - a toilet paper tube turkey.

For the feathers, I traced her hands, cut them out, and glued them on the back.  She glued her favorite googly eyes on the front and I add a little beak with a marker and cut out a little wattle from some red construction paper.

Pinterest is full of great, fun Thanksgiving crafts.  Here are some other ones that I hope to try this month:

• Candy Corn Turkey - Trace your child's hand to make a turkey.  Glue candy corn in the fingers of the hand to form the feathers.
• Turkey Puppets - Make turkey puppets out of brown paper lunch bags.
• Fall Tree - Use wine corks as stamps to create a beautiful fall tree.
• Turkey Coloring Page 

What do you and your toddler do in the spirit of Thanksgiving?

What I Wore Wednesday

A couple of the blogs that I follow have been participating in What I Wore Wednesday for a while now.  I enjoy seeing all sorts of different outfits and thought that I would join in and share what's in my closet.

Does a clean washing machine mean cleaner clothes?

I realized this week that my washing machine was really dirty.  About a year after we bought our house, my parents purchased a new house and didn't want the washer and dryer that were in the house.  They were newer then the ones that we currently had, so we bought those and donated ours.

When I first got the washer, it smelled terrible!  It was very musty smelling so my mom suggested just leaving it open for a while to air out.  I tried this and it helped a little, but I could still smell it.  At that time, I purchased the Tide washing machine cleaner and it worked like a charm.

Well, that was three years ago now and when I looked at the washing machine this week, this is what I saw:

Pretty disgusting!

After searching around online, I found a couple of solutions to try.  I first took apart the fabric softener container in the middle of washing machine and could not believe how dirty that was.  I don't know how my clothes were coming out clean!  I soaked that in a bucket with a combination of white vinegar and hot water. I had to take an old toothbrush and scrub to really get it clean.

I then filled the washing machine with warm water and added about 2 cups of white vinegar as well.  I let it soak for 1 hour and then turned on the machine.  After an hour I was again shocked at all the stuff floating in water.  I also took a wet cloth and wiped down the spot where you would pour in bleach and the inside cover of the washing machine.

Here is what my new washing machine looks like...

Hopefully with a clean washing machine, I will get even cleaner clothes.