Black Friday

For the past three years, a very good friend of mine and myself have been braving the crowds on Thursday night of Thanksgiving and doing some early Black Friday shopping.  It's become our tradition, and we look forward to it every year.

This year we went to Target, Walmart and Old Navy.

Here's some of the deals I scored:

A king-sized fuzzy blanket from Target's Threshold line for $20.  700 thread count sheets set at Walmart for $25.

$20 off this Sonic Care electric toothbrush.  In pink, nonetheless!

Jeans, shirts, hats, gloves and a spiky necklace at Old Navy.  The entire store was 50% off!!

Classic Monopoly for $5 at Target.

I also got some DVDs, and a year long Xbox live membership for my husband that were both heavily discounted.

But all these deals and sales is not why we go.  We go because it's the one time of year that my friend and I can spend together one-on-one.

We talk for hours.  We laugh.  We talk about life, family, other friends.  We discovered that the Del Taco drive through is open at midnight.  We have SO much fun.  The deals we get are just an 'extra' perk.  We never go for stuff that we absolutely MUST have, which makes the whole ordeal so much more fun.  Anything we find that's great is a just a bonus.

363 days until the next one!!

Better Than the First

No spoilers here...I will just post a few movie stills photo (from IMDB.com).

We caught a matinee of The Hunger Games:  Catching Fire this afternoon.  Now, I've read all three books (about 3 times each), and loved all three books.  I thought they did a really good job with the first Hunger Games movie and I really, really liked it.  However, I LOVED Catching Fire.  I was surprised they didn't split this book into two separate movies (like they are doing with the third book, Mockingjay), because there are two distinct parts of the book and I think they could have made two movies out of it.  But they stuck closer to the book with Catching Fire, which I really liked.

And now, a few stills:

Effie...Effie, who has a heart.

The scene that broke my heart:

Ceasar Flickerman, who is played by Stanley Tucci (who is amazing now matter what role he plays):

And finally, the beautiful Mockingjay:

Go see the movie.  And if you haven't read the books, PLEASE read them.  It's one of the best stories I've read in a long time.  You won't be able to put them down.

Fun

Today was my Friday.  Both my husband and I took the day off tomorrow to have a date day.  It actually started tonight.  I am currently blogging from Applebee's.  We prepaid for a new gaming system that will be released at midnight tonight.  So we went to Best Buy, waited in the prepay line (we were fourth), and then we got to go and pick out our games and accessories, pay for the unit, and now we are killing time waiting to go back and pick up the real deal.  This is big for us, considering we are usually in bed by 9:00 ha ha.

Tomorrow we are sleeping in (until 8 hopefully!), going to breakfast, and then going to see Catching Fire.  Then back home to play games!  It will be a nice day, and our weekend is pretty mellow too.

Happy weekend everyone!!

Apps

I thought it would be fun to do a post on my favorite apps (currently...they tend to change).  I have many apps on my phone and iPad, but I go through them regularly and delete the ones I rarely use.  It's easy to download a free game app thinking it will be great and then you play it once in 6 months.

So, in no particular order, here are my favorite apps:

Instagram (Free) (iPhone)

I was a little late on the Instagram bandwagon, but now I find myself using it and checking it way more than Facebook.  I've been able to reconnect with my cousins in Missouri and see pictures of their lovely children (who are getting so big!), and keep in touch with all my friends back in Nebraska.  I love that there is no drama (just pictures!), no advertising, and it is way easy to use.

Candy Crush Saga (Free)  (iPad)

I'm not as addicted as some, however it is definitely my 'go-to' game when I'm caught up on all my other ones (Words With Friends, Scramble With Friends, Hanging, Matching and Gems).  I'm currently stuck on Level 141.

Google Translate (Free) (iPad)

A lifesaver when trying to figure out a pronunciation in French.

Yahoo Fantasy Football (Free) (iPhone)

This one will drop off my list in a few weeks when fantasy football season is over, but for now it's great!  I can make changes to my lineup from my phone anywhere.

Shazam (Free) (iPhone)

This one is recent find and it is so fun and kind of amazing.  Have you ever been in the car and listening to a new song that you decide you love but the DJ doesn't come on until like 4 songs later when you're already inside, etc. and you have no clue who sings it?  Enter Shazam.  All you do is press the button on Shazam while the song is playing and Shazam will tell you in about 2 seconds the title and the singer of the song.  This also works on television shows, which is where I expect to use it the most.  Parenthood is one of my favorite shows and it has the BEST music...at least 5 or 6 songs in each episode.  Now I don't have to Google each song and try to remember some of the lyrics.  I can just Shazam it!!

Notability ($2.99) (iPad)

I've saved the best for last.  This is my new favorite and I'm kind of obsessed with it.  I use my iPad a LOT at the meetings.  It is so helpful to have it so that I don't have to haul around 6-7 books (both French and English).  So usually I'll use one paper copy (English), and then load up my French publications on my iPad.  However, I like to underline, highlight and even write comments while I'm studying.  And while you can highlight and underline on PDF and ePub versions, you can't write or make visible notes easily.

Enter...Notability!  Since I purchased the app, each time I download a new publication, it asks me if I want to open it in iBooks or Notability.  If I download it to Notability, I have the ability to underline, highlight, scribble, erase, type, anything.  And then I can save it, email it to myself, or just keep it within the Notability app.  I love it!  I can also create blank notes.  But I bought it mostly for the function of marking up PDF files.

It's fun to draw on it too.  My mother-in-law wrote this last night (good evening) and then I had to add a rainbow.

I need to get a stylus though...my finger writing and drawing needs some work!

So there you have it...a few of my favorite apps that make my life a little easier and fun!

Entertainment

Just to warn you, I'm going to start rambling on again about movies and television.  I swear this is not an entertainment blog, regardless of the title of this post.

I feel the need to emphasize once again that I do not watch TV and movies all the time.  I maybe watch one hour a day of TV during the week.  A little more on the weekends.  We are busy and don't have tons of time.  I have been known to pop in a movie or series in my portable dvd player and have it playing on the kitchen counter while I'm making dinner.  Or folding laundry.  I have to multi-task.  

So even though I am not spending 24/7 in front of the screen, I still add to my collection.  I think it started when I was living in my first apartment and had no money, no cable, and no internet.  But what did I have?  I had a tv and DVD player.  That was my entertainment.  Movies and TV series that I already owned.

So, when I realized that I got 3 paychecks this month, I set aside $100 for myself to spend at Amazon and Target to splurge a little.  My bounty came today!

Never Been Kissed - on sale for $4.75 on blu ray at Target.  I couldn't pass it up!

Parks and Rec, Season One - this is becoming my new favorite comedy series, so I decided to slowly buy them on DVD.  SUCH a funny show!

How to Make an American Quilt - an oldie, but goodie.

That Thing You Do - Another great one!  And who doesn't love Tom Hanks?

Mad Men, Season 6 - I got sucked in after the first season.  (sigh)

The Young Riders, Season 2 - My favorite series as a 12-13 year old.  They released season 1 a few years ago, then season 3 a few months ago, and then season 2.  So, a little out of order, but my series is complete now!

So maybe this weekend I'll have some time to watch some of them - after work on Friday, dinner with friends Friday night, French service Saturday, French Bible reading class, then meeting.  Hmm.  I better fire up the portable DVD player!

(p.s. - all of the above came in well under $100, thanks to my free shipping on Amazon and sales at Target!)

Productive

There are very few weekends where everything just comes together, and it's a nice mix of relaxing and being productive.

This weekend was the exception!  I absolutely love weekends like this.

Here's a rundown of a few of things we accomplished (both productive and relaxing):

*Held a successful garage sale at my mother-in-law's.  We got rid of a TON of stuff and she made a nice amount of money.  It exceeded our expectations for sure.  And the only advertising I did was on Craigslist and I put out two signs.  That's it!  Oh, and all of the big stuff went (the king sized mattress, the old tv, etc.).  It was a beautiful day also.

*Took one carload full of 'leftovers' from the garage sale to the Goodwill.  Everything that didn't sell (which wasn't much) went to Goodwill.  None of it was brought back into the house!

*We were home by 1:00 p.m.  Which I think is amazing personally.  We had a few early birds that arrived before our 8:00 a.m. start time and that helped.  They bought a ton!  We called it at about 12:30, when we hadn't seen anyone for 45 minutes or so.

*We watched the exciting Husker game.  It was great!  Wow, the last 11 seconds were amazing.  I re-watched it a few times on espn.com (where it was on the home page and probably still is).

*We watched a couple episodes of Vikings.  We basically just laid around after the garage sale.  So lots of TV was watched.

*I blogged.

*I picked up a couple of new Fantasy Football players, one of whom got me almost 20 points today!  (Keenan Allen - San Diego Chargers)

And today:

*Almost ALL of the laundry is done, folded, ironed, and put away.  This is huge, because our laundry has been neglected for over a week because of garage sale planning.

*Lots of football was watched.  I am going to win this week.  I am currently 4 points ahead of my opponent.  He has one player going tonight, and that player is projected to get 5 points.  Granted, he could get way more than that...but I doubt it.  And I have two of my stars playing tomorrow night still:  Aaron Rodgers and Brandon Marshall.  So a win is pretty much for certain.  All of my players came through for me this week, especially Allen and Gronkowski.

*I've set out my work clothes for tomorrow already.

I wish every weekend could be like this.  Well, I wouldn't want to have a garage sale every weekend.  But it felt SO GOOD to unload all of that stuff and have it out of the way.   But we still did plenty of relaxing, which was wonderful.  The extra hour helped also.

And finally, here are two pictures that have nothing to do with this post, but they are the only two pictures I took this weekend:

Max and Howie, during the Husker game (Max was into the game as well):

And Masi, our 17 year old Siamese kitty:

Movie Project Post #10

3 more down:

The Producers

Hmm.  I like Matthew Broderick.  But I am a little ashamed to admit that I found this movie funny.  If you've seen it, you'll know what I'm talking about.

One Day

I really liked this one.  Anne Hathaway totally passes as a British writer.  The movie focuses on July 15th (One Day...get it?) each year over a span of like 15 years.  Great concept.  And you would think it would be choppy, but flowed really well.

An American in Paris

Another good one about three starving artists in Paris who are all friends, and two of them happen to fall in love with the same women.  There's lots of familiar songs in this movie and of course some amazing Paris scenes.

My favorite of the bunch:  One Day

Next Up:

The Big Year

Emma (BBC version)

The Illusionist