Suzanne Calling

Spent over 12 hours at work, needed to wait for shipment to arrive. This was because they didn't deliver any yesterday and called to say they wouldn't deliver any today. I said I'd take it later if they could get it to me. All because my postage stamp sized stockroom would not be able to deal with three days worth of product coming in all at once. Back in at 6am, so it'll be bedtime in a few minutes. Another 12 hour day ahead.

Hubby and I headed over to WDW this morning. Every year, the week after Thanksgiving is the traditional time for all the Internet Disney fan groups to head to the parks for something called "Mousefest". Now that we live here, we can pop over to meet others as the work schedule allows. We had a nice visit with some of my friends from a small group, and headed over to Animal Kingdom. It was a nice few hours. Then, we headed to pick up the boys, with the plan that we would head across the bay to take stepdad out to dinner. While hubby was in the center, stepdad called to say it was seriously POURING by him, so he suggested we reschedule. OK, plans made for Thursday night after son's doctor's appointment. Hubby comes out of daycare with better news. We've been extremely frustrated with the director of this center-she calls us probably four days a week to tell us that older son is 'out of control' and we need to pick him up IMMEDIATELY. Then, when we get...

Publix carries my favorite coffee. (Barnie's Santa's White Christmas, if you were interested) Since there is no Barnie's in the local mall, I get my coffee there when I'm not near stepdad's mall. A few months back, they had a sale on the store brand ice cream, two for one. I had the boys with me and they each got to choose. Older son went for vanilla and younger, noticing the coffee ice cream, went with it. I was happy to see it was Barnie's coffee ice cream. Now that I drink coffee, I was willing to try the ice cream. YUM is the appropriate word. Wednesday, I went shopping so that our delicious ham would not be the only thing we ate. Lo and behold, Publix has a new flavor of store brand ice cream-Barnie's Santa's White Christmas Ice Cream. I didn't even wait for the two for one. Obviously, because of the name, I should expect this to be a seasonal ice cream flavor. Fortunately, this is Barnie's most popular flavor, so the beans are ava...

Let's see if you think this is nuts: 321 boxes of merchandise Sunday (because the shipping company didn't have enough drivers on Friday or Saturday) 269 boxes of merchandise Tuesday (because the shipping company had more call outs on Monday) 175 boxes today, but they wanted to deliver 285. So, I'm being the helpful person and heading back into work in about 2 hours...probably will be there until midnight or 1am. It's gotta get done. Glad I'm not doing all the turkey stuff this year. I love turkey, but buying the ham was a much better idea. Thanks Ed! The question is: what drink am I going to have when I get home, because I'm going to need it! Wine or comfort and ginger? Hmmmm, I'm going to ponder that one for the next six hours!

Okay, preachy Suzanne here: This Thanksgiving, tell those you love how much they mean to you. Give them a hug, a kiss, as many kind words and thoughts as you can. I'm thankful I had 39 years with my mom, and now I realize how much my life is affected on a day to day basis by Mom. In figuring out a Thanksgiving menu and trying to accommodate two kids preferences, I think I'll make carrots and onions in butter, then a broccoli bake for me and Ed, applesauce, cheddar bay biscuits, red cabbage and probably a chocolate cream pie. Then it hits me that my Thanksgiving menu is all stuff Mom made every year-and I've made most of them year after year, too. I'm also looking to the leftover Honeybaked ham to make my favorite comfort food-au gratin potatos with ham chunks, and realize that this, too, was Mom's favorite way to make leftover ham. I give thanks that we had a year of living close to each other when I was old enough to appreciate how much Mom had to offer.

So, last week we were looking at Christmas decorations. This year's in thing seems to be prismatic cut outs, outlined in white lights. For some reason, they're called Holographic decorations. Ed saw one and thought it said Pornographic Snowman, not Holographic! Then today, I was reading the paper while Ed was driving us back from stepdads. He asked me to read him the news-and I told him about the article I was reading. It detailed prostidudes in Tampa-they were calling them 'agressive transvestites". Ed's take was that they come up to your car and tell you "You better come here and let me service you, or else!". Too funny.

Well, folks, aren't you glad you have a link to my blog? I'm in the midst of the insanity that retail management calls Thanksgiving. Yep, supposed to have 3 days off, got cut to two and I volunteered (you're saying 'sucker') to help out this morning! If I'm not returning your calls, it's not because I don't want to talk to you. Rather, I'm knee deep in pajamas, plush friends, princess toys and all the other accoutrements that my store has right now. Look on the bright side, I'm not calling at 2am to check in! I keep telling myself that I can get through one more Christmas season-I'm scoping Monster for other stuff. It's time for a Monday to Friday normal job!