A Whole Lot of Randomness

It looks like BDD's Weekly Ramblings that Leah did, and Colleen's lasted post is catching on for this time of year.  I guess I have a lot of random things that don't neccesistate full posts, but are on my mind.

First, Three Cedars Farm has made it all over the Detroit news, and reached Chicago.  Please check out "Save Three Cedars Farm!" on f/b for more updates.  Per Gary and Sherry, there is not enough time to redecorate for Christmas and reopen for this season if they are allowed to continue.  This is a major bummer.  I really wish I could drive up there and try to orchestrate some sort of huge community activity to do it for them.  I have volunteered at the Festival of Trees before, where an army of people decorated a huge building in a couple of days.  However, the major difference was that there were about 3-4 volunteers per exhibitors, and each exhibitor had a very small area that they were in charge of, so they could still over a LOT of direction to their volunteers, but get a lot done since it was just a small area.  I did things such as wash french doors so that they could be flocked, checked strings of lights for bad ones, and unpacked boxes and spread out their contents.  The building was also empty when we got there, except for the boxes that were delivered full of decor items.  The problem with doing something like this for Three Cedars is that I am guessing there are not enough folks over at Three Cedars that know what everything us supposed to look like to be able to direct the volunteers it would take.  Also, all of the fall items would need to be repacked, and I bet it would be a nightmare in the making come next year if volunteers did it.  It would be like me sorting out all of our decorating after the move, from our many boxes just labeled "Holiday", but on a much larger scale.

I learned how to do flip turns last week!  I am still not so good at them, and spent some time working on the in the pool today.  I had a free personal training session which left me very tired, and without a lot of time to get in any serious distance before the daycare closed. 

We took our family Christmas pictures.  Here are my two favorites:

We owe a big Thank You to the JCPenney portrait studio in St Matthews, KY for doing such a great job and to the kids for being very good through the whole thing. 

I am working on my Christmas list.  The top two items are:
-Tires
- New Brakes

Very exciting, right?  Actually, they aren't really Christmas presents, just things I need to buy right now, but have been procrastinating because I haven't wanted to spend most of a day with Soren getting them done.  The car still stops and goes OK, and it isn't making the horrible noise, so I am OK for a little bit more.  Hey, I used to be a brake design engineer, so I know what I am doing here, right?  ha ha.  Don't be me, please!

Actually, here are the real things.  I want the Kinect for our Xbox, and some dancing games.  I am torn between the Dance Central 2 and the Just Dance 3.  The graphics on DC are better, but the songs are a bit more grown up.  JD has LMFAO.  Ryan hates bad graphics, so he bought the Kinect and Dance Central 2 (as well as Batman) from Best Buy.  So today, as Silver Premier Members with Best Buy, we were able to shop the online Black Friday sales today, from noon until midnight.  Everything we bought all together was now over $100 cheaper.  Ryan spent an hour trying to get through the system.  I came home, and spent about an hour and a half on hold with customer service, ONCE I FINALLY GOT THROUGH, as well as a couple hours online. It was like trying to enter a radio station contest to win a million dollars or something!  Maybe this is what IM entry is like too, I don't know and won't know for a long time.  All I got was the navi for our car that Ryan wanted.  Everything else was all sold out by the time I could navigate the site properly.  It looks like we may be hitting the stores Thursday at midnight to try to get the deals.  The good news, is that we have our stuff, so we will still get it for Christmas, but it is just at a cost premium.  I don't supposed they do price adjustments for black friday, do they?  Or allow you to return and rebuy?  I would be scared something would go bad if we tried to do that, like we get it snatched from us or it gets returned and someone else buys it before we can. 

Finally, I did sign up for the Turkey Trot in Columbus.  I think it will be fun, and the kids' entries were free with mine, which mentally makes the race seem cheaper.  We all get shirts and medals, and hopefully I will get a pie. 

That's all for now.  Good luck on those Thanksgiving Day races and enjoy your holiday!  Also, good luck with BF shopping.  I'll be starting Wed night at midnight online (hello gymbo addict!), so I am not expecting to PR on Thursday.