Onto the read:
Black Friday for me started out as a bad makeup session. My everyday foundation took a turn for the dark side this morning as I was smearing yesterday's stress out of existence. Somewhere in the past 24 hours, it went from it's normal peachy beige tone to a "I spent 40 days in the Miami sun", shade.
Some rogue brain cell in my head thought it would just magically change to it's regularly scheduled shade if I just kept spreading it all around various 40-something crevices on my face that have seemed to increase since the B-day last week.
It didn't, and I was looking more like I had a bad streak job from a container of "Tan in a Can".
After washing up and starting ALL over again with a back-up foundation, I found myself the last to enter the van as five members of my family, still on a turkey day sugar high, were taking turns interrogating me as to why I was taking SO long.
Maybe I should have just left the crap on my face and humiliated them in public instead for the day.
"Mommy had to pee - now let's just go!"
The two hour drive to Birmingham was a cloudy, wet one. Luckily, this miraculously forced the hubs to obey all speed limits. It was either that, or the state patrols that seemed to be practicing entrapment cleverly hiding every other mile or so.
We stopped for lunch along the way at a Moe's Burrito place where the hubs and I knew we could catch a glimpse at the just starting Auburn - Alabama, Iron Bowl game. I looked up at the TV after sitting down, only to see a 14-0 score and Auburn's pride and joy - Quarterback Cam Newton - get sacked all at the same time.
My heart sank - it truly was "Black Friday".
We finished up, got back in the car and turned the Sirius radio to the nearest sports station featuring the game between the two long-standing state rivals. We were on the way to HomeGoods where I need to purchase an item for my ever growing Christmas decor.
All along the way, Auburn was making one screw up after another in the 1st half of the game and I was just.... just.... well, just plain pissed off at them. How could they go undefeated all season and then let Alabama - who lost to 2 major teams Auburn beat - win the Iron Bowl game.
Luckily we found HomeGoods before I got emotionally wrapped up in the game. I popped out and made some quick searches throughout the store, and for $25, scored a couple of cute items like a cranberry Christmas tree and a silk poinsettia that does NOT look like the tacky ones sold outside your favorite dollar or grocery store that usually die the day after purchase.
This one had an arrangement of dark wood branches at the base with a nice ribbon holding them together. Which I'm sure, one of the kids will have unwrapped and spread it across the living room floor before Santa even gets close to our house. It's kinda like the tassels on my new sofa pillows. They mysteriously show up on the sofa plucked and pulled apart these days, and I've only had them since September!
"They" blame it on the individual that I don't remember giving birth to: "I Don't Know"!
By the time I get back in the car, Auburn is still figuring how to play a freaking football game. The hubs and I go back and forth between turning the station on or off because it's getting just too darn stressful listening to it, and "entertaining" four kids in the back, and figuring out where the heck we are going. All while trying not to get in a car accident.
I should have rolled the car in bubble wrap like I told my cousin Larry I was gonna do before venturing out today.
I'm a nervous wreck and I can't figure out if it's the game making me that way or the fact that I am the ONLY lunatic attempting to so out on the busiest shopping day of the year with ALL the kids in tow!
We manage to get to the Galleria Mall in one piece, but we are not even 50 freaking feet inside before one of my kids decides it's time to pull out one of their tantrums! We were going to split up in two groups and meet up in a couple of hours.
But NoooooOOOOOOOoooooo!!!
One of my kids doesn't like the grouping arrangements and immediately starts that stubborn like a donkey routine that leads them to yell at ME in the mall, PLUS think it's okay to "knock" my big mama's butt out of their way.
My first instinct was to immediately bleed out of my eyeballs and spin my head around a couple hundred times. I instead opted for canceling the WHOLE trip to the mall and promptly marched their and everyone else back to the car.
Bad behavior, really bad behavior is met with zero, nada, zilch privileges! Unfortunately, we ALL suffered for *the child* I gave birth to, but carries my husbands genes.
The next hour down the road towards Montgomery was filled with the lovely sounds of tears, grumbles, an occasional creative jargon thrown around meant to insult either my decision or the *child's* previous behavior.
I just listened to the game, which by now had completely turned around for Auburn. During our little escapade at the mall, Auburn had managed to come totally from behind in a flash to bring the score to a more acceptable 24-14. Soon after the hubs and I got all warm and fuzzy about it and threw in a couple of high fives for good measure, we had just missed Auburn churn out another touchdown that brought their score to 21 and had them breathing down the necks of Alabama at that point.
The Auburn Tigers were living up to their reputation as the "4th Quarter Team". We kept our ears glued to the radio as we inched closer to Montgomery, and emotions in the back seat had reached a tranquil level. Which pretty much means WE turned on the DVD player so WE could finish listening to the game.
By the time we reached our destination in Montgomery, there was only a minute and 18 seconds left in the game. The score was now 28-27 in Auburn's favor and Alabama had the ball. It was raining, we were excited, and the hubs was doing his absolute WORSE driving ever while awaiting the output of the game.
We pulled into the parking lot of the mall (yeah, we're trying this ONE more time), when suddenly with roughly 51 seconds left in the game ...... INTERCEPTION BY AUBURN - AUBURN WINS THE GAME!!
We happened to be listening to a Rolltide Sports Station, so there was little to no enthusiasm on their part announcing the Auburn win, but our van was bouncing up and down and the hubs was honking the horn over and over, aaaaannnnddd people were walking by looking at us like someone had just let the crazy people out of the mental ward for the evening.
Yes, we can be that obnoxious in public sometimes.
After that, the rest of the evening went completely perfect; all my children were perfect little angels in the mall. I even managed a little Christmas shopping while we were there. They are now grouped together in front of the Wii playing rounds of bowling and golf together and laughing up a storm in the process.
Except for my score (haa, haa, no pun intended), at HomeGoods today, you would have never thought we went out or that the "tantrum" at the mall E-ver happened at all.
Not sure what happened, but whatever it was, it jinxed the first half of both mine and Auburn's game today.
Next year, I'm shopping after the 4th quarter of the game starts!
