lucyismycat

Right now, I have a 5' tall and 5' wide inflatable turkey in my front flower bed. However, DH and I were talking this weekend and we are thinking about just moving forward with Christmas stuff. Due to family demographics (i.e. a lot of people over 80 years old), we may not do much for Thanksgiving, so we might as well start putting up some Christmas decorations! Maybe I'll leave the turkey up for a while yet, and we'll have both - I'm sure the neighbors will love that LOL

We do restaurant (or liquor store, depending on how well I know the teacher lol) gift cards. This year I will add a little mini-hand sanitizer with a snap holder that they can use. My oldest has a male teacher for the first time, so I will probably just do 2 gift cards for him, one for the liquor store and one for a restaurant. I know my kid drives him to drink! LOL Some years we get a pdf of teacher preferences, which is really helpful at knowing what to get and what not to get. If that comes out again this year I will get gc based on it.

Just got an email from GameStop that my PS5 is coming 2 weeks early. It was supposed to ship on the 30th. Xbox ships tomorrow. I was going to try to find another PS5 (non-bundle) this week at launch, but I may not try as hard now. I guess it's time to find some games for these guys and a hiding spot!

Well, it's official, there is NO budget. After purchasing DS9's new goalie gear and a new HVAC system for our house, our washing machine went out on Sunday. Waiting for repair man to come next Monday but I have a feeling he is going to say our 10 year old unit is kaput. Luckily there are appliance sales for this one! My dryer has been acting up for a little while as well, so I think I will splurge and get both if the "opportunity" presents itself LOL

I do two stockings for our boys (ages 9 and 10). One is a regular stocking with gum, chapstick, toothbrush/toothpaste, itunes gc, Roblox card for one kid, Vbucks card for the other one, favorite candy, soap and an orange for each of them. We have a PS5 and an XBox series X coming, so I will pick up some gift cards for games or whatever (Xbox live subscription, I guess) and add those, although this will complicate the timing of stocking opening a little. The other stocking is all sports related. They both play hockey, so things like: sock tape, stick tape, stick handle grippy tape or buttendz, skate laces, usually a new mouthguard (by that point in the season the ones they're using sometimes look like chew toys lol), any swag I can pick up at tournaments for their team, team keychains, bag tags, helmet decals, stick stickers, skate socks, stick wax for the skater, helmet sweatband for the goalie, any t-shirts that have come throughout the year from a hockey subscription gift box we do every month, skate guards if they need new ones, etc. This year I'll add a microSD card to the goalie's stocking for the GoPro we got to record his games. I have some stockings that are shaped like hockey skates, so we use those. I think it could translate to just about any sport, and they really get into it. I like that it's mostly all stuff that I would buy anyway, and it just happens to come halfway through our season so usually they are running low on some things (NEVER sock or stick tape, but I buy it anyway lol). I bet there are going to be a lot of face masks in stockings this year. I will probably add some hockey-themed ones to our stockings just for fun.

Ended up with an air popper for DH, a couple of adidas hoodies for the boys, and a sweater for me. One less store to try to hit on BF!

I am eyeballing that Kohler shower head/speaker. Maybe I could get DS (ages 9 and 10) excited about a shower with it. LOL

I am definitely lagging behind in excitement this year. I think part of it is the lack of balance between work/home life now that I'm at home full-time. I need to get better at turning off the work part, so I can focus on the ones that matter in my home. Also, usually by now I have hockey season pushing me along; this year it looks very different and I think we are all just missing our normal crazy schedule. I have mostly cut myself off from almost all social media due to election craziness, which has probably helped me more than I realize.

Sheets! And usually video games or cheap movies depending on what's on the boys' wishlist. I also pick up toothpaste and toothbrushes for stockings, whether or not they're on sale. I got the rubbermaids a couple of years ago and didn't realize that they were mostly all the little sizes, so I've been adding the larger ones as I go. I don't think I will grab those again. I need to find a deal on some really good towels.

DM and I hit Starbucks early on in the evening, and then around midnight, hit Sonic before heading to the other side of town to finish up shopping. Milkshakes to go are a good pick-me-up by that point. And Sonic is maybe the best people watching opportunity we have. Last year we saw a lady get into a fight with the manager over how long she had been waiting (not longer than us, for sure). The cops were called and everything! For those of us that are pretty boring otherwise, it was an exciting night! LOL This year, who knows? Our governor may shut down indoor dining by then, so we will just hit a drive thru if we can find one. Most of the stores we normally go to are closed on Thanksgiving, so I may just shop online this year and try to forget 2020 altogether.

Ugh. My kids want that Scoob movie. We have 2 hockey tournaments that weekend so I guess I’ll see if my mom can pick it up for me. That’s really it for me. Someone asked about the Go Pro 7...one of my fellow hockey mom friends has that one that her husband uses to video her son’s games. I just recently purchased the Hero 9, but she told me they love the 7. I think her only complaint might be battery life, but they just got multiple batteries and swap them out.

Those $6.88 large Yankee candles are going to suck me in, I can feel it already.

It came! Thanks so much! DH was thoroughly jealous of all the SWAG!

I have tried, like REALLY tried, to find something to buy in this sale, just to join in the festivities LOL However, I cannot find anything that I need or even want. I was hoping for a sale on Adidas pants for the boys, but nothing. No Nike sales in their size group, either. They are too picky about tennis shoes, and I really can't justify any clothing purchases for myself or DH since 1. we are both working from home and 2. our closets are jammed full already. I keep going back to look through the items like something will jump off the screen, but it's just not happening. Fingers are crossed for Amazon Prime days, I guess?

That’s what I’m planning for He *should* just need leg pads, blocker, catcher and pants. Everything else better still fit by then! DH told me this morning we are looking at a new HVAC system. I think Santa will bring him a nice wifi thermostat.

Well, if I ever had a budget, it would have been blown up by 2 console pre-orders. So, we will end up spending more than we did last year, especially if the 9yo needs new goalie equipment this season. Add that to extra sports travel outside of our state (thanks ‘Rona), and there is no budget for the rest of the year. It’s raining money! (That’s what DH thinks *I* think LOL) I think I will wait to hit him up for new flooring until January when he’s recovered some.

I normally hide stuff in my office at work. Working from home this year, so I will need to manufacture some reasons to run into the office with stuff piled in the back of my car. I have two big gifts this year that absolutely cannot be spoiled, so I will definitely take those and hide them. Little stuff, I usually hide in my sewing studio, which is also my home office, so I think I can keep that up. My kids aren't really snoopers yet. On second thought, I might not take the big gifts to the office just because I'm NOT there every day and we have some different people roaming through our building periodically. I might have DH stash those gifts in the attic instead. I keep track of all of the gifts in my Christmas Microsoft OneNote notebook. It contains everything from Christmas card lists to gifts to menus to decorations, ornaments I collect, traditions, addresses that are known to have great Christmas light displays, outfits for photos, etc. I have a section for each year so I can go back and reflect on things that worked and didn't, recipes that were received well (or not). I like that I can access it from my phone, iPad, MacBook, work pc, wherever I happen to be.

Happy October 2020 - the month with 2 full moons (one on the 1st and the other on the 31st). Harvest moon and Hunter's moon (also blue moon). Yesterday was nutso around here, so I can hardly wait to see what Halloween brings. September brought personal health problems to one of my favorite coworkers. I am so ready for this year to be done. No more bad news, please. Hockey season is ramping up, we are going out of state to play games when we can. My little goalie is getting ready for his first "big-time" game next weekend. I will never understand his desire to have people shoot things at him (his head!). It's a lot of pressure on him, he's the only goalie for his team, so there's no backup if he's having a bad day. Looking forward to some great deals later this month!

Wow, yay! Thanks so much!

We have decided as a family to have a smaller Thanksgiving family get-together this year (not ALL of the extended family), and my mother has decided she would like to host this dinner at her house. This means I can start decorating for Christmas ANY TIME I WANT! Probably shortly after Halloween, Christmas will start popping up. Fall stuff going up this weekend!

GameStop preorder for PS5 was in store for just the disc version. Online was for the Starter bundle (Spider-Man game, another game and some PS network thing I think). Bundles have been in and out of stock this morning, but I managed to snag one. I think it ships or delivers on 11/30, which is plenty of time for Christmas.

Received 2 lovely pins. Thank you!

So, this may not even work, but I was just at xbox.com and it shows the Series S available to pre-order with the All Access plan. Maybe try that if you still want one?

I was able to preorder one through Walmart's site with minimal hassle. A couple of times it wouldn't let me check out, but I just kept trying and eventually it worked. Now to camp out on some sites hoping for more PS5 preorders lol I don't even have any xbox games, so I'm sure I'll be on the lookout for age-appropriate ones through the shopping season.

I'm not sure what 8-12 year old boys they talked to...mine aren't really interested in anything on this list, with the exception of hoverboards (already have) and nerf guns, and I'm refusing to buy any more nerf guns because they like to ambush me LOL