Shopaholics Anonymous

When I told Grumpy get something sweet from the store, this isn't quite what I meant!

More Thanksgiving Fun

Another day, another social engagement. Here we are at Hyacinth's house. In a unique photo Abigail the human meets Abigail the dog.
"Thank you so much for coming dear, but I can't understand a word you say."
The Great Zoudini makes light work of the washing up, making the whole lot disappear sooner than you can say 'abracadabra.'

No time for slacking. Rebecca makes sure her dad practices every day.

More Midnight Madness

I'm sure regular readers won't have forgotten our first dabble with midnight madness on our first Thanksgiving here. (If you have, look back to November 2007). Since then only madness we've participated in at midnight on black Friday is staying up late with a hot cocoa. But with a shopaholic daughter in town, we felt we couldn't resist. So harmed with the best advice in town (from my hairdresser, who else?) this time we decided to hit a store in a strip mall rather than the biggest outlet mall in the area. Typically the temperatures dipped to 18 degrees, which personally I think was just a marketing ploy to make everyone buy coats.
The line wasn't actually too bad, and we enjoyed chatting with others as we shook and shivered in line for a mere 45 minutes before being allowed in the store.
For a moment it seemed really exciting....until we realized the 'bargains' were pretty much the same as every other day.
Once the girls had snapped up their bargains we only had to wait in line another 45 minutes to pay.
On the way out Abi takes a moment to pose with the Old Navy celebrities - those cute mannequins they use in their TV ads. As we left, I'm sure I could hear them saying "thanks for helping our economy...."

A Family Thanksgiving

This year we're having something of a family Thanksgiving for a change - our daughter Abi and her friend Marie are staying with us. Of course that doesn't actually mean I'm doing the cooking myself, if I did it wouldn't be a real American Thanksgiving now would it? Fortunately we were able to go to our good friend Rebecca of Sunnybrook Drive's home.
Unfortunately Grumpy insisted on helping. It really would have been better if he'd have kept his eyes open...
To be honest, the turkey didn't look too fresh...
but it turned out great in the end!

Status Update

I read with interest this week that Her majesty, the Queen, is launching her own facebook page. I'm not quite sure how she'll control it given the fact that she always seems to wear gloves, but I bet she'll be just as addicted as the rest of us are in no time. So just for her, I'm linking this blog post on facebook to give her a helping hand.

1. Your majesty should never need to update one's status. It should simply read "better than everyone else."
2. Your majesty should not have 'friends', but 'loyal subjects'. (You can block the disloyal ones).
3. Your majesty's 'wall' should have barbed wire along the top to keep one safe, much like one around the gardens of Buckingham Palace.
4. The info page's favourite quote should be "my husband and I."
5. Work should include "having the back of one's head licked and stuck on an envelope" and "laying in wallets" although she never seems to be in the second for quite long enough.
6. 'Home page' should read 'Palace page', although admittedly this may be confusing for the poor chap who holds that job.
7. Your majesty may play Cafe World but will only use it to drink tea.
8. Your majesty should invent a new game called Commonwealth Ville of which one will be head.
9. Your majesty should try the quiz 'which queen are you most like?" but not be surprised when the result shows Queen Victoria.
10. Instead of broadcasting her Christmas message on the BBC, one should just send it as a message to all her 'subjects'.

Steve in the City

Another day, another celeb. On Saturday night I was covering a fundraiser when who should I stumble across but David Eigenberg. If he looks familiar, it's because he's the actor who plays Steve on Sex and the City.
Eigenberg comes from Naperville, and still visits a couple of times a year. Of course being in Naperville, there was no talk of sex at all, but he did say how much he still likes the city!