295. Flurries

There was such a whirlwind of activity today and yet I feel totally mellow even though I've been going nonstop for the past 12-13 hours.

I'm trying to remember everything now and this morning feels so long ago, it's almost as if it happened another day, lol. Let's see. The day started off with a haircut and pedicure (Lord, knows that I needed both!), then off to the mall to be detoured into being kicked out of the car to take advantage of McDonald's local Customer Appreciation campaign in which you buy a Big Mac and get another one for an additional penny (Yeah, my brother and I were all over that!) while my mom went to pick up a bag of frozen shrimp and a homemade mocha-frosted yule log-shaped cake. XD

My mom and I went ahead to the mall where we found out that our favorite stores were having a 40% off of our entire purchase sales. Excuse me?! Lol, we usually only go in to grab a specific piece or two when we need them but holy cow! I am like the only bum that I know of that can manage to go on vacation and come back with better and more clothes than what I left with. We actually found a dress for me to wear to church on Christmas Day in record time and my mom bought me a few really nice/ cute staple pieces to add to my wardrobe. I would wear nothing but ill-fitting jeans and cheap t-shirts if it weren't for her. A bag lady of sorts. Of course this mall is crazier than any mall I've seen in in my new city and I worked at the mall on Black Friday last year. HA.

Then, I met up with my brother peruse our local beloved card and comic store. They older gentlemen that work there are so sweet and funny and kind. I just adore them!! Like with anything else I do in life, I have dabbled and do own a few comics and trading cards from different games. :D Nerd/dork here and loving it. They didn't have the brand of cards I was hoping to grab but my brother made out like a bandit! He bought gifts for a friend and a few booster packs for himself. The gentleman helping us told us to open up the packs now, check them out, and then call him over to appraise the haul to see if we scored or not. Long story short, we did! Then, he kept praising a few theme coming out for the series that my brother was collecting so we said we'd check it out. Fast forward and the three of us had sorted through 48 recently opened booster packs and went nuts organizing them all. We caught a few uncommon rarity cards that were not removed prior to being put into the 25 cent common card box and by the end of it the lovely gentleman decided to give my brother three of each card that they had many of for free. All in all, there were 110 cards of which they could have sold for at least $28 total my brother walked away with. We were aghast, but he insisted. That's the kind of amazingly kind and cool stuff they do there. They get to know their customers, genuinely care about all of this, and cut loyal ones a break every now and then. I friggin' love that place. I never walk in expecting to pay nothing but full price and I am often treated with the same kindness. I need to dig my trading cards out... jeez.

On the way home, my brother and I are distracted by going to Target and Toys 'R' Us because we're dumb like that. It's friggin'  three days before Christmas and they are in essence in the same plaza as our only indoor shopping mall. We did walk away with a movie and such. Needless to say, everything today took about twice as long as it should have, but I had a blast.


It got even better when I had another friend come over to visit!! I love coming back and having conversations that mostly consist of yelling at each other about how we should have already reunited last week. XD My mom told me to just invite her over for dinner after she had been driving for the past several hours from upstate. Hooray homecooked meal!! There was quite the spread that I have to boast about because I have seriously missed my mother's cooking. It's only big because we wanted to have leftovers that would last us the next couple of days before all of the parties. An entire turkey and an entire honey-baked ham, giant bowl of mashed potatoes and gravy, batch of small potatoes, and a heap of sweet corn giblets and broccoli. O.M.G. Lol. And my mom just shrugged it off and merely called it just another dinner even though we know she put a good amount of effort into it. Yeah, it really isn't as intense as the feasts she could put on but still! That's a serious weeknight dinner, right?

We gobbled it down and watched the live action movie of Alvin and the Chipmunks on TV while we rested. Then we had some of the mocha-flavored cake when my dad came back from some really long errand. Well it turns out that he had gone to pick up a large bird cage he bought online and it ended up coming with a bird. ... What?! My folks recently started having lovebirds as pets. They have four now and each are a different shade, it's really kind of cool and I'll try to catch a picture of them but they're kind of timid around strangers. Namely me. This new bird is a Dusky-headed conure which is a fancy word for parakeet. Smart creatures. My folks hope that they all get along in the large cage but we're researching into how to go about doing that. It has been one random hectic but exhilarating day! I've even started making more plans today for tomorrow and the next few days. Lol. It's another crazy chaos but I'm just along for the ride and that takes away so much pressure that I usually tend to pile upon myself. It's good to be back here again.

Being with even more people who care about me that I don't get to see all that often is such a wonderful gift that I am grateful for. Heck, I'm increasingly grateful to have all of these people in my life, period! 

I'll see you tomorrow and hope your holiday season is going well. <3