Blackened

I've never been much of a shopper, and the idea of heading out on Black Friday has never appealed to me. I can't think of anything I want or want to give badly enough to get up before dawn and compete with others just to stand in a long line to buy it. But this year I was asked by a friend to accompany him as he bought gifts for a children's shelter, and I figured, what the heck, you only live once. Adam woke me up before dawn, I dressed, gathered some sustenance (sesame crackers, cheddar cheese, and dark chocolate M&Ms), and hit the road.

We made it to the big box store (which will go unnamed, lest I be forced to go into why I generally refuse to shop there) around 7:15am. The barricades were still up and I had to walk all the way around the building to make it back to the front entrance in time to be told entry was no longer being controlled. Good timing, eh? We enter chaos. There are plenty of shopping carts, but virtually no space within which to maneuver them. The checkout lines literally meander all the way to the back of the store. Staff stand at the end of many aisles and next to any display with easily pocketed merchandise. If anyone has only one item in their cart, it's a big screen tv; otherwise carts are piled high with mostly toys, games, dolls, and electronics. We make a circuit along the outermost aisles, picking up any toy that looks good, and I add one thing for Adam. Together we politely push past confused shoppers, listless children, and more than a few overburdened shopping carts.

At the other side, my friend has the bright idea of asking whether there's a checkout off in the garden section, and sure enough there is. Eureka! The lines are still long there, but the quiet of the space makes it all bearable. No one pushes through us while we wait in line, no tinny music assails our ears, and all we gaze upon are stacks of tastefully boxed holiday decorations. We befriend the two women in front of us, take turns wandering around the madhouse of the main store, and make it through the line in about 35 minutes. Start to finish our early morning shopping venture lasted an hour.

I was so energized I agreed to go for a bit more shopping elsewhere (where crowds were relatively sparse) and then Costco afterward. I know, wow. And Costco was the emptiest I've ever seen it. All in all, an enjoyable morning, and something I never would have predicted.

Monitor me

This week we began a monitor-free policy for Monday evenings. I had proposed keeping away from all computers and tvs etc one night a week in favor of family time and non-electronic amusements, here on forward. (Sort of a "Kill your TV, Lite".) David immediately agreed. On Sunday I reminded him we couldn't turn to tv or check emails to occupy ourselves the following night, and he said he knew, he was ready. He then indicated that I was the one who might not be able to forgo a bit of email and facebook monitoring, but I assured him this would be no hardship for me. He raised a skeptical brow.

Fast forward to Monday...

Week 1
David calls from work shortly after lunch. It's deader than a doornail there (this being Thanksgiving week) and he's heading home early. When he arrives he puts the laptop out, which I eye suspiciously. He still has work to do. He has a few hours before evening starts, so I let it go. Clock ticks by, we're both busy with baby, chores, making dinner.

The meal is finished and cleaned up. David gets cranky, says he has work he needed to do, that he'll have to do it after I go to bed (apparently this is acceptable to him as it is after family time). Not so fast, I tell him. "You agreed." He's the one who bathes Adam and puts him to sleep, so his time upstairs raises no alarms until it's about 8pm and I realize I've not heard from David in a while, though I notice the laptops are all downstairs. I figure he is curling up with his Economist. Curious, I go up to check and find him reaching to turn out the light and go to bed. Not to read, but to sleep. At 8:15. "But I'm tired." I would have teased him mercilessly if he didn't really look tired. (I felt his pain; we'd had a very long week prior.)

I ask him to keep me company downstairs while I bake some bread, which he does. He curls up on the sofa under several layers of blankets and reads the book I'd gotten for him from the library. I braided a beautiful loaf of bread and waited for it to bake. When we eventually both settled in for sleep, it was with a much quieter mind than I've felt for some time. I call the night a success.

Check in next week for the Monitor-free Monday, Week 2 report.