Black Friday Sales

Or whatever they're called. I've been shopping online to see what kind of a deal I can get on a new TV. Yesterday taught me that I really do need a new one as soon as possible. I was hoping to find that kind of sale price you get when you wait in line to get into a store at 5 am. No such luck. Well, I did find one super great online deal, but it's a little out of my league. For only $899 I can get a 54" widescreen flat panel HDTV, with free delivery. It's a whole $900 off retail price. Not only is that a little out of our budget, they don't deliver to our area and the kids would kill it in about 6 months or less. For those of you in the market, it's at Best Buy. I'm also being perhaps a little too picky. I want a set for under $300, and I'd prefer it to be at least 30 inches, because that's what we have now. Really, I'd like a 35 inch widescreen TV, but that would run me anywhere from $400-800. Not counting shipping, which is averaging $50-300 depending on the merchant. And most of the online specials are for monster TV's like the one at Best Buy.

Yesterday I was cooking up a storm, with Sam and Awyn both being very helpful. My stove decided to go bonkers and turned itself up while I was baking the rolls I'd been working on for the last 4.5 hours. In just 8 minutes I had a house with 3 feet of smoke on the ceiling, and I do mean the entire house, the alarms blaring, and little black bottomed hockey pucks. At least our fancy new sprinkler system is heat activated, or I'd really have been in trouble. As it was, I couldn't turn off the electric smoke detector in the living room, and we had to endure some serious ear damage until I could get the house aired out enough. Sam helped me make a molded cranberry jello salad, and then got in the way and I think I was starting to lose my voice from yelling at him. He just wanted to help, so I was trying to be patient, but the hundred or so times I told him to put the knife down or to leave the water off, and other things, I did start to lose my grip on things. We took lots of breaks to go play, but that still wasn't enough.

Taro root soup is pretty good. I've never had Taro root before. I really hadn't planned on trying it anytime soon either. I thought I was buying a horseradish root. It was in the bin marked 'horseradish' and it looked like horseradish, but when Eric came back in from outside with his two tablespoons of horseradish and his sinuses weren't bleeding, I had to go look at the grocery receipt to see just what I'd purchased. Taro root, $5/lb, I think. It wasn't a cheap little root. Also, a tip for those in the market, horseradish isn't usually dipped in wax, but taro root is. I called around, and we drove in to the Terlingua Springs market and bought their last bottle of horseradish.