Turkey Day and Black Friday

So we totally pigged out on our Thanksgiving meal. Today I'm back to the diet, but it was really decadent to just totally throw it all away for one magnificent day of food. We had a large turkey (which still has more than half of it remaining for meals for the rest of the weekend), and we had all of the fixings - cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn, and my DH did a lovely baked broccoli in a sauce with cheese and bacon that turned out really good. For dessert, an hour or two later, we had pumpkin and apple/cream cheese pie slices. OMG! So good!

French Apple Cream cheese pie. OMG! So good!

I spent the day at my computer, writing. My characters are in the middle of the Rocky Mountains now, heading to the next place where they will spend a bit of time. The journey has been hard, but good, and they are still characters with things to say to me, so I'm happy at 65,000 words and still writing. My goal is to continue writing each day, and I've been sticking to it. I want to tell this story, then finally, after I have resolved it to my satisfaction, I can go back and begin the editing process. It's going to be a slog, but so worthwhile. I'm happy with what I've done and where I'm at.

A miner and his mule. This picture is from Orient, Colorado which
is located near Moffat, Colorado. 

Today, of course, is Black Friday. Many stores opened last night instead of early today, and that's OK. I know there are many people up in arms over the fact that stores would open for shopping on Thanksgiving Day. I'm not planning on doing that in my own business, but I can see why those stores who have long lines of people wanting to get in and shop the bargains would be interested in getting them through the doors earlier. As for my own store...well I was supposed to get a list of the things that we were putting onto our "unannounced items on special sale" and the list never appeared. So now I'll have to make up some template signs while I'm home with a printer that can handle the heavier stock I use for signage, and then I'll have to make up my own mind about what I want on sale and how much I want to take off. I'll hand-write the signs and put them up before my doors open at 10:00 am.

It used to be that doors opened at 5:am on Friday. Then that got pushed
back to midnight, now many stores were open at 8:00 pm on Thanksgiving
Day. I know I didn't have the energy to shop after eating my turkey, but
I'm sure the popular stores were wall-to-wall people. 

We are running one of the two sales that we offer a year for Black Friday and Small Business Saturday. For my Friday, I'm offering deep discounts on Swarovski crystal items and high-end stone, and on Saturday we're doing our annual Seed Bead Spectacular which usually has us hopping like total idiots. I'm hoping that the sales will be well attended and that people will be patient as we pull and process their choices. Usually we don't have problems, but sometimes there have been shoplifting issues or people who needed a lot of specialized help, and those can be problematic.

One of the items that we'll be running special deep discounts
on are our Swarovski Crystal Elements cubes. They are
so lovely and flashy, but expensive, so we want to
sell some and lower our stocks of them a bit. 

So, if you're out and about today, shopping anywhere, spare a smile and a "Have a nice day" for your sales staff. They are probably stressed to the max, today. I know I will be.

Does any kid really need that many toys? REALLY? 

Here's a Black Friday Bingo card for those of you heading out to shop.

Here's hoping you have only good things happen to you
on your personal Black Friday experience. 

Have a good Friday, everyone. I hope you get the bargains you've been looking for!