Hello one and all! I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday! Sorry that I’ve been MIA these past few days – I’ve been working, working, working! I had my fifth Black Friday in retail this week and it was pretty crazy. I woke up at four in the morning on Black Friday to be at Next by five thirty so we could open by six. Thank goodness for my mom who set her alarm with me at four so that I didn’t sleep through mine! She even had a pot of coffee ready for me – what a doll!!! So I got to work and right as we opened the door at six – BAM – the store was flooded with shoppers. I honestly wasn’t expecting it at all. This was my first Black Friday working outside of the mall, so I assumed that a smaller business wouldn’t have nearly as much shopping traffic…I was dead wrong. For my entire almost twelve hour shift at Next there was a constant stream of people flowing in and out of the store. It was exhausting! The day went by relatively quick though since we had a solid amount of shoppers all day. And when there wasn’t any one in the store it gave us time to straighten up all of the clothing and displays. It felt so good to be outside of the craziness that I’m sure was happening ten minutes down the street at the mall. I promised my sister that I would visit her during her very first retail Black Friday shift now that she works at The Body Shop. When I got to the mall around six o’clock in the evening it was still swarming with people. It gave me anxiety! By that time all of the stores were completely trashed, so it wasn’t even fun going into any of my favorite shopping spots. My sister looked like she was doing great though during her shift so I definitely had a proud mama moment about that!!! The best thing about my Black Friday was coming home to find a letter from my best friend Tyler who’s currently in basic training on the kitchen table…and just coming home in general! Ha! I was so happy and exhausted that I ended up crying the entire time I read the letter. They were happy tears of course! I miss him so much and hearing from him was the perfect ending to a long day. All in all it was a solid Black Friday. A different but good experience from my previous four shifts working in the mall!

Unfortunately my work weekend wasn’t quite over after my long day on Black Friday because Small Business Saturday occurred on the following day. It was only an eight hour shift yesterday but it still wore me out!! I’m pretty sure that everyone was done spending their money after Black Friday because we barely had any customers yesterday. It ended up being a very chill day but I was still tired!!! By the time I got home around nine thirty I was already fantasizing about curling up under my covers and going to bed! After about twenty hours of work in two days you better believe I slept like a rock last night! I think I got thirteen hours of sleep so I’m feeling rejuvenated, recharged, and ready to go. But in all reality I’m going to end up doing nothing today, I need some me time. My mom is going to dye my hair for me so I can get some pampering and my best friend Lea is going to swing by for an hour or so later tonight. So it should be a nice, quiet day at home.

After being at the mall on Black Friday evening I realized just how much I hate people. Lol I kid, I kid! But really, shopping becomes totally unenjoyable when you’re just being jostled around a gaggle of shoppers. I have Monday off so I plan on participating in the Cyber Monday deals to get the rest of my holiday shopping done. My online gift giving destination lately has been http://www.amazon.com. They seriously have EVERYTHING and the prices are fantastic!!! I’ve gotten about half of my holiday shopping done already so I’m really hoping I can check the last few people off of my list this Monday! If you know of any sites that are having some great Cyber Monday deals, please let me know!

How was everyone’s Thanksgiving? Did any of you guys go Black Friday shopping? What kind of deals did you get? What kind of craziness occurred where you were shopping at? I’d love to hear all about it so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Happy Sunday! -Sarah