Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Trying to Find Mayflower Ancestors

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's just after 9 am, and the food cooking marathon is about to start.  In less than 20 minutes iFit is streaming their Turkey Trot 5k, which, if you participate live with a subscription, you can get a free race medal.  Tempting.  I'm actually not going to do it, though.  I've never done a Turkey Trot.  Didn't it start to help people feel better about eating a lot on Thanksgiving?  Don't know.  Nah, I need to get cleaning done and such.

Some of the fam is coming over, and we're playing board games.  That's kinda my new thing that I'm getting into right now, board games.  It's such a crazy world.  Board games are exploding.  So many coming and going and the cult of the new.  I was super tempted a week ago to back a kickstarter, but talked myself out of it.  But it's not just kickstarters, there's all these Euro games, and independent games.  Do you want a puzzly game?  Worker placement?  Deck builder?  A little of everything?  It's an expensive hobby, and the more you dig, the more review/playthrough videos you watch, the bigger the wish list gets.  You will be poor for life if there isn't restraint. Eh.... no comment.

But for Black Friday there are all these game deals going on.  I impulsed bought Azul last night on Amazon, regretted it, and tried to cancel.  They must have hired a lot of people, because within a couple hours that thing was ready for shipping.  Pandemic and Ticket to Ride are also crazy good priced right now.

Streaming services are also having all these deals.  A month or so back my parents and I decided to give up satellite television.  It is so strange!  In terms of streaming I subscribe to a service that allows me to watch live British/French/Irish television, and I've got Wondrium (formerly Great Courses Plus) and Curiosity Stream.  Those last two I need to watch more of.  Ireland's TG4 and Japan's NHK World are free apps.  But I've been eyeing maybe getting Discovery + and or Hulu.  Discovery's deal isn't fantastic.  But Hulu has a $1 a month for a year deal.  That's super tempting.  It's with ads, but that's not a big deal. (P.S. The Great British Bake Off just finished this last week.  This season was amazing.  So, so good.)

I'm into genealogy and ancestry stuff.  For the longest time I've wondered and wanted Mayflower ancestors, but with that said, anything beyond about six generations I get dubious about.  They become Hypothetical ancestors, unless the research and documentation is tight, or DNA proof. Between now and the 1600's there's so much room for mistakes and secrets.  Following the Stufflebeam line back, for instance, isn't hard, simply because the name change is firmly rooted to a common ancestor.  I'm related to all Stufflebeam's.  Other surnames, the common ones, have issues.  

With that said, I've been playing around with Relative Finder through Family Search.  According to the service and the research of others, I'm possibly descended from a few Mayflower travelers: George Soule, Degory Priest, Francis Cooke, and Richard Warren.  They all signed the Mayflower Compact, including Soule who was an indentured servant. I've been looking through the family lines leading back to these men, and some seem more sure than others, but not sure enough to try to get a membership into the Mayflower Society, or whatever it's called.  They're sticklers for tight research.  That would take a crazy amount of time, and I have other pressing research to perform.  

It would be cool if I was descended at least from one of these men.  For now they are hypothetical, until proven otherwise.  But who knows, maybe?  Regardless I picked up one of those magazine book things at the checkout line a few days ago: Mayflower, Birth of America by American Collector.  It's really cool, and the articles look interesting.  So I'll be reading it bit by bit.

I need to get to Thanksgiving prep stuff before the fam starts trickling in.  The live iFit race is happening, hopefully it's going well.  I'm just looking forward and thankful that this will be a nice holiday.  

Have a good day,

Sarah

P.S. According to Relative Finder Benjamin Franklin is my 4th cousin 10 times removed.  That's cool! Hope it's true! :D  Our common ancestor was born in 1515.... so... yeah.

In the Name of Black Friday Madness!!! . . .

I fell asleep super early tonight thanks to everything that has happened these last couple days . . . and then awoke at 1 a.m. this fine morning, deciding that this would be as perfect a time as any to pen (aka write on my cell phone) a blog post.

Now it's 1:15 in the morning as I sit here, a lively Boccherini classical Quintet playing in the background, as I calmly question my sanity, droopy eyes aside.

This is a bad idea.

If driving tired is equivalent to driving drunk, is this equivalent to drunk blogging?

Yup.

(Backing up a little.)

I hate the idea behind Black Thursday, because it's no longer enough to wait till Friday.  We must now encroach upon Thursday, turning a relatively quiet day of cooking and family drama into a madhouse dash between one good deal after another.  And all those poor workers who were dragged away from their families to work 8+ hour shifts through the midnight hour.

Last year I boycotted Black Thursday.

This year I participated.

Curiosity overcame any sound judgment . . . and I'm $90 poorer as a result.

My Mom wanted to check out the Mall and the adjacent Target store.

We explored the Mall a little, most stores were closed at 6:30 p.m. (Some stores opened at 8, others 10, all stores had to be open by midnight).  The girl working at the Games and Calendars store worked a 13 hour shift, from six that night to seven the next morning.

Most of my shopping was done at Target.  No big screen for me, though the multiple rows of TV boxes towards the front of the store was quite impressive.

I headed upstairs where I scored three Nintendo 3DS games at $15 each: Mario Kart 7, the new Donkey Kong 3D game, and Super Mario 3D World.  Each game is normally $40.  I also found the board game "Pandemic" for $31.  (I've known about this game for years, hearing how much fun it is, but ever since the Ebola outbreak I've thought about this game and how much I want to play it.  Blame my sick twisted humor). And I got the Nashville season 2 part 2 Target exclusive CD with 21 tracks for $7.  Love the music on the show, so that was a huge win, especially since the album normally retails for $16.99.

With tax it all came out to $90.28, when the normal pre-tax price would have been $176.99.  So that's pretty good.

(It's almost 2 am and I need to finish this up so I can catch some more z's.  I'm feeling my mind drift)

My Mom and I finished shopping right before midnight, which was when Bath and Body Works opened.  (It was apparently a madhouse, so I'm glad I didn't stick around to experience that insanity).  We got home around midnight, and then got caught up watching a Christmas movie on the Hallmark channel, so 2 a.m. was about the time I fell asleep last night, which already feels like ages ago.

Though, while still at the mall and right after a frozen yogurt break, my Mom commented that Black Thursday must be nice for those without families, because it gives them a chance to be around people, when they would have otherwise been lonely.  I can see that.  The mall was lively and festive, even with the late hour.

Personally I still feel Black Thursday is wrong.  Thanksgiving is a day for friends and family, and not a day to take other people away from their friends and family, but despite this I still had a good time.

It was fun.

And after I awoke yesterday morning I found out my Mom went back to the mall at 4 a.m.!!!  Totally getting no sleep at all.  Crazy!

And now I must get back to bed.

Good morning and good night.

(2:34 a.m.)

(With the way I wrote this blog you can tell I'm in that weird "is this morning or night" "today or yesterday"? stage.  There's a strange blur between days this early in the morning).

-_-;; zzzzz

My Favorite Black Friday Find Ever

 I don't even know if this was on sale or not, but many years ago I actually did the whole "Black Friday" wake up early to face mass insanity bit.  One of those stores I ventured into happened to be Shopko, which I rarely visit.  I was in the game section when I spotted this Iron Chef Board Game from the original Japanese series.

The game honestly has the worst game play of any game I've ever played.  Ever!  Overwhelmingly terrible.  And boring.  And repetitive.  Etc, etc, etc.

But I miss the original Iron Chef.  That show was amazing!!!  I still remember discovering the show back in the late 90's when it was still being produced.  I was babysitting, trying to find something to watch, when an advertisement for Iron Chef came on.  I had to watch it.  And we did, a couple hours later.  My parents were dumbfounded when they got home, seeing us watch a cooking show with deep concentration.  Soon they were hooked as well.

Sure, Iron Chef America is good and all, but it will NEVER compare to the original.  I wish it was in reruns somewhere, so I can re-watch and relive the awesomeness.

This game is nostalgic, even if it only serves as decoration.

 This year my main focus was Pinkie Pie, because they stopped selling her at Build-a-Bear, and I had to get her for my families My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic collection.  They brought her back for Black Friday.  Fluttershy was released for the first time as well, so my Mom and I had to get her.  Now they just need to release Apple Jack and Rarity so the collection can be complete.

Disney Store, Sees Chocolate, Bath and Body Works, and several hours at Archiver's printing pictures and making ornaments (took so many hours!), and our Orem University Mall trip was over . . . after which we decided we weren't quite finished and drove to The District in South Jordan to visit Charming Charlies.  12 hours total!  The longest Black Friday ever, but very, very fun. 

Surviving Black Friday

When I woke up this morning I was determined not to have anything to do with Black Friday.  It's this crazy thing we have here in the States, and it takes place the day after Thanksgiving.  It represents the start of the Christmas buying season, and all these stores offer crazy deals and sales.

Yesterday my Mom, brothers and I got back from our trip in California, and our Dad prepared an amazing Thanksgiving feast.  It was incredible, but after a long trip, and a long drive home, going out shopping wasn't appealing to say the least.  Then my Mom and I had to return the rental van, and on the way home my Mom decided that she wanted to get into the black Friday spirit.  That was around 9:00 am this morning, 11:00 pm and we just got back!

It was super fun, to say the least, and it's cool being surrounded by the hustle and bustle of shopping frenzies.  We started out at Target, where we got a free bag of samples and coupons, then went to the movies with my brothers to the the Life of Pi (review coming tomorrow).  Then off to Costco we went where they were handing out cookbooks.  The Mall was the last place we went, and it was crowded.  Somehow two-hours disappeared at Bath and Body works.  I'm still trying to figure out how that happened.  Weird.  I smell good, though. 

Crazy day!  Glad it's over.  Hope your black Fridays were fun and eventful.