Christmas

Well, it's been a week since I have written here. Christmas has come and gone, and life just keeps coming at me. I'm not complaining.

Wednesday was some of the same old stuff at work. I went to Young Men that night and we just had a play games night while Lance interviewed some of the boys on their scouting achievements. The Daybreak ward (a ward that is meeting in our chapel because they don't have enough chapels in their stake or area) was using half the gym and told us that they are supposed to have this night once a month. Our bishopric had never heard of this, but we had to try to keep it down a little bit because they were having a Christmas Party dinner. It was kind of hard because we were playing some football and dodgeball. Those just are not quiet games. My wife went with the Young Women to see the lights at Temple Square.

Thursday we had our IT Christmas party. We went to FatCats to bowl and have pizza. I was able to play three games while we were there. I use the term play very loosely. My scores were not at all great. I would do well if that same score went toward a golf game. Of course there was a prize drawing at the end. I got some ugly jacket that we will be sending directly to the Deseret Industries.

I had the day off on Friday. My kids had been out of school since Wednesday. There was a little bit of snow on the ground and when I asked my daughter where my son was she told me he was outside shoveling the walks. I was grateful for that. He has been really good at helping me this year with that.

Around noon of Friday we headed out to Ceder Hills to my brothers house to drop of my son and take Shelly and two of her girls, along with my wife, myself, and my daughter to go see "The Nutcracker" from a local college in Timpview High. We were on row Z which wasn't too bad. The weather was kind of bad getting there (but not too bad). We sat in those seats for the first half of the play. At intermission, my nephew waved us down to some seats near the front. His wife was in the play (which is part of the reason we went to it) and it was nice sitting with him and his in-laws. We congratulated Andrea when the play was done and left. We went to Apollo Burger for dinner.

All of Saturday was spent trying to clean our house up somewhat for the Christmas Eve party at our home. My wife swears we will not do this again next year at our house. It was a bit tiring, but we got it mostly ready. There would still be a few things to do on Sunday.

My stake told all wards to have all three meetings. We went to church and I had a good lesson in Deacons quorum. It was out late, so I went into the chapel rather than Sunday School. The choir was practicing for the program. I noticed that Mary Fletcher(she works in Young Women as well as the Choir director) got mad at some of the men who were talking in the chapel and told them to be quiet. A little later there was more noise and she turned around to see the Young Women president talking to others. At first she was going to say something but didn't. A few of the men noticed this, but what can you do. It's interesting about the double standards sometimes. Anyway, there were three songs and two speakers for Sacrament meeting. The second speaker bored me to tears (just an expression).

Arriving home, I noticed that my wife had wrapped a lot of our Christmas presents which would save me time that night. I was grateful for that. I helped to get some things ready for people to start coming at 5:00 that night. We had my wifes parents there as well as Gladys, Pam and Anne, Brandon, Jeff, Nathan and Collin. Christopher came a little bit later. It wasn't a huge group, but was enough that we had fun. Dinner was mexican haystacks (Fritos with a meat sauce and a lot of trimmings) and a salad. The drink was Raspberry Crystal light mixed with Fresca. After dinner, Anne sang some Christmas songs to us (she has a wonderful voice) and my son and my daughter played a tune each on the piano. We mostly just visited.

A few gifts were handed out. We started this with a gag gift to Pam. She had told us that all she wanted from us was a Lexus with a bow on it. Not able to find a matchbox Lexus we gave her a Ferrari with a bow on it. Of course we also gave her some balsamic vinegar and a nice picture frame made of slate with a picture of a fall scene that had our kids in it. It was quite a beautiful picture.

As Pam and Anne were leaving that night they asked if I could download a book for Annes Palm. It was a gift to Anne from Pam. My wife was pretty upset with me because I said I would see what I could do, and this was supposed to be an evening for family, not one to do this kind of stuff. Well, I didn't do it, and came out to help clean up everything and then went to help finish wrapping gifts.

Monday was Christmas. We set our alarm for 6:30 when my wife got up. At about 7:10 she asked me if I was going to get up (which I did). We then had to wake up the kids (after I showered). We went out and opened our gifts. My daughter got a Sandisk Sansa MP3 player and then some girly type of stuff (perfumes, finger nail polish and some of that). My son got a portable DVD player. He also got a Magnetix toy (Magnets with steelies that you build stuff with). There were also some odds and ends.

Something funny about the Magnetix is that the night before, we couldn't find it. We had put the beans for my daughters bean bag chair (oh yeah, she got that as well) in the attic, so I was looking in the attic as well as through various drawers and all of our regular places to hide things for this game. We looked above our kitchen cabinets. We looked downstairs in the Christmas tree box and other places. We looked in the garage. Nothing. After about an hour of this searching my wife said, "It can't be as simple as being under our bed". I then told her that I knew exactly where it was. Looking under our bed I pulled it out.

Well, with all the extra dust that I had knocked about in all those dusty places, I had some major asthma for the rest of the night. There were some calmer times but there was also times where my breathing was very hard and tight. I finally calmed down enough to go to sleep. The last time I looked at the clock, it was 2:15 AM.

Now, back to Christmas (I just had to get in those other happenings). My wife got a leather coat, leather gloves, chia herbs and some odds and ends. I got my leather coat, rock'em sock'em robots, and other odds and ends. It was nice.

Before heading out to my parents house, I plugged in my daughters MP3 player to the computer to charge it up. We then went to my parents home to have breakfast. Breakfast always consists of Brochnitas (not sure how to spell it, but it is French Toast the way I grew up saying it), pancakes and ham. There is also grapefruit and chocolate milk. Of course we opened more gifts there. Names had been drawn previously based on how many kids you have for cousin gifts and then I have one brother that I give a gift too. We also open gifts from my parents or the kids grandparents. It is a major time of confusion, but gets done with some semblance of sanity.

We left there and went to my wifes parents home. For lunch we had a pot roast dinner. That was quite good. After awhile, my wife and I went home, leaving our kids at the Wach house. We had to let the dog out so it didn't have an accident in our home. My wife wanted to take a nap, so I decided to see how it was going with that MP3 player as well as see if I could download the book for my sister-in-law. I could not move any MP3 files to the MP3 player, and thought maybe my computer was having a problem. I rebooted it, but that did not fix the problem. It was charged up and all, but nothing would go into it and my computer would no longer recognize it. When I unplugged it from the USB drive the screen went to blue and stayed that way. It would not turn off. You couldn't get it to do anything (what a pain). Well, next project. I went to download the book, but had to get the name of the book first. I got that (but when they called me back it woke my wife up) and was able to get the book onto Annes Palm. After finishing that, we went back to the Wachs.

There were all kinds of goodies out at the Wach household. Treats, a homemade chicken pot pie (well puff pastries were used with the chicken pot pie goods) and drinks for all (non-alcoholic, of course). Once again, we visited and enjoyed each others company. Later in the evening we left (my daughter stayed to spend the night with Michelle). It was a tiring day, so we pretty much went to bed.

Today, I had to get to work. Not a lot of people were at work so it was kind of a quiet day. It took all day, but I fixed up a problem that I was having with Old Republic data coming from Gallagher Bassett. I was glad to finally get that cleared up. I will have to finish some more on it tomorrow. At lunch time I took back the MP3 player and ordered a new one. None of the Circuit City stores had it and the supplier didn't have it in stock either. I was told it will probably be two weeks before I can get one. My daughter is quite disappointed about this, but there is nothing I can really do about it because I like the one I picked out.

On my way home from work, I stopped into Smiths Marketplace because we had bought an extra Countdown game. I got the money back on that and then went to pick up a prescription for Prilosec (well it is the generic version I get). My reflux has been happening since I quit taking it about two weeks ago. I was hoping I could go longer without it, but that isn't going to be the case.

At home, my daughter still wasn't home. My wife wasn't too happy with her brother and the fact that she should've been home by now. She finally came in around 5:45 with Michelle. It was then that we found out that Michelle would be staying the night at our house (my wife had invited her over, but didn't set up the time). We asked her what the plan was, and we were told that she thought her dad might pick her up tomorrow. What a pain.

Family Christmas Party

I was able to slide into work this morning. There were a couple of meetings at work, and this is always a way to bore one to tears. Brad kind of threw a zinger at Theresa who did not take it too well. He mentioned that we would not take the 11 months that had been taken so far. She immediately came back at us saying that it was our fault that this had lasted 11 months (ignoring the fact that we did not even have a chance to get involved until June of this year, and then it was dependent upon Pinnacle). Oh well, I'll let the politics go with those who want to be politicians.

During my lunch time today I went and picked up a couple of lotions to put into my wifes sock. I also got her a nice pair of leather gloves (looking at her leather coat later, I realized I should've gotten brown ones instead of black). I still have to get a couple of odds and ends, but at least I have something for that stocking.

After arriving home, I went and got us some Subway Sandwiches for one of those quality dinners. We all then got ready for the Christmas party at my parents house. Of course there is the socializing before everything starts and then the nativity. After that we sang a few Christmas songs and Santa came during that (amazing how that works). Actually, I went outside and talked to Santa a little bit just before he left. I talked to him about his son, and let him know that I was thinking of Rick (Santa is Wayne Keys - a guy from my parents ward from years ago). I thought the girl he had with him was Ricks daughter (she was an elf), but was told that it is his daughter from his second wife. That kind of surprised me because she is quite young.

I went back in (it was too cold to stay out there) for the talent show. Both my son and my daughter did a wonderful job playing their numbers. My son played "Waterfall" by John Schmidt and my daughter played Canon in D. Of course most of the grandkids did their talents, and then it was pretty much time to go home. Each kid had a present from Santa that they could irritate their parents in the car on the way home with.

Let it Snow! Not!

Not much happened at work last Friday to write about. Friday evening, I took my daughter over to Hollywood Video to pick up a couple of videos for a sleep over that she was having that night. She was happy to get Pirates of the Caribbean (the second movie) for watching.

Melina came over after a bit, and they started to create some ornaments. They didn't really appreciate my singing of Christmas Carols while they were doing this. They also made some cookies and a few other things at the same time. Finally they settled down to watch Pirates of the Caribbean. My wife and I really didn't care for the second one too much, so we left the kids in the family room (including my son) and we went into our room to watch some other silly show on TV. We came out periodically, and Melina is a really jumpy girl. Pretty easy to scare. We finally got them in bed later that night (actually, they didn't stay up all that late anyway.

Saturday morning came, and there was a little bit of snow on the ground. I went out to shovel the walks (at least the part where we drive), and my daughter was getting ready to go to decorate the Christmas tree at my sisters grave. Melina had gone home, and my son had to help out Tanner with his Eagle Project on this morning. We got to my parents house a little late, and they were gone. So, we headed on over to the grave site. They had just arrived and were just starting the decorating of the tree. It was cold, but people seemed to enjoy being there among family. Of course there were the donuts and chocolate milk over at my parents house later. The donuts weren't very good. I was able to bring one home for my son (although he didn't need it because he got one for helping Tanner with his Eagle Project).

We didn't do a whole lot on Saturday. It was one of those lazy days.

This morning came along, and I knew I was in trouble when my wife looked out the window and said, "Oh how beautiful". I groaned inwardly. I knew that meant some shoveling. We went to our meetings and then, when I got home, I went out to start shoveling about 10 inches of snow. I got the part of our driveway done as well as the sidewalk, in time for the Home Teachers to come over. They left about the time I had to get my son over to BYC (Bishop Youth Council). When my son came home, we went out to do the other half of the driveway. My son asked how come we were working on Sunday and shoveling the walks. Today is supposed to be a day of rest. I just looked at him and told him that it didn't seem that God had rested today, so I guess we aren't either. He just said, "Oh!". I also shoveled another 1/2 inch off the driveway at around 9:00 tonight.

The Eagle Project

I was quite busy at work trying to correct the problem from yesterday. I finally found a way to do it, and had to break up some data into ten segments and run each segment separately for that particular job. Then, I had to have it all back together again to run the rest of the jobs against it (since they had worked previously). It was kind of a pain, but I was able to get it done. The computer must've heard me tell Paul that I needed to leave at 2:00 because the processes finally finished at 1:58, giving me all of two minutes to make sure the stuff that runs tonight will be running from the right data source.

When I arrived home, I found my wife busy in the kitchen making soups and stews for the dinner of those who come to help us tonight. She had gotten the house kind of hot enough that she opened the back door to cool it off (it had to have been really hot for her to do that). Soon after I arrived home, my kids came home from school. I called and got some pizzas ordered. I had asked Dominoes if they would give me a discount on the pizzas for an Eagle project and was told I could have the same deal they give the schools, which was $6 for each large one topping pizza. I ordered 1 pepperoni, 1 cheese, 1 sausage, and 2 ham pizzas. The deal was pretty good I thought.

We loaded the SUV with all the soups and such and headed out to the Happy Factory. I helped to unload, and then went to pick up the Pizzas. My wifes parents and sister showed up before I got back, and my parents came soon after. We got them painting some cars as well as put on the router. Later, some did the sawing and the drilling. More people showed up. There was my sons best friends family (without his best friend because he had gotten sick), two of my brothers with their wives (one also had his kids with him), and Jon (my oldest brothers son). Later, one of the teachers quorum came (with two adult leaders), and even later, another teacher (Austin) showed up with him parents and two sisters. One parent came in place of his son since his son had a swim meet. Overall, we had a pretty good turn out. Some that thought they could make it for one reason or another did not make it. One of the teachers had given us a call around 6:00 trying to find out what time to meet the teachers quorum (we had left at 3:30, and the teachers quorum left at 5:30). Nobody chopped off any fingers, and we felt pretty good about that.

I tried to work the sander, but wasn't very good at it, so I ended up working with the jigsaw instead. My wife mostly did one of the drills. One thing that was kind of nice was that we didn't have to clean up thoroughly because another group was coming in at 9:00 tonight.

I'm glad to have the Eagle Project over and signed. It's a good thing. Oh, I may put pictures here later of some of the goings on. It depends how they come out.

Christmas Concert

Well, we did get our washing machine on Tuesday evening. The old one is gone and the new one is ready for use. It is quite a bit quieter than the old one. I hope it is as good as our old one was. We got a lot of service out of that.

I know in my heart that today was Friday the 13th rather than Wednesday the 13th. I had some problems at work with one of my jobs and no matter what I did, I wasn't able to get it fixed. I worked on it all day and asked questions of various people all day. We can't find a reason that it won't work. At one point it was telling me I had a problem that I couldn't see how. After talking to a few people, Darin said, "you mean you were using those flat files?" We had to get them restored and then I had to start all over again. I did not get it fixed by the time I left. Hopefully, I'll have time and the ability to fix it tomorrow since I still don't have any idea what the problem is.

Soon after arriving home, I had to get my son and daughter over to piano lessons. We had decided to have them go to only half of it (so it was 1/2 hour rather than a full hour). They readily agreed. We probably shouldn't have done that, and had we known what time the concert started vs. what time they told us it started, they would've been there for the full hour. We were kind of upset at them because we had the wrong time by 1/2 hour and had told Pam and my wifes parents that wrong time.

The concert was good. They started out with the Beginning band (which my daughter is in and plays the flute) and then went to the Concert Band, and finally the Symphonic band (which my son is in playing that French Horn). They ended with the percussion playing heavily with the symphonic band. It really sounded quite good. We were proud of our children and their accomplishments in learning these musical talents.

Frustrations

A little bit of time has gone on since I last posted. It hasn't been the best of weeks for me, but then, it hasn't been the worst of weeks for me either. Doesn't this sound a bit like, It was the best of times it was the worst of times? Anyway, I'll go back and try to remember some of the things that have gone on.

Work has been a bit slow because the one guy we need to do some of the stuff that needs to be done is gone on vacation for this entire month. He is actually just staying home, but we still need to get things from him.

Thursday the 7th was my dads 80th birthday. My wife was surprised that there wasn't a big to-do about that. It wasn't that surprising to me because my dad doesn't like a lot of pomp and circumstance. I had ordered some balloons for my dad at Harmons. When I went to pick them up, they had forgotten and I waited in a corner while they filled them up. When I went to pay for them they told me not to worry about it because they didn't have them ready when they were promised to me. That was OK with me. Saved a couple of bucks.

We went over to my parents house, and were the first ones there. My oldest brother had come earlier because he had other things going on. We talked with them for a bit and my dad told my son (again) that when he was his age (15) the Japanese had invaded Pearl Harbor. Well, finally some of my other siblings started to show up. There was the usual mayhem that goes on when my family gets together, but people pretty much had a good time.

One of the frustrations that I had was that our washing machine wasn't going to be ready. When we went to RC Willey to purchase it, we were promised Thursday for sure and maybe even Wednesday. That obviously didn't happen. We have been a bit concerned that our current washing machine would just go ahead and give out before it got here. So far that hasn't happened. I also talked to RC Willey and because Sears had the same washing machine at the same price, but free delivery (after rebate) that it would've been cheaper to go there. RC Willey lowered the price (after some messing around with figures) to match that price while still keeping me on the Advantage plan (allows for free delivery for a year plus 2% rebate on all your purchases). The salesman didn't seem too happy about doing this though.

I didn't work on Friday, so I went with my wife to my parents house so she could cut my moms hair. I had seen an ad in the Friday paper about the same washing machine. I could get 10% off the price if I go in on Saturday between 7 AM and noon. This was a better deal. I called RC Willey, and the salesman got kind of huffy with me. He said they don't meet door busters, and I told him it wasn't a door buster because I had called Sears and even if they were out of it, I could get it at the sales price if I came in during those hours. They could also have it delivered the next day. That beat it coming in on Tuesday. Well, the salesman finally told me to just go to Sears. I got concerned about a truck that we bought on a promotion they were having and called back about that. He then told me that when he got into work he would see what the manager could do. I called him about two hours after he got into work and he didn't have an answer. He finally called back and said that he would leave the price of the washing machine the same, but they would give me a $50 store credit for something else. I agreed to this. I was also told that the washing machine would be ready on Tuesday once again. His words were that it had been scheduled. I had asked about this quite a few times because the earlier promise had been breached.

Saturday came along, and not too much happened. My son had a meeting with the Teachers quorum presidency (he is the president) for the upcoming year. My wife also had a meeting with the Young Women about the same thing. My daughter and I went to the library, and ran a couple of errands. I also set out the snowman on the front porch and some other Christmas decorations. They weren't much, but it's about all I am planning on doing this year.

Nothing much happened Sunday. We had a farewell (though you're not supposed to call it that), and it was a pretty good meeting. The classes were so-so. Nothing great. The deacons quorum did get an assignment for Thursday evening to go over to one of the buildings in the stake with rakes and picks to help prepare it for people to meet there on Saturday for the Daybreak Temple ground breaking ceremony. It's a good thing my son wasn't planning on the Deacons quorum to help him out with his eagle project.

Monday, while I was at work (almost ready to go home) I got a call from my wife. She had received a phone call from the Happy Factory verifying that we were canceling the date for my sons Eagle project. This was the first we were made aware of this. We told them that there was some mistake. We made a couple of phone calls and can't figure out how it would be our Eagle project that was being cancelled. Anyway, just another of those frustrations. I also tried to call Target because they promised me the top to a tree that we had bought with the Christmas lights all working since there was a problem with the wires of the tree we bought. Nobody ever came to that phone when I tried to call them all night.

Just before lunch today, I got a call from my wife. She was making sure to stay home all day so our washing machine could be delivered. She finally wondered if they could give her an approximate time so she called up RC Willey. She was told that it was scheduled for tomorrow. I am sick of this crap. She calls me up and then realized that it would have to be early in the day because we have things to do. I called up RC Willey service (since I only got an answering machine on the salesman) and while I was on the phone with them, the salesman called. By the way, for the service to come through it was a full 15 minutes waiting for the next available representative. I hung up on her (accidentally by not understanding the hold function on my phone) but was on hold while she was talking to delivery (this was another 4 minutes into the phone call). Anyway, the salesman told me that he would set it up to be after 3:00 today. I asked him about his promise for Tuesday, and he verified that promise but told me he had scheduled it for Wednesday because he was sure it would be ready by then. I don't know why he had told me a number of times that it was all set for Tuesday because it seems like this was a big lie. Because of that, I called the delivery people to verify that it would be on the truck for tonight. Hopefully, this is the last frustration with them. I am going to complain to RC Willey after this is all over. I don't want to right now because I am not sure what would happen. I really don't think anything, but, you never know.

Anyway, I am a bit frustrated, but will do OK. I am just plain angry at this pain in the butt salesman, almost to the point of being livid. I don't even want to talk to him at this point because I think my anger would take hold of me even more.

The Forgotten Carols

Tonight, as a family, we went to Cottonwood High School to see "The Forgotten Carols" by Michael McClean. Of course we had to drag my daughter away from her homework in order to do so. I think she is still a bit upset at us for that. My son also wasn't too happy about going because he doesn't want to see something where they do a bunch of singing and such.

Overall, it was good, but my wife was a bit upset because Michael McClean cannot sing and he sang some of the songs including her favorite, I Was Not His Father, He Was Mine. Rather than singing it he talks the songs, so it isn't so good. The feelings were good there, and I think even my son enjoyed some of the humor.

This was the 15th anniversary of this play, so there were a couple of songs at the end of the play, and I enjoyed the one, although I thought the other was sub-par. Anyway, just thought I would mention it.

When we got home, my daughter had to finish her homework. She was making a mobile, and it took her all the way to 11:00 tonight. That wasn't good. She needs her sleep, especially since she has to get up early tomorrow.

The Happy Factory vs Christmas Shopping

Last Thursday not a lot happened at work. We are getting a bit more discouraged with Doug and his work. We don't quite know what to do about it because politics are in the way. We have already pushed it further than we should have, and now it is going to take somebody else (this may happen).

I left work a few minutes early today so I could get over and help Justin with his Eagle project at the Happy Factory. We all got there, and there was a little bit of pizza for all. I was full from my lunch at the Macaroni Grill so I didn't eat any of it (I did have some root beer though). People were placed in various places around the Happy Factory. I got placed on one of the two routers. I kind of enjoyed my time there, and routed a whole bunch of cars. It really doesn't matter how many I routed out, what matters for the Eagle project is how many of the cars got completed. In the long run, we had 263 cars that were completed. There were also a bunch of cars that still need to be painted with the mineral oil. It is a good project and these cars go for a good cause. I told Brother Whitney that I probably would not be able to make it to his sons Eagle Project because it is on my fathers birthday. Well, that was a good night.

On Friday, after work, I went out to look at a couple of things for my daughter and son. I finally picked out an MP3 player for my daughter that is a 4 gig player. I still don't trust the Ipods with their hard disks. I have heard of failures on those and with the moving parts, they are more likely to fail than is a flash drive. I also made sure to get her one that you can have removable memory, and it will also hold pictures if she chooses to put them in. For my son, I ended up getting a portable DVD player. I don't know what is the best out there or anything, but went with a Magnavox because at least it is a name I recognize, but I did purchase a two year warranty on it (I never know if this is the thing to do - I just did it). It took me a good portion of the night to decide what was best for each of the kids for the money that we planned on spending.

My daughter was sleeping over with a friend that is in my mother-in-laws neighborhood, so we took our son and went out to dinner. We were heading to Chuck-a-rama, but ended up going to Mimis instead. It was a good meal.

Saturday morning we decided we had better go out and get a new washing machine. My wife had been telling me of noises that were coming out of the one that we currently have, and I heard part of those noises on Friday evening. I told her that it probably wasn't worth fixing because when we're done we would still have an old washing machine. It has been a good one, but we would probably be better off just getting a new one. We went to RC Willey and purchased a GE that has a bigger tub. We didn't go with a front loader because I still think those are overpriced. As it is, we spent quite a bit anyway. Since we had spent over $500, we were also able to get a Harley F150 remote control truck for my son at $30. We gave that to my mother-in-law to give to our son. Of course, he already knows what it is. My wife told him that he would probably have to fight with me to play with it.

While at RC Willie, we saw Mogie (who I work with). We were getting the free hot dogs and drinks and his soccer team was the one that was handing them out for RC Willey. My wife had left to pick up our daughter, and left my son and I there. We ended up waiting for her with a bucket of soap (for the washing machine) as well as the truck (which was pretty big). Oh well, that's the way it goes.

We spent a lot of the afternoon over at the in-laws. Pam came over when we were ready to leave, so we stayed even longer. We got home in time for dinner, and went to Jalepenos for dinner. They messed up on our order so I had to go back and they gave me a free combo along with the dinner. It was a good dinner.

Sunday came along, and with it church. Nothing out of the ordinary really happened there. We did talk (during Sunday School) about scouting and Eagle projects. The ward doesn't want to approve too many of these happy factory things because they want the boys to think a little bit as to who they want to help. I don't understand that completely, but that's OK. It's not up to me. After arriving home, I got a call from the executive secretary to set up a time for me to go to tithing settlement. We went back to the church at 3:50, among grumbling from my family about having to dress back up in their church clothes.

Tonight, my wife did the hair of her cousin, and I had to go return a sweater shaver she had bought that day that broke. I also went and got my son some headphones while I was out. My wife had done a lot of Christmas shopping during the day today, and I really appreciate that. I end up thinking too much at each item I buy and it takes me longer to do this kind of shopping.