Mishmash Musings

My husband deals with a lot of suppliers for his job, and since he makes decisions about which companies to place orders with, he often ends up receiving a lot of presents from these grateful associates when the Christmas season rolls around. Often, these are just promotional business gifts like pens, calendars, day planners, and so forth, but sometimes he gets things like gift cards for big retail or online stores. For instance, last year, he brought home a $100 iTunes gift card, which was definitely a nice surprise.

Anyway, now that we’re getting into December, he’s sure to start receiving more of these types of gifts soon, which is always fun. It’ll be interesting to see what he brings home this year!

Well, after playing this game on and off for, what, the past six months or so, I finally unlocked all the tracks, karts, and characters in Mario Kart Wii. This is the first time in a long time (or possibly even ever) that I’ve played a video game until the end.

It wasn’t that difficult to do, as far as games go, but it certainly got frustrating trying to win those last few races, because all of a sudden the AI would kick in and positively bombard me with an endless barrage of green shells, red shells, blue shells, and ground pounds. Seriously, I would be like 2 turns away from winning the race when all of a sudden all of these missiles would come at me and in a matter of seconds I’d end up finishing 7th or something. FRUSTRATING!

But still, it’s a fun game and now I can just go in there and race my favorite tracks with my favorite karts and characters and not worry about whether or not I win. BTW, I highly recommend this game, as it’s suitable for the whole family and is pretty addictive to boot!

I got pulled over by a cop yesterday for not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign. He totally busted me, as I was definitely rolling through the sign and didn’t see him until it was too late. Fortunately, he was a nice guy, so he just let me off with two warnings — one for the stop sign and one for not having proof of current car insurance on me. I thought I had one of those policy cards in the glove compartment, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Oh, well, I definitely need to throw another one in there before I get stopped again.

Needless to say, I’m glad I didn’t end up getting any tickets. This will keep my driving record clean and allow me to get a better rate on my insurance next time around!

I had to drive by the strip mall that has a Wal-Mart and Best Buy in it, and let me tell you, it is completely nuts out there! The parking lot was jam-packed with cars even in the afternoon here, and there were throngs of people everywhere. I can’t even imagine what the scene inside must have been like, but I’m sure it wasn’t pretty.

I really don’t understand why people put themselves through this kind of stress and inconvenience. When did Christmas shopping become so important that people would do anything to get these bargains? Personally, I would prefer holing up in a cabin on the Outer Banks or something for a couple of weeks until the madness passes.

I promised myself long ago that I would not let Christmas become a totally commercialized event for my son, and it’s worked for the first five years so far. Let’s hope I never end up among the crazies who line up outside a store at 3 or 4 am in quest of some bargains!

It’s all about Black Friday today. Everything I read online or in the newspapers, everything I see on TV or as I’m driving around outside, everything is pretty much a reminder that retailers want us to spend, spend, spend this holiday season.

I hate shopping on Black Friday, so we’re not going anywhere today if we can possibly help it. If retailers insist on putting all of their best deals out only today, then too bad, they’re not getting any of my business. They should realize that most people hate dealing with crowds of crazy shoppers elbowing each other out of the way for limited supplies of crap that they don’t need…

Like usual, I’m going to do most of my Christmas shopping online. I hate going anywhere near the mall from Black Friday until a week or two after New Year’s. See ya on the flip side!

My husband’s life insurance policy is almost up for renewal, so we’re currently shopping around for better quotes. Right now, we have term life insurance, but have been thinking about making a switch to whole life insurance if we can find a good enough policy. Whole life might be better for our purposes because it has an investment component that would essentially force us to save money for retirement. We need that in a big way right now!

Then again, I’ve heard that whole life insurance policies often come with high fees and commissions that cut into your return, so they’re actually not as profitable as a lot of other investment vehicles. Maybe we just need to develop enough discipline to build a nest egg on our own or invest in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds instead.

At any rate, we seriously need to start thinking about retirement. We have some savings, but not nearly enough, and we have zero real investments to speak of. We’re in our mid-thirties now, so it’s high time to get moving on retirement. If we continue putting this stuff off, it’ll soon be too late.

It’s that time of year again, and though there are lots of things wrong with this world, I want to take a few moments to acknowledge all the good in my life. Here are just a few of the blessings I’m thankful for today:

• The good health of all my immediate family members.
• A wonderful, kind, generous, intelligent, sweet, good-natured son.
• A loving, gentle, and caring husband.
• Relative financial and job security in these uncertain times.
• Great friends who stick with me through thick and thin.
• The opportunity to help others who are in need.

I hope all of you have a special day with your loved ones. Happy Thanksgiving 2008!

A friend of mine wants me to go see the movie Changeling with her, but I’m on the fence about it. Although it’s directed by Clint Eastwood and stars Angelina Jolie, Jeffrey Donovan, and John Malkovich, the premise sounds a bit weird.

Basically, a kid disappeared in Los Angeles in the 1920s, and when cops returned him to his mother five months later, she claimed the boy was an imposter. He was shorter than her son, had different dental features, and just wasn’t her boy.

But the police needed the good publicity from finding a missing child, so they insisted that the kid was indeed the right one. And the boy himself goes along with the ploy, which soon gets others thinking that maybe the mom is a bit crazy. Too bad they didn’t have DNA testing back then, because that obviously would have cleared the whole mess up immediately!

Anyway, I don’t see how the filmmakers could make this story suspenseful and interesting for an entire 2 hours and 20 minutes, so I’m a bit hesitant to sit through it. Then again, Changeling is supposedly based on a true story… I love those, so maybe it’s worth watching after all!

Anyone else seen it yet?