A post in which it is shopping!

I was up pretty early this morning, although Mom and I do NOT do the door-buster thing.  Life is just too short to get up in the middle of the night for a sale.  I suggested going out for breakfast, which we both enjoy, but Mom wanted to wait and do that tomorrow?  I doubted there would be time with the picture appointment looming, but it was fine with me to eat at home, so that's what we did.

After a repast and a shower, I was ready to hit the stores.  We reviewed our game plan regarding televisions, girded our loins, and headed out.  The first stop was Marshall's.  I had decided that what I really could use was a new duffle bag.  I love my old one, but it is just worn out, and looks awful.  Every time I get it out for a trip I think well, it will make it through one more...  Then when I get home, I put it away until the next time.  I have looked at them, but a)I haven't been able to find one like the one I have (and again, I am at that age when something I like wears out, I want another JUST like it); and b) the nice ones cost the freakin' earth.  The Marshall's Home Store in Greenville (to my memory, anyway) has a pretty good selection of luggage.  But the Marshall's in Columbia was not a 'Home Store', and they had about five suitcases.  We looked at shirts for the pictures, but they had a lousy collection of those too.  We moved on.

Fortunately, there was a Ross Dress for Less in the same shopping center.  (Have I mentioned in the last five or so minutes how much I LOVE that store?)  We walked in and found pretty much exactly what I wanted right away.  They had nice duffle bags, with nearly all the features the one I have now has (plus a couple of extra), and at a SUPER price.  It was easy enough, and fast enough, that I was leery.  We looked around the store some more while I thought about it, and picked up a forest green polo for the photos tomorrow (I didn't have that color anyway).  In the end though, I had to admit that the bag we found was closer than any of the others I had looked at, and the price was just too good to pass up.  We also picked up a pair of sweat pants.  I limit myself to one pair, and my old ones have the crotch out.  (I had noticed after getting back from the grocery store Tuesday.) 

So having accomplished my Christmas, we were done with what we had to do today.  Lisa and I are getting Mama wi-fi for Christmas this year, so there was nothing for me to pick out for Mama today.  We adjourned, triumphant, to Casa Linda for lunch.  I love that place.  I bought lunch because Mama was going to buy supper tonight. 

At this point, I kind of wanted to go to the mall (which was enticingly right across the street), but Mom declined, saying the traffic and stuff would be too bad.  It didn't look horrible, but there were a bunch of people there, and we would have had to walk in from the south 40.  I'm not sure she was up to that.  Instead, we headed to a craft store.  They had some kind of tree decoration that she wanted on sale, but when we got there they were sold out of the right color.

Our mission for her today was to get her a new television.  She'd had a letter from the cable company about stopping analog broadcasts and going all digital, along with a list of channels that would no longer be available.  She won't do without her CMT, and they would have had to rent her an adapter, plus the hassle of trying to figure out how to put it on, etc.  The bottom line was that she had decided it was time for an upgrade, which is reasonable because her television came over on the Mayflower (in an appropriately Thanksgiving-esque hyperbole).  Having strategized earlier, we headed for H.H. Gregg.

When we got to the shopping center though, they had a Stein Mart.  Since I wasn't thrilled with the polo shirt we had bought for pictures, I asked if we could go in.  Mom was amenable.  We had an enjoy able browse round, and I was able to find a shirt I felt much better about. 

Immediately when we walked in to H.H. Gregg, Mama was mesmerized by the wall of huge TVs.  There were a lot of them, glowing from on high, and they were displayed to draw you like a moth to the flame.  After measuring several, and finding them all too big, I left Mom batting gently against the screens and set out to find the one that was advertised.

Although the one that she had looked at was listed at a good price, it was a 'while supplies last' deal, and the supply was unsurprisingly gone.  They were pretty busy, and sales staff seemed to be in short supply.  After trying unsuccessfully to flag down one or two, I just set out to look around on my own.  Eventually, I found TVs that were more suited to Mom's house, pulled her away from the wall, and started shopping in earnest.  After using phone-a-friend to call Billy, we understood (vaguely) the difference between LCD and LED (which I knew, had I just stopped to think about it), and knew pretty much what we wanted to buy.  Fortuitously, a salesman became available about that time.  (He was cute as he could be too, a little bear - and I really wanted to rub his tummy; but I digress.)

The salesman confirmed that the television we came in to look at was sold out.  He seemed to pick up on the fact that I was trying to steer Mom towards something a bit smaller, that would fit in her entertainment center, and not result in her having to buy new furniture and stuff.  He showed us a reasonably sized model (32") that was about $150 less than she had gone in there to spend.  After some evaluation, she bought it.

When we got in the car, I picked up on the fact that she didn't seem as excited about it as she had prior.  I worried a bit that she would think I had talked her into a set smaller than she wanted, but when we got back to the house and got the TV inside, she was surprised at how large it looked (they always look smaller in the store).  It is bigger than the one she has now.  We rested for a bit, and I decided to try on my new swank sweatpants, only to find  that despite their being a size larger than the ones I have now, they were skin tight!  I could barely get them on, and when I did they sure weren't comfortable!  What a disappointment. 

It wasn't long before it was time to head out to dinner.  Lisa was unable to make it (they were putting up the tree, making cupcakes for tomorrow, etc - plus Lisa can just EAT time), so it was just the two of us to meet Maureen and Dee for supper.  Dinner tonight was at  the Oceanview Seafood restaurant.  We were there in plenty of time, and it was good to see Dee and Maureen.  They found each other later in life, but are so transparently happy to be together that it gives me hope.  They are very sweet people, and did a lot of praying for me when I was in treatment, but they are my Mom's friends, and I have limited things in common with them.  Maureen was catching up with Mom, chatting merrily away about this and that, but I found myself drifting in and out after a while.  The food was OK.  It wasn't anything to write home about.  My crab cakes were scorched on the bottom, but they didn't taste burnt.  They were pretty much what I had expected, which was fine.  Eventually, the conversation ran out (Dee resulted to a fairly disgusting story about a dog they were dog-sitting, which I don't think Mom really appreciated - I know I was glad to be finished eating), good-byes were said, and we headed out.

Neither one of us really felt like going home, though.  Since dinner had been pretty early, and the stores had extended hours for the weekend, there were still plenty of places open.  Plus we had taken it pretty easy (for us) with the shopping today.  We moseyed over to the Ross on that side of town, and I found some citrus-smelling shower gel that I really liked.  We returned my too-small sweatpants.  We also went through the nearby TJ Maxx.  They had some sweatpants with the Gamecocks logo on them (cool), but sadly they too were too tight.  I have to say that being too fat for sweatpants is pretty freakin' depressing.

By the time Mom picked up some doo-dads for a present she was putting together and we got out of TJ Maxx, the novelty of late shopping had worn off, and we'd had our fill of shopping for Black Friday.  We were ready to go home, and we did.  It's another long (but fun) day tomorrow.  Mom put my new picture shirt in to wash (along with the t-shirt I had worn to lunch and gotten salsa down the front of - sigh), and we went to bed.