Day after you read your reading, after you've written.....

I had mentioned to mom yesterday that I wanted to go out this morning and try to get my Christmas cards for next year (they're 50% off now!).   And mom said she wanted to look for some things too.  So we said we'd leave this morning about 9:30 and go to Hagerstown and see what we could see.

And later last night, I was kicking myself wondering, "What the HELL was I thinking???  Going out to a mall on the day after Christmas????"

But, whatever, we were committed.

So I got myself up...early....at like 8:30....on a Monday....during my Christmas vacation...(what the hell WAS I think?).  I showered, dressed, waited for mom.  When she got here, we got our coffee from Rutters, and off we went. (And me dreading the whole event the drive over.)

We got to the Valley Mall and......there was almost no one there.  Well, there were people there, but no where NEAR what I thought there would be.  I was VERY pleasantly surprised.

We went to Hallmark, which only had a few boxes of Christmas cards, and I was not at all impressed with the cards they did have.  So then we went to FYE, cause I wanted to check out their on-sale stuff.  But I didn't find anything.  As both of us were a bit peckish, we went to Auntie Anne's where we each got a pretzel.  We sat, ate them and then went out to the car and drove over to Target.

There, the Christmas stuff was VERY picked over.  But I guess they opened their doors hours before the 9AM opening of the Mall.  Nonetheless, I DID manage to find some cards I wanted, as well as a bunch of other half price stuff.

Following this, we drove to another part of the shopping center.  While mom went directly to the Christmas Tree Store, I went to Kohl's to  try to get a specific candle I had found before (the Christmas Cookie scent).  There weren't any left, but I did get two other scented candles for 50% off.  And then I walked over to the Christmas Tree Store myself.  This store was crazy busy, unlike all the other one's we were in. And of course, THIS is the place mom wanted to look for all the stuff she wanted.

Now I found several things to get myself, but she had a cart full.  And we're up by the registers, there's one of the them where the customer is wrapping things up and there's no one else in line, and I'm ready to push the cart in there, and she says, "I'm not sure if I want this one....maybe they have a longer one.....I'll go take a look."  SIGH.  This led to me standing with the cart by the registers for over 15 minutes.  And when she returned, she had her arms full of other things.  "I was on my way back and I saw all these things I didn't see the first time!"  No kidding.

Luckily, as she got there, one register opened up, so we didn't have to wait too long.  And then we took everything to the car and decided to get something to eat, as it was almost noon.  We settled on Roy Rogers, where I had a roast beef sandwich and she had a salad.

Then, we headed towards home, stopping only at Martin's Food Store, where we both got a bunch of groceries we needed.  And then she dropped me off here, along with all my purchases and she went home.

So we left my house about 9:30 am and I got back here about 1:30 pm.   All in all a busy, but productive, 4 hours!  And it wasn't too insane in general, even though it was the day after Christmas.

POLT