In the process I found some really great St. Patty’s t-shirts from Cafe Press.

Here are some of my favorites:

Mine is the last one: “Rock Out with your Shamrock Out“.

I pulled out all the gifts I had purchased so far, layed them out on my bed and took inventory since I tend to always forget what I’ve gotten. I took my time and listed out what I needed and planed the route I was gonna take for my day out.  I knew Rockville Pike would be a bear but I was ready for it and took some alternate routes.

First stop was Toy-R-Us.  Now that Mini Red is older I wasn’t shopping for her but for my 6 year old God Daughter.  I took my time walking through the store and watching all the parents and kids.  One dude was pulling his son around the store on a sled.  Another couple was hovering a big Hummer vehicle as if they were afraid it would go away but there were six.  Go figure? I found what I was looking for and headed for the GINORMOUS line.  So I moved my way to a center line since it seemed shorter and settled myself in for a wait.  I started watching the kids in front of me playing with everything in sight and their Mom trying to keep them under control.  I couldn’t help but smile and think of Mini Red when she was little.  Oh how I miss when she was little. The Mom and I struck up a conversation and she tells me how her wallet was recently stolen so she had to tell her kids there would be no Santa this year.  How sad is that?

Next I went next door to World Market.  This has to be one of my favorite places.  I did my rounds and headed for the line and noticed it was super long.  So I figured I would look around a bit more in hopes the line would die down.  No such luck… The line was longer than ever.  I wasn’t too worried though and had the mind set that there would be bad traffic and long lines and this kept the stress levels down.  The line proved to be a good thing because as I moved up I found a few more things including my Yankee Swap gift for Christmas Day.

I didn’t have much more to do but I headed down the Pike stopping at Best Buy before heading for sushi at Sushi Damo.  I was day dreaming of a Yuengling and the Sakura Roll.  When I arrived I was denied.  They close between 3 and 5 and it was 3 on the nose.  I was hungry but didn’t want anything else.  I did a little more shopping and picked up some gifts for friends before heading to Home Depot for the last gift to buy.  By the time I had finished all of that it was 5, I still hadn’t eaten and I was on my way back to Sushi Damo.  This was the last stop of the evening before heading home to chill and wrap gifts.

I copped a squat at the bar and ordered my Sakura Roll and Yuengling right off the bat. The sushi was amazing as expected.  The place was a little slow since it was very early on a Saturday evening and I started talking to the bartenders, Kate and another Dude (didn’t catch his name).  Dude was telling me what he had researched about eel after hearing it was so fatty but evidently it’s extremely healthy for ya.  I’m also anxious to go back and try the Rockville Roll.  It is amazing how much Kate knows about the area.  If you are from out of town the metro is right there and Kate can tell you all the best places to visit in the area.  She and I also traded some dating war stories.  I think we might have to try and have some sort of Happy Hour there some time.  Maybe I can even get some bloggers out of DC and try a HH in MD?

It was a perfect day and now I was heading home to wrap gifts.  I pulled out the ironing board so I wouldn’t have to kill my back bending over wrapping.  I also put on the movie SuperBad… Freaking hilarious… McLovin? I got most everything wrapped except for maybe a handful of gifts.   All in all I’m ready!

Mini Red came home today and couldn’t believe how crazy the apartment looks.  Wrapped gifts everywhere plus the packing boxes.  This place is truly a bit of a nightmare at the moment and making me even more crazy. Of course Mini Red was looking to see what gifts were hers and asking what I bought on Saturday since everything was wrapped. There was one thing that wouldn’t be wrapped and that was the batteries I picked up.  The look on Mini Red‘s face was truly funny when she saw them.

First thing I found was this at The Container Store:

But these are $17.99 each… EACH!!!!! Are you freaking kidding me?!?

Some of us poor people need a more inexpensive solution.  I need to save my money for the shoes themselves.

Oh wait!  I found this one:

$7.99 for a regular and $12.99 for the Men’s cause ya’ll got some big feet. Here is a case where it’s more expensive for the dudes than it is for chicks.  Normally, everything is more expensive for the women. These are still expensive, though, because I’m looking for about 10 so that would be $80.

Seems I’m not the only one looking for a better solution. Rinnah’s Marketplace found something called Benjiboxes but they are pricey too!

Oh look! Walmart carries some canvas shoeboxes made by Rubbermaid running $7.88.  Still kinda pricey when you add it up but it’s the lowest so far.  Seems Amazon is selling these same boxes for $9.95.  HA! 

See this is why I hate shopping… It costs too much and takes up way too much time.