Good friends, good food and good bargains

Yesterday was a great day. My friend got here from Canton at about 10am. Once I finished putting dinner in the crock pot, we left for a most enjoyable day. First, it was so good to see her after such a long time. We used to share the same office when I was the Office mgr. at the church.
We started off our day with a trip to Ollie's (the new outlet I was telling you about) For all of you who were waiting with bated breath to hear my review of this place, here it is: They have tons of stuff. Their slogan was right, "good stuff.....cheap". They have a huge book selection there. Lots of Bibles and inspirational books in addition to kids books, coffee table books, etc. I had been very happy buying Christian novels (Karen Kingsbury and Beverly Lewis) at my neighborhood "Books 4 Less" store for $8 new and $5-6 used) but yesterday I got 2 that I had not read before for $4 brand new. Woohoo!
From there we went to Olive Garden for lunch (it was right across the street) We had a great lunch and a chance to catch up on each other's family and grandchildren(OK, in her case she only has one granddaughter)
Then it was on to the Christmas Tree Shop for more closeout bargains. Did I mention how much I love bargain hunting????? Yeah, I thought I did! At lunch we were discussing the amount of construction on the thruway, and rte 690 and 81. I had the brilliant idea that I would cut across the city and skip the "big roads" as Matt calls them. Guess what, my sense of direction did not improve when I moved to Syracuse. So we ended up taking a tour of the industrial warehouse section of the city. I said it was to give us a chance to digest out lunch before the hunt began again......OK, I said it but we were in fact lost. I am sure this comes as no surprise to anyone from Canton, especially my son Josh.
I was sorry to see her go, I had a wonderful day and she never kept asking "why" when ever I said something!

Today, Uncle Roy and I went to lunch and then it was back to Ollies......I knew he would love it (DH would not) He did and we spent a few hours there. We never did get something for Susan's birthday but since we have another week we are planning to go on Saturday.

My poor Ali feels deserted......not only is Matthew not here but I actually had the nerve to leave her for 2 days in a row. She really wasn't that impressed with the chew toy I brought her back from my adventures.