mom and mall-wide sales.

I was trained to shop wisely since I was young. That, I think, is the reason why pulling out and hunting for good finds seems so natural to me. Every time there's a mall-wide sale, Mom would take me and my sister with her and we'd spend the whole day shopping for bargains. Divisoria, Baclaran, 168, Tutuban...you name it, we've shopped there. Not to mention, Mom used to have a stall in Greenhills back in the 80's which explains why we know that tiangge kingdom from corner to corner and never got lost in the middle of the chaos.

Now that I'm always busy with work, and Mom's arthritis/rheumatism limits her from walking a lot like she used to, we hardly ever go to mall-wide sales anymore. I missed that a lot. More than anything, I missed spending time with her.

So about 3 days ago, I blocked off my whole Friday and told my Mom that I'd take her to the Mega Sale on her birthday. She got really excited or make that, SUPER excited that she woke me up by 7am so we can go there early! But I am not that desperate to shop so I slept until 10am and we were at SM Megamall an hour later.

Our first stop: SM Department Store.

Mom and her portable walker

First on the agenda was to check if the Van Huesen clothes are on 70% off and get a few pieces for Dad. Unfortunately, 50% off lang so Mom decided not to buy. That's how kuripot she is. HAHAHA.

Next was to buy her makeup. The lines were too long at the cashier so we changed our minds, dropped our items and moved on.

Third on our mental list was to buy my desk lamp. We headed to Ace Hardware and got this baby for P825.

And then there was light!

Then we decided to check out Forever 21. And look what welcomed us:

Reminded me of Wowowee in Ultra.
Buti nalang walang stampede. Afraidddd.

CRAZY!!! I had no intention of going inside but the guard saw my mom with her walker and gave us a free pass. Senior citizen perks, eh? As soon as we entered the store, I wanted to leave. The lines to the cashier were soooo long that there's actually not enough space to look around for stuff anymore. What the heck, I'm not that crazy so after 5 minutes we left. Told ya I was trained to shop wisely! If the line's too long, surrender! Hahaha!

I kinda felt bad for the other local retailers, though. Wala masyado tao! Everyone was going gaga over Forever 21! And that worked to my advantage because I was able to score a couple of tops in my "secret list of overlooked stores" without having to fall a single line. Sweet!

After that, we headed home and continued Mom's celebration with good food.

Make a wish!

Happy grandparents with Liam, the first grandson. Oh you lucky kid.

What a feast!
Crispy pata, honey-roasted chicken, lumpiang shanghai, and pancit!
Delicioso!

Hope you enjoyed our date, Mom! Let's do this more often, sale or no sale. Haha! I love you!

P.S.
Aren't you glad that I didn't use your credit card? See, I can handle my money now. You should be proud. LOL