Wacky Wednesday

This picture was not Wednesday, it was Thursday.  But just pretend we're at IKEA instead of Lowe's.  It works.

Do you ever have those moments that are so crazy and secretly you're excited because you'll have something to blog about?  Wednesday was that day.

Wednesday morning I decided to take the kids on a walk to drop off things to my neighbors.  We get fresh air, I don't have to buckle car seats and my friends all live really close, so it's a win-win-win.  When we walked out of the garage there were like six police officers in my neighbor's driveway.  I said "good morning" because I didn't want to pretend they weren't there. (for a second I was worried they were there to get me for not making full stops at the stop sign, but then I realized I'm maybe a little paranoid)  They were still there when we got back.  When my neighbor on the other side started texting me (because there is no parking on our street and yet there were two police trucks parked in front of her house) I told her that the cops had just left and there was a no trespassing sign on the garage and window.  After sending that I realized that I maybe didn't clarify whose garage and window.  "Not your house!  The neighbors on my other side!"  I mean, it was only a few seconds, but what a stressful few seconds that would be if you thought it was your house!  So I guess they just got evicted (which I feel really badly about, but also hopeful that someone I can be friends with will move in next door!)

After our walk I decided that IKEA would be a good idea.  I had some birthday money burning a hole in my pocket and you don't have to try on home decor in a dressing room before you buy it.  Plus we can eat there and I don't have to clean up lunch.  Off we went.  Olivia got to go to Småland and Axel and I knocked out the shopping.  Then we ate lunch.  Or Axel and I ate lunch, Olivia licked some ketchup off a meatball. I guess Småland didn't qualify as letting Olivia play with toys because she kept telling me I promised.  So I let the kids play with the display train table.  There was a guy there with his son, probably Axel's age.  I didn't really pay him any attention. . . at first.  But you know how it is when you're watching your kids play and it's nice to make Smål small talk with other adults?  Yeah, this guy would not look at me.  Sometimes it was really obvious he was looking anywhere but me.  That's when I remembered that we used to be neighbors and that we went out on a few dates back in my Provo days.  After about ten minutes he picked up his kid and left.  Do you think he noticed me earlier and was intentionally not looking at me?  Why???  So weird. I really would have said Hi to him if he would have just glanced my way, but it felt awkward to start talking to someone who obviously didn't want to have a conversation.

Looking back, we might have been there a little long at this point.  But I really did want the stuff I had in my basket, so what choice did I have? We got in the longest possible line (it looked deceptively short when I chose it--they always do) and when we were one away from the checkout Olivia had to go to the bathroom. So I ditched the cart and we ran to the potty. When we returned the lines had doubled! But we dutifully headed to the back of the line. A few minutes later a woman approached me and said she and her son would take my spot in line and I could have hers (she was at the front of the line next to us). I almost cried, it was the nicest thing.

So the moral of the story is: Pay your rent (or don't do drugs? who knows), make eye contact with former girlfriends and do nice things for strangers.

Sorry so sloppy and short long.