I spent the entire day yesterday away from my family. The whole day.
I started out with a play rehearsal at 8:30.

I left there at noon, and met my sister so we could go to South Towne Mall so that one of us could hopefully win a new car. Unfortunately, this was not the car for either of us, and we didn’t win. I hope the lady who won really enjoys her new pink Ford Fusion. I would have loved driving around in a pink car. At least the contest was quick and didn’t drag on for hours like these things sometimes do.

After the car thing, my sister met up with a friend, so I was left alone. At the mall. I had to decide if I should go home, only to be there for two hours and then get in the car again to drive to Salt Lake to meet my dear friends for dinner, or just use the time to get some shopping done. I called home to make sure everything was moving along fine without me, and chose to stay and shop. Before you think I was just out shopping for the fun of it, it was shopping with a mission. You see, for this play I’m in, I am supposed to wear all yellow. Yellow, people. With my white skin and blonde hair, yellow is not a color that I wear. Ever. I do not own a single yellow thing. So, to tell me to find a yellow skirt and blouse and shoes is like….I don’t know. Mission impossible? I started at JC Penney, since they had big signs advertising a huge sale. And a sale it was. I found many cute items on sale. Many of them were even yellow. I ended up picking up a yellow and brown swirly print sweater thing that reminds me of something a “Who in Whoville” might wear. And I also bought a really cute shirt that is NOT yellow, but it was indeed on sale. But then to find a skirt to go with it? Not so easy. I went in EVERY store in the mall that I thought might remotely have my size (that means I didn’t go into the 5-7-9 store or the men’s clothing store). I was just zooming in on yellow, which is easy to spot, so that’s a good thing.

After an hour and a half of this, my energy was waning, and I realized I’d had an apple and a granola bar to eat all day, and was therefore getting very hungry. But I was meeting my friends later for dinner at the CHEESECAKE FACTORY, and didn’t want to eat something before that, so when I came to the “free samples” at the energy drink kiosk, I was game for a sample. She gave me a whole water bottle and mixed in the little packet. Of course I had to listen to her talk about the product and act like I might be interested in purchasing some of the product, but then said I’d think about it and walked away, thankful to have something to drink at least, and avoiding the food court.

Finally, at the end of the mall in a store called “urban” something, I spotted them: yellow skirts! And not just one ugly yellow skirt, three or four different patterned yellow skirts! Hooray! I walked into the store, picked up one of each of the skirts in an XL, glancing at the price ($19.99, which seems reasonable for a skirt) and went to try them on. Unfortunately for me, their XL is not quite extra large enough for me. This was, after all, a trendy junior’s store, and XL was probably meant for a 14-16 year old, not a 40 year old with 5 kids. I managed to get the skirt ON–kind of. But I had to hike it up so high that it was hitting me at above the knee, and would NOT look good. I wonder how much weight I can lose by July 11th? I think. Never a good thing to have to say to yourself when you are trying something on. I “tried on” (and I’m using that term a bit too liberally) each of the five yellow skirts I had found, but unfortunately, they were all the same brand, and therefore pretty much all the same size and cut. Darn. But while I was in there, I changed our of my pink shirt and into the cute new silvery shirt I had bought. The pink shirt was seriously stinky because I had been sweating at rehearsal. I felt much fresher and better able to face the shopping nightmare in a cute shirt.

With only one or two more stores that I hadn’t tried, I walked into the Mervyns. It looked like they were having a “big sale”, too. But really, when aren’t stores having sales? There’s always some sale going on. As I trudged around, I realized I should be ENJOYING my alone shopping time! After all, I didn’t have any kids trailing after me asking me for stuff! How long had it been since I shopped by myself? At a mall, no less! Years. Too bad I was on a yellow quest and couldn’t just look at anything. I picked up anything that looked remotely promising, and ended up with a couple of skirts (not yellow), and a couple of shirts (one yellow, and one on sale). At least I knew that Mervyn’s carried my size. I found a great linen/rayon skirt ON SALE for $15! No, it wasn’t yellow, but it was white, with black flowers embroidered on the bottom–which could be dyed, right? I considered buying two of them. One to keep white and one to dye yellow. But I decided on just the one. I think I might get in a couple of wearings before I try to dye it, just in case the dye job goes badly and I completely ruin the skirt. (By the way, the Mervyn’s web site is completely un-navigateable. I was trying to find a picture of the skirt and post it here, but no such luck. Same for the sweater from JC Penney, so you’ll just have to use your imagination.)

Finally satisfied that I had found something to work with, I trudged out of the store. On the way out I saw that there was a nail place right by the exit. Dang. I could have gotten a pedicure. Oh well. I was out of time. Off to meet my friends for dinner–Hooray!

It was a fabulous dinner with my oldest group of friends, and it was a wonderful evening of good food and laughter. Aside from the fact that Lisa’s dinner arrived and wasn’t at all what she ordered and she had to wait and wait for them to prepare the right thing, it was all good. I brought home half of my dinner and half of my cheesecake to share with Ryan.

Ryan, by the way, was no slacker at home. He and Cole found the leak in the sprinklers, which involved no small amount of digging and at least one trip to the plumbing supply store. They also spread the truckload of mulch around on the flower beds, and burried another length of sprinkler pipe that has been out and sitting on the grass for some time. Megan got her packing for girls camp done, and Natalie went to softball practice. Go, Ryan! He did forget about John and his lack of potty enthusiam, however. When I got John changed into his pajamas, he had a very full pull-up, and I don’t think he had used the potty all day. Gross, I know.

But they did manage without me for the whole day (well, 12 hours of it) and that’s encouraging.