Two Good Things

I couldn't decide which of these I wanted to write about, so I ambived. (Don't you think it should be a verb?)

#1

Today I went to IKEA with Ralphie. I can never go there again without thinking of her post about it. (You should definitely read it if you haven't already. Here it is. Forget the rest of my boring post and go there NOW!) (By the way, the woks are actually only $8 at IKEA - she and I did a little reconnaissance today.)

I was most devastated that they did not have the "angel singing" chocolate cake when we went to have lunch before shopping. Oh well, maybe next time. Claire and Scott did, however, take an entire HOUR to eat, respectively, one small IKEA bowl of macaroni and cheese with a carton of chocolate milk and one Smucker's Uncrustables PB&J. They couldn't even stop to chew they were so mesmerized by the TV they could glimpse (but not hear mind you) over in the play area. UGH!!! Poor Ralphie witnessed me transform into my secret identity: Evil Mom. That's me as the screaming, threatening, mean mother I really am. But we were just sitting there for AN HOUR while Ralphie's kids were long done eating and waiting for us. Meanwhile, my kids just sat there and did fabulous things like spill food and refuse to drink out of a cup even though they know perfectly well how to. Hopefully Ralphie will still let me watch her kids sometimes even though she knows the horrible truth now.

Fortunately, after I finally tricked the kids into eating their food, Claire and Erin went into Smaland and I got to shop, which made the preceding misery fade rather quickly :) So that's two trips to IKEA in less than a week for me. Pretty sad, huh? But it made me happy...

#2

My friend emailed me earlier. There is a good story behind her. She went to high school with M and totally knows his family. We even had a wedding reception in his hometown at her parents' house. If I am to believe her little brother who likes to try to fluster me, she and M even dated a little in high school. (As if that would fluster me, I'm just not like that...) Anyway, awhile ago she emailed me to say that her and her husband were moving to our area. Then awhile later, they returned from a house-hunting trip here and happily announced they had bought a house. What a coincidence! We had just gotten an offer accepted on our house that same weekend. So I asked for details. Of all the places we both considered buying houses, we ended up with houses 5 minutes apart. They're in our ward (LDS congregation). I didn't really know her well before, mostly I just knew of her. But now she is one of my favorite people!

Anyway, they just moved in about a week ago and don't have a washer and dryer yet. She emailed to ask if she could come use ours tomorrow. I LOVE that she felt comfortable asking that. It just thrills me! I think only the coolest people in the world have the genuine awesomeness necessary to ask to come use your appliances. (I suppose that may not be true in "blanket statement" sort of way, because there might be a lot of weirdos out there who would like to use my appliances. Whatever, don't burst my bubble.)

Sometimes I worry that I'm best in small doses, but they came to dinner on Sunday, she and I and the kids went swimming Tuesday night and had dinner, she's coming to do laundry tomorrow, and we're planning to go clothes shopping (no sales tax this weekend, yay!) on Saturday. This is a really big deal for me. I have mommy friends, but most of my life I've been notoriously bad at having girl friends. But they don't have kids, so she can't be putting up with me for the sake of her kids. Maybe I'm not as obnoxious as I thought!!!