a roller coaster kinda day

Speaking of roller coasters, I never accomplished my Summer Goal of going to Six Flags. Boo.

Today's roller coaster was more of the emotional/psychological variety. Exciting, right? 

I started out the day excited that it was the Friday Before a Three-Day Weekend. I had a lot of meetings at work. That was kind of a downer because the more time I spend in meetings, the less time I'm spending talking to kids and getting funny kid stories to tell people. Then, as is wont to happen sometimes, I just got really sad. It's crazy how it just comes over you (me). One minute you're contributing slash leading a meeting at work, the next minute you have to escape to the bathroom lest you burst out crying in front of your co-workers. 

The rest of the work day was pretty much a sham of trying to hold it all together and act like nothing was wrong. Because really...nothing (new) is wrong. This is just me. Emotionally unstable. Prone to random fits of depression.

Luckily, I finally got to go back to my school and see my kids. I immediately had a ketchup-covered hot dog dropped on my foot, leaving a big smear of ketchup behind...and that made me feel a little bit better. But I knew it was only a matter of time.

I call Matt every day when I get off work and start driving home. "What are you going to do when you get home?" he always asks. Today I knew. "Cry."

You know you've reached new lows when that is how you plan to kick off a holiday weekend.

Anyway, so that's what I did. Matt came home a few hours later and laid down next to me on the couch and we fell asleep. When we woke up at 6:30, I felt rested, happy, and hungry.

We decided to go for some fried chicken. Instead of trying to pick just ONE side, I opted to just get both of the ones I was craving. And then I ate all of it. And got dessert. And just generally ate Matt under the table. I put him and his pansy appetite to shame. And normally this would induce yet ANOTHER cry-fest, this time about how fat I am and how I have no self control. But for some reason, it didn't.

We went to the mall to return some Pants that Seemed Like a Good Idea At The Time...you know how that goes. While we were there, I happened to catch a glance of myself in a 3-way mirror. You know what popped in my mind? Damn, I look GOOD in these jeans! That like...never happens. So then I felt really happy.

I made it through the mall without buying anything, feeling good about life. We decided to stop by a Redbox and get a movie. While parked at the gas station, we noticed that one of my headlights was out. Darn. It was about 8:30. We decided to stop by an auto parts store right up the street and see if it was still open. It was, so at about 8:45 we had purchased (two) new headlights (because the other one's bound to go out too, right?). I was commenting to Matt, as we drove home, that it was good we bought the new ones, even if we didn't get around to installing them for a few days, just in case we were to get pulled over or something. At least we'd have them on hand. Matt agreed, but said that he didn't think it was illegal to drive with a broken headlight. Something about how then no one could drive motorcycles, since they only have one headlight? Whatever, it didn't make any sense and was obviously wrong, but I didn't debate him too much.

At about 8:55, on the outskirts of our town, we got stopped in a police checkpoint. License and registration in hand, we approached the officer. He looked over our papers and then said, "You do know it's illegal to drive in the state of Georgia with a broken headlight, don't you?" And Matt said "what?" and I grabbed the bag out of the backseat and practically leaped through the driver's side window, saying "WE JUST NOTICED THE HEADLIGHT AND BOUGHT A NEW ONE SEE THE RECEIPT IT'S DATED LIKE 10 MINUTES AGO AND PLEASE DON'T ARREST US AND DON'T I LOOK CUTE IN MY JEANS?" ...or maybe I didn't say all that, but I did show him the headlights and try to explain it in my most intelligent, I-once-thought-about-going-to-law-school voice. He smiled and nodded his head, saying "that's fine, I just wanted you to know, don't worry about it" and then told us some fun facts about cars with busted headlights and DUIs.

As we drove towards home, I tried not to gloat too much about how I was right about the headlights. It was tough, but I managed. I think.

And now we've spent a good evening just relaxing (me blog-stalking, Matt watching 'nail biter' football) and tomorrow we have big plans to wake up and be at the gym by 8, check out a KOLACHE SHOP we found out about at 9, and be at church for a thing by 10. I know. Ambitious for a holiday weekend, right? And then...COLLEGE FOOTBALL STARTS. I am super excited.

Luckily, the roller coaster day ended on an up note. Here's to hoping the rest of the weekend stays there!!!