Are We There Yet?

I'm an avid blog reader, if not a blog writer, and one of the blogs I try to keep up with (semi-successfully) is Jeni Allen's Peace and Carrots. It's a great way to see how big her kids have gotten, get tips, have something to read while waiting for my kids to get out of school and get into my car . . . anyway, her most recent post (as of this writing) referred to ways in which we gals with seasonal affective disorder (that's right, S.A.D., or as laymen--and me when I'm being real--refer to it, the blahs that occur when nature takes back all her sunlight) can effectively cope.

Specifically, I refer you to numero seis in the list: Explore! Get out of the house and go somewhere! Go to a different library, a different mall, a museum, a park. Take a drive to a part of town you haven't seen before and spend some time exploring. If your kids are older, they can help you plan your excursion and even map out your adventure!

We Ellis' did this not too long ago. It started with cupcakes. Seriously. Apparently the new thing in urban America is bakeries that sell upscale cupcakes and not much else to yuppies and ladies who lunch. OKC has five or eight of 'em, and, tired as I was of looking at the same four walls day in and day out with breaks only for church and school transportation, I said one Saturday, "Hey, we should go get some of those deliciously overpriced cupcakes, at one of those places. You know?" Monte did know, and didn't want to go which made it even more fun, but he didn't want to argue and the babies were already in the car, so away we went seeking the elusive Oklahoman overpriced cupcake. We were driving at the time, and nobody brought an iPad, so we didn't have an exact location. But we pretty much knew about where it was, so no problem.

Except we didn't know exactly where it was. And it turned out that each of the adults in charge of the route were talking about a different cupcake place (how can this be, since you each speak the same language, you may well scoff, but these situations happen and happen regularly when one of the adults in question patently refuses to learn the proper name for anything. For example he often asks his wife if she's seen that one show, with that one guy in it. You know the guy I mean.) So our exploration ended up in one crazy trip in and out and up and down and all over Oklahoma City with three screaming boys in the back. We finally found Pinkitzel (the cupcake place I was talking about) where the cupcakes were indeed overpriced and delicious. We bought six, and by the time three of them were eaten by the brothers, my van looked like a bakery crime scene. So for my trouble, I got very very lost, paid $28 in US dollars for six cupcakes (really), got my cupcakes eaten out from under me while trying to find my way home, and the rewarding job of wiping up icing and vacuuming crumbs out of the van I had just cleaned the day before.

You might believe that I'm about to say "So DON'T explore! It doesn't pay!" but I'm not, because for all the ridiculousness of that day, I will remember it fondly while picturing Stephen's face absolutely COVERED in icing. What's more, I'll probably suggest it again in the near future (maybe overpriced buffalo wings this time) because exploration is really the best and only way to have an adventure--even one that you don't want to repeat anytime soon. I guess the lesson I learned in all this is, exploration and spontaneity certainly go hand in hand, but not if you have to be somewhere in an hour. They'll also lead you in and out of Mordor and through Kevin Durant's living room, in search of a cupcake. It's just their nature.