This Post is Brought to You by the Letter J

(Melanie J, that is. If not for her amazing winning abilities, I could not have written this post. So Miss J, if this post wins me some kind of millionaire-making 'post of the year' award (cause that could totally happen, even though it's not that good) I promise I'll split the cash with you.)

Yesterday the boys and I set off on an adventure. On foot. Well, on MY feet. The boys were in the stroller.

I knew it was going to be a long haul, walking to the post office. I didn't really know how long though, or I maybe would have driven. But we were off to mail the Sara Groves Christmas CD to giveaway winner, Melanie J. And I was excited! Being excited always makes me experience lapses in judgment.

(I know, I know. Wasn't that giveaway a long time ago? Yes. But both winners are patient. And I am....slow.)

Anyway! Geez, get on with the story...

The post office is only about a half a mile from our house. But let me set you straight right now. It's actually a lot longer than a mile. Because there is NO direct way to get there. But I thought I could figure it out the best route to take. With my powers of...guessing.

(I don't know why I thought that, since I'm the most directionally challenged human being on planet Earth. But I was feeling ambitious I guess. Or just sort of optimistic. Or maybe kind of dumb.)

So we took off in the general direction of the post office. It's in this beautiful neighborhood that borders ours. It's one of those neighborhoods that is it's only little world. A little utopia, if you will. It is quaint, full of amazing houses and lush gardens straight out of a magazine. Oh, and there are lots and lots of criss-crossing angled streets.

The streets are confusing.

You can head in the right direction and then come to a point of choosing between a street that sort of goes in the right direction, or another street that sort of goes in the right direction. Yes, those are your SORT OF choices. You just pick a street and hope for the best, angling in the general direction of the post office. At least the direction you think it might be in your directionally challenged head.

So you gamble with your time and keep a good attitude while walking through this beautiful utopia of a neighborhood with all of it's autumn loveliness. But your legs? You can't be sure if your legs are going to make it . Or your lungs. It sounds something like,

"Where are we going Mommy?"

gasp gasp pant pant, "to the post office." gasp pant.

(By the way, these are very VERY HILLY (steep) criss-crossing streets.)

We almost got lost. But I saved the day, of course.

We barreled down one of the hills just in time to meet up with a nice man who could laugh at me for asking which way the post office was. I guess he thought it was funny since this is a very small neighborhood. He pointed in the opposite direction of where I was headed, shook his head and moved on. I'm sure he assumed we lived there, right in one of the perfect houses, straight out of Cottage Living magazine. We don't. We live "across the tracks," or at least across the main road. In the more...modest neighborhood. You know, where houses cost quite a bit less than half a million to a million dollars each.

(And also. When I say that I barreled, I mean that. The hills are so steep, that if you're pushing ninety pounds worth of stroller and boys downhill, you are GOING to barrel. There is no choice. And it will make you giggle. Loudly. Bringing even more attention to the barreling.)

When we weren't barreling, the boys would let me know they were getting tired of the walk. With all the turning right and then left and then right and then left...

"Yeah, me too!" I puffed. I mean, it's only fun to barrel down a hill about twelve times. After that your legs just feel all numb and gooey and the weight of the stroller makes it impossible to slow down at corners. It's very, very scary. For everyone involved.

(Including people observing you from their quaint little yards, pausing from their raking to stand open-mouthed while you careen past, out of control.)

That's only fun for so long.

But miraculously, we finally came to the beautiful little main street and looked both ways (not to look for cars, but to see where the heck the post office was from where we ended up.) We were close. I was SO proud. I only wasted lots and lots of energy walking many blocks in the wrong direction a couple of times!

(This little half-mile walk had taken just over an hour. No big deal, really. A lot of zig-zagging and hills will take awhile.)

Oh yeah. But guess what?

After we got the CD in the mail (yes, it's finally on it's way), and headed over to the cute little grocery store to pick up some stuff for dinner, I realized we would have to do all the hills again in order to get home.

So I did what anyone would do in my running downhill shoes. I started calling people, seeing if they could come and pick us up.

The brother-in-law who was due to come to our house at around this time, well...he can't come. He's at a nearby art store, preparing for an evening class. But he'll be over in about an hour!

Great.

I called Ryan. He had some things to wrap up at work that couldn't wait.

Fine.

I knew for sure that I couldn't re-trace our zig-zag steps accurately to make the trip as short as possible, but we set out to try anyway. With semi-success. We only walked a few blocks in the wrong direction a couple of times. And we found a really cool park with a rock-climbing wall while we were lost. It only took us about an hour and a half to get home. I'm pretty sure that if I knew where I was going, this whole adventure would have taken about 40 minutes (round trip).

But to the little troopers in the stroller I said, "you can't live an adventurous life without going on a few adventures."

(Right after I got done telling them they better stop whining or I was going to refuse to talk to them for the rest of the walk home.)

Melanie J, here's to mailing your giveaway CD! I made a big deal of it. That's how cool I think you are. I could have driven, you know.