All for naught

As you know, I am somewhat of a journal freak. This entails an obsession with cute notebooks. In February, I started writing by hand in my journal every night before bed, in a cute notebook I got from Hobby Lobby in Oklahoma. I didn't think much about this journal when I bought it - it had a cute cover and it was cheap, so I got it. But now that I have been writing in it so much, it is filling up rather quickly. And I only have a few pages left. I am in the market for a new journal.

I didn't realize how incredibly hard it would be to find one that I like, now that I have had the perfect one. The binding on it is JUST right for me. It is spiral bound, but the cover goes around the spiral binding, protecting it from bent spiral - one of my greatest pet peeves. The pages' lines are perfectly spaced, and there are floral designs printed on every page, making the inside of the journal as cute as the outside. (Wow, I am realizing how OCD I sound as I type this.) I have looked at Target and Walmart - nothing that compares to my Hobby Lobby one.

Tonight, with a full-journal-and-nowhere-to-write situation fast approaching, I decided to make a special trip to a bookstore. They always have great notebooks, right? After the kids woke up from their nap around 4pm, we were off. As I approached the highway, I debated which store to go to. I have always been a fan of Barnes & Noble. I am rather loyal to that store, in fact. But it is about 30 minutes from my house. The lesser store, Borders, is only about 15 minutes from my house. I went back and forth - risk it with the kids, or play it safe? I decided to play it safe, go to Borders, and then stop at Michaels on the way home in case I didn't find my dream notebook at Borders.

So the journey began.

Eva threw a medium-sized tantrum in the Borders parking lot over the fact that Leighton got to sit in the stroller and she didn't. Mind you, when I bring the double, she will have nothing to do with it - she only wants the stroller when her brother is occupying it. After a drawn-out - and HIGHLY unsuccesful - trip in my least favorite bookstore, we left. ((Should have driven to Barnes and Noble. My loyalty is stronger than ever.) Dear Marelize invited me to go to dinner with her family, and I was excited to eat at a good Mexican restaurant. Michaels was on the way to the restaurant, so we battled the traffic for a few blocks and went in. NOTHING. Not a single notebook in sight, other than those stupid dollar ones that have like 10 pages.

As we pulled out of the parking lot, my children started to unravel before my very eyes. Well, my rearview mirror eyes, as I was driving. It was dinner time. I knew Eva would be fine once she got food in her (she's my daughter, after all), but Leighton is a different story. He's still at the age that his downhill mood is permanently downhill and probably not going back up until he is properly fed, bathed, and put to sleep. Traffic was absolutely horrendous, going about a block every 3 minutes, if that. With Leighton crying in the background, I called Marelize and sadly cancelled my dinner date with her. I stopped at Panda Express (I don't even like that place but it was convenient, and it's Andrew's favorite so it was in memory of him) for dinner. Eva ate rice and chicken in her carseat, using the inside of my drink lid as her plate, all the way home. Leighton got his much-needed bottle, and all was restored in the Webb van.

But as I sit here in quiet, I think, "All that for nothing?" I still don't have a journal. I have several hundred extra calories sitting in my thighs because I was out of the house at dinner time and ate crap food that makes me feel disgusting. And again I say, I STILL DON'T HAVE A JOURNAL. So now I'm looking online. The only problem with that is, I can't see the spacing of the lines to tell if I like the inside. Oh, bother. Back to square one.