Remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books back in the day? Where you would start reading and then have a choice of what you could do a few pages in and ultimately guide yourself through different options until the end?

Well, today kind of reminded me of that. I had to take my car in to be worked on…doesn’t sound so difficult, right? I can be without a car for a day or two and survive. But we have to throw a wrench in things and have a car that has to be serviced far, far away. It’s not like I can easily drop it off and catch a ride from a friend without inconveniencing anyone. So, with that said, I made an appointment for this morning to have a warning indicator light checked out. I was dreading today last night when I went to bed and when I woke up this morning. I was supposed to get there at 9:00 and got a late start. Goldfish crackers were my children’s breakfast. In the car. And I ran out of milk for Holden.

I was dreading the fact of having both of them with me for ultimately 8 hours in an area that I am not familiar with. I packed a beach bag with towels, bathing suits, clean clothes, buckets, shovels, etc. and thought we could spend a good portion of the day at the beach. We entered the San Fernando Valley and it was cold and gloomy which reached way down and over to the coast. I quickly decided that we may need to wait until later in the day to hit the sand. So then I thought we could meet up with our out of town friends that were in Simi Valley for the day. That meant that I would have to drop off the car, wait for Jay to come from Woodland Hills to pick us up, take him back to WH, go to Simi, visit, wait for a call for the car to be done, pick up Jay in WH and then go back to Lawndale to pick up the car before they closed. NO. Too much driving. I had the option to rent a car, so that is what I decided to do. I figured I could stay closer to the shop and not waste so much travel time. And gas money. I was literally driving and making decisions every so many miles which I did not like. I like to have a plan.

This is how our day unfolded ~ the adventures that we chose for ourselves.

{here we are still having NO idea what we’re going to do}

{finally got our Toyota Yaris}

{11:45am showing of Madagascar 3 in 3D}

{for lunch, they chose the Golden Arches and I chose this Happy Meal from Capriotti’s}

I almost died when I spotted this sandwich shop across from the mall! You can read about my love for it here.

We drove around and checked out the beach a little, but it was still yucky and by this time we would have no sooner schlepped our stuff to the sand, set it up and gotten the call that the car was done. I am sure of it. So that is when we spied a Menchi’s and the kiddos wanted frozen yogurt. I talked them into Rite Aid instead.

{their choice, cotton candy [yuck!] and my brilliant choice, chocolate malted krunch}

After our ice cream we cruised Artesia Blvd. {don’t be jealous} and then I remembered I’d seen a Michael’s over yonder earlier. We ran in there for 2 minutes since my patience level was extremely LOW by this time. No sooner did we fill up a little gas in the Yaris when I got the call that our car was ready.

By 5:15pm we were sitting in 405N traffic with a new compressor and fresh oil and filter. Yay!

I chose to listen to this rather than the #4 CD that I’ve been listening to since Christmas…

{forgot how much I loved this music, y’all!}

Since the kids really wanted pancakes over goldfish for breakfast this morning, they chose them for dinner instead.

*****

Now that I am home, in my jammies with a glass of wine, I can sit back and say, “That wasn’t SO bad.”

It was a little stressful having to deal with the estimate for parts & labor, authorizing diagnostic work and another e-mail I received this morning during all this, but we just tried to take it one step at a time and enjoy this summer day! Looking forward to lounging at the pool tomorrow before dance class and getting the house ready for my Dad’s visit next week…we’re celebrating his 80th birthday with a trip to Disneyland and California Adventure.

CanNOT wait.

Happy {almost} Friday!