This post is about happier days.
Sunday evenings are almost perfect, and I’ve thought so for as long as I can recall.
When I was a little girl, Sundays meant three hours of church, followed by leisurely playing/reading/dinnering, and later, an evening walk to my grandma’s house for family visits. I liked Sundays. Sundays meant family, calm, quietude, and rest. Of course, Sundays inevitably ended with the dread of another week at school, and another week ’til the next Sunday—the simple joys of Sundays were always overshadowed by the looming, dooming Monday, lurking just on the other side of midnight.
Not much has changed. Sundays are still peaceful, reverent days of detox for me, but they are also ever-tainted by tomorrow. Mondays always come, bringing with them a whole slew of woes that I’d much rather leave behind in the weekend.
Of course, I’m nowhere near powerful enough to change the calendar, or seriously advocate for the five-day weekend {though I’m a closet supporter of the movement}, so all I can do is sit back and live with it, like all the other unmotivated losers who are not in control of their own destinies…
But one thing I can control is my power of recollection—I won’t lose that for many years to come {I hope}, and thank goodness. It’s times like these that I need my memory to recall happier times…
…like that road trip I took with Poor Kyle back in February during Reading Week. I realised I never posted about it, and it was a lovely trip, so I shouldn’t let it go ignored:
1. After a brief delay, we crossed the border and drove to Oregon from Canada, and stopped to sleep in the back of the FSomething50 for one night…
I’m atrocious in person, and this photo is proof. Poor Kyle looks great in bed head—I’ve always thought so.
2. The next day, while Poor Kyle did boring work stuff, I wandered through the streets of downtown Salem, making the most of a sunny morning. I antiqued, I boutiqued, and eventually, I fatigued {but not before scoring a cute new chapstick, the brand of which I had never before seen (and even though it highly resembles, it doesn’t nearly measure up to Burt’s Bees™ Pomegranate Lip Balm [which should come as a shock to absolutely no one])}.
Here I am in front of the Salem City Courthouse, waiting for Poor Kyle and wishing my tired-looking hair had already been dyed back to its natural colour.
Boss Lady™ Lip Balm in Honeysuckle Nectar {purchased on super-sale from a darling little shop whose name I will never remember}.
3. When he picked me up, he announced that wouldn’t it be fun if we drove to the coast? Of course I was delighted, because if there’s one thing I love more than Poor Kyle, it’s a spontaneous Poor Kyle; and if there’s one place more beautiful than central Oregon, it’s Coastal Oregon. So we went.
Here’s Poor Kyle at the Oregon Coast, donning a hat to conceal aforementioned bed head. And here’s me with a chubby face, wishing I had never eaten all those truffles (but what’s done is done; let’s not dwell).
Who am I kidding? I don’t know how NOT to dwell. I hold major grudges against anyone who’s ever done me wrong, myself included. Curse me!
We ended up in a little place called Lincoln City, which was very precious, but by the time we got there we were too tired to do anything besides eat at Mo’s and leave. So the pictures are scarce, but trust me: it was lovely.
Poor Kyle was so bitter about taking this picture, since we had just taken one on the OTHER side of this same inlet an hour earlier.
After dinner, I said to Poor Kyle, “Poor Kyle? Wouldn’t you like to take nice romantic walk on that beach?”
Grunt.
I tried harder, in my best high-pitched giddy wife voice (which raised an octave every other word)… “But it would be so precious, and we could take pictures of our feet in the ocean tide, and you could write I HEART CAMILLE in the sand and then, and then, and then! We could take pictures of ourselves in front of it and post the pictures on my blog and then all the world would know how madly in love we are?”
Grunt.
I tried smarter… “Well…we could go down to that beach and not hold hands, but instead pretend we are pirates and hunt for buried treasure…”
When that didn’t work, I knew nothing would. Instead, I cajoled one more picture in front of that unattainable beach, a picture practically identical to the first, but it was worth it just to prove that we did more than park on a highway lookout point and leave. Too bad I didn’t get a picture of Mo’s.
Anyway, after our fun day seeing the sights (not pictured is a trip to the outlet malls, which are never as fun as I think they’re going to be), we packed up and headed back to Canada, where I promptly started whining about school again, and have been ever since.
I think it’s safe to say I’m happiest when I’m traveling, or, at the very least, I’m happiest when it’s not Monday, or, at the honest-to-goodness very VERY least, college is a wretched institution, and summer rocks my world.
Is your Monday going well?
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