Perfect day

I already did my happy thing today, but maybe I should have waited, because today was one of those rare, perfect days.

You know how sometimes you have those days where everything just goes wrong? Your house is a mess and your kids are cranky and you have too much to do and not enough hours in the day to do it? Today was the rare opposite of that kind of day. My house was clean, my kids were super happy and cooperative, Clarissa had her friend Sophia over and they played so cute together, and then Shawn called from work to see if I wanted to go out on a date when he got home.

So tonight we went out. We don't go on nearly enough dates. We mean to, but then life always seems to get in the way and it doesn't happen. But today it happened. We went out to dinner at this super cool hamburger place we've been wanting to try. We live in Idaho, which is famous for potatoes, and this place specializes in different kinds of french fries. They have french fries made out of all different types of potatoes, and then they have a condiment bar that has all different types of salt, and all different types of dip. Our fries were made from purple potatoes (that's really a thing) and we had blueberry ketchup. It was actually really good and so fun to try a different spin on burgers and fries. The restaurant makes everything from scratch, they even make their own pickles that are on the hamburgers. Also, they make their own soda. It's a cool place!

After that we went to a movie. We saw The Fault In Our Stars. I read that book a few of months ago and decided that I'd go see it by myself when it came out. It's a super girly movie and I didn't think I'd   have anyone to see it with. But I'm married to the most awesome man ever who will totally sit through a chick flick with me, so he offered to make it a date night and see it with me.

So when I read that book a few months ago, I was kind of cynical about it. Everyone raved about it, and I hate it when everyone is talking a book that I haven't read and I don't know what they're talking about. So I read it mostly for that reason. I have to know what everyone is talking about! I didn't love it as much as everyone else seemed to. It was just an overly schmaltzy teenage romance novel. I'm not sure what I expected, but I thought it was slightly on the cheesy side. It's possible that I'm just slightly too old for YA fiction, lol. Ugh, the idea of that pains me.

When I was a teenager I ate up that cheesy teenage romance fiction like it was the greatest thing on earth. Being in love when you're a teenager is like this magical thing. But then you experience a little bit more life and become cynical and realize that most people don't live happily after after with their hot and heavy teenage romance, and now those books annoy me. Now I'm all "yeah, give it a year. He'll meet some chick at college and forget your name." It's possible I stay bitter about teenage romance in loyalty to my broken hearted teenage self, lol.

But even though I didn't super love the book, I liked it enough to want to see the movie, and on our date tonight, that's what we did. I've never said this about any movie before, and may never say it about any movie again, but I actually think that in this case the movie was better than the book. I almost never ever like the movie better than the book in any case, but in this case the movie totally worked. I thought it was cast well and what seemed cheesy in print was actually sort of sweet on film. It's a ridiculously sad story and I told myself I wasn't going to cry, but of course I did, because sad movies always make me cry. And maybe, just for a minute, I wasn't so cynical about teenage romance. It reminded me again how sweet and magical it is to fall in love at that age. Also, it's a story about teenagers with cancer, so, spoiler alert, no one is going off to college to meet someone else and fall out of love. So...there's that.

In any case, we had a really good time. Good food, good movie, good company. Anything with Shawn is fun. Then on the way home the sunset was amazing. All pink and streaky clouds across the sky. Shawn and I have had this joke since we were dating that any time there is a beautiful sunset or pretty flowers or whatever pretty thing in nature and I comment on how pretty it is, he says "I did that for you", like he takes credit for the pretty thing. You kind of had to be there, but it has been making me laugh for almost two decades. He took credit for the sunset tonight. It made me laugh again.

I came home and realized that today has been a pretty perfect day. It was like a perfect storm of happy things. My stars aligned today or something. I'm sure tomorrow I'll wake up and the spell will be broken and kids will be wild and my house will need cleaned and there won't be enough hours in the day to get everything done. But today...today was a really great day.