I spent a fun (if intense!) afternoon yesterday with Lani from Real Life Style. Some readers may remember her from a 2020 episode of Best of Both Worlds. She was in the Philly area yesterday, so she came and looked at my closet, and then we went shopping at Nic+Zoe in Wayne.
We did well! After trying on something like 30 things (!) I bought four pairs of pants, two dresses, two tops, and a jacket and a cardigan. The pants are probably not things I would have picked out on my own, but they should work for looking a little more put together for summer. Lani also had a 25 percent off coupon, so that was a big win! I’m sorry I don’t really have any pictures right now but the clothes are in my closet and my husband is working from home in our bedroom so I’m not going to go interrupt his meeting to get photos from the blog. Maybe I can put some on Instagram later.
In the meantime, this morning has been…something. It is actually my eldest’s birthday, which means I have been a mother for 17 years now. I got him and the middle schoolers up at 6:30 this morning, since the middle schoolers had jazz band practice before school. The 17-year-old left in his (my) car and my husband drove the others. The 4-year-old called for me and so I went to get him, and then realized that somehow everyone was back in the house.
It turns out that a construction truck was turning onto our road (working on one of our neighbors’ houses) and hit a truly gigantic tree, which toppled over on the truck. The driver wasn’t hurt. But…that meant there was a huge tree and a partially crushed truck blocking our no-outlet road. (Sorry, again no photos, as I just saw pics on my kids’ phones of this…this is truly the worst illustrated blog post ever!)
So, there was a lot of regrouping. The 17-year-old decided to get in an extra hour of studying for the AP Bio exam (which is today, but fortunately not until noon) while we figured out how to get him to school. The middle schoolers could walk around the mess and get on the bus on the main road, so they just missed jazz band practice. Our nanny was able to park at a neighbor’s house whose driveway wasn’t blocked, and she walked through the yards. Then she took everyone who was still at the house to school in her car. My husband and I are both working from home. I have a virtual speech today, but the good news about a virtual speech is that it’s virtual. I’m not trying to get to the airport this morning! (Though thinking about that, I guess I would have had an Uber meet me at the neighbors’ house or something…)
There are upsides to living on a quiet, dead-end road, though there are obviously downsides too. Anyway, all the kids went to school, my husband and I are both able to do our jobs, and I’ll just hope no one on the street has an emergency for the next few hours…
This is what happens when two introverts go shopping, no pictures 😂!
@Lani – exactly! I’m wearing the blazer and a pair of jeans today though.
Yay!!!!
Even though there are no pictures I still enjoyed the post. Sounds like a hectic morning, but some creative problem solving made it manageable. I can’t WAIT to hear more about your shopping with Lani. I think you and I have similar styles so I am excited to see what she found for you.
Oh dear! I’ll admit, and I say this as someone who’s lived on and appreciates the upsides of a dead-end road, that having lived through several really bad storms that caused a lot of tree damage over the years, I do now have some preference for living places that aren’t in only-one-way-out settings. Though as your morning illustrates, one-way-out for cars doesn’t necessarily mean there’s only one-way-out for humans, thank goodness. Indeed, my ideal might be to live somewhere where I am on a no-outlet street, but one equipped with greenways that (in a pinch) can accommodate emergency vehicles, a design that’s becoming increasingly common where I live.
@Alexicographer – yep, the lack of emergency access is a wee bit concerning. But it has all been cleaned up now. They were pretty quick about it – only a few hours!
True — of course in fairness if one has, say, 2 access routes and both get blocked by trees (entirely possible in ice storms in my region, as one example), well … then what? So it’s definitely a minimizing risk question (and how much is enough), not an avoiding risk question.