The armpit of Idaho

I live in a small town about 20 minutes outside of Boise Idaho. It doesn't have much. It takes me ten to fifteen minutes to get to Walmart and there is no mall. Shopping is the pits.

So if I'm looking for anything good I have to jump in my car, kids in tow, and make the drive into the Big City.

Today was one of those days.

Before I continue I have make an aside note:
My sister is living with me for a few months before she heads off into the real world of college. I love having her here..well when I actually see her, but I have to think of fun things to do to help entertain her. Being a stay at home mom isn't the big party its hyped up to be! The only thing I can ever come up with is shopping, which leads us back to my story...

There is this really cute little store in downtown Boise called Lux Fashion Lounge. Its like DI or GoodWill but the owners only buy cute trendy clothes. So I love it because its cheap and I don't have to dig through all the other stuff you would normally have to at those other places. ( though I do shop at DI and GoodWill all the time!)

So, this morning we headed off. ( It's important to note here that I have only driven around downtown Boise once by myself. There are a lot of one way streets...its very scary! Don't laugh you big City slickers out there!)

I had map quested how to get there. It was all written down and planned out in my head. It was only two turns after the freeway ended and it should have been a piece of cake. Yeah..right.

We made the two turns perfectly, our eyes were on the lookout for the sign, and we drove all the way up the street without seeing it. So we turned around the block and went back up the street. ( it was a one-way of course..) We didn't see it again. Now I was getting flustered and nervous. Did I get the address right? Did I forget to write down a street? No, I was pretty sure we were right where the Internet told us to be. So around we went again.

No luck. Ugh..I was getting sooo mad! We decided at that point to just find a parking spot and walk it out. And whatdya know, all the parking spaces had meters... did we bring quarters? Of course not. So for the millionth time we headed back around the block.

Just as I thought about saying, " FORGET IT!" and ramming my car through the nearest building, a sign for a parking garage caught my eye. We were saved!

Parking the car took to seconds. ( I know how to maneuver my way around one of those places at least!) and we were finally on the street. It was FREEZING!!

We shivered our way up the road to the where I was sure the dumb store was supposed to be. " It said 873 or something like that," I kept saying, so sure that I remembered the address from the one glance I had given it.

So we walked.....we walked and walked and walked, and not in a straight line,no, around in circles.....again. Our noses turned red and my fingers froze into curled tendrils around the stroller handle. My children sat motionless, quiet statues of ice. ( Ha, ha..I wish..) Then we had a brilliant idea, " Let's ask somebody!" We stopped a nice looking business woman on the street, " Oh that's way over there..go down this street for forever and then turn on this other street and walk a few blocks, it's in a little plaza square across from this restaurant."

"Wow", I thought to myself as we started down the street, " we were way off!" We didn't even make it half a block before I saw out of the corner of my eye a bright red sign on the sidewalk that read, " LUX." Well thank you random lady off of the street, you were of absolutely no help at all! ;-)

We had made it. It was about stinkin time. We were so cold and my kids were starving, which made then completely terrible in the store, but it was worth it. I found a couple of shirts and my sister found some cute stuff too. We also discovered that Lux has another store just up the street called Lux Vintage, which is right up Rachael's alley. She found the cutest dress and even though it was a crappy time getting there it was a fun time hangin out and bonding with my little sis. I don't know if she would say the same thing, but at least it got us both out of the house!

And I didn't have one bit of trouble finding my way back to the freeway. Thanx to the hippy girl in the vintage store. Thank you hippy girl in the store, you were of great help indeed.

Oh, by the way, the address was 783 or something like that..we had been walking around and around one block too far.