No Good Very Bad Day

Hi friend. How has your weekend been so far? I hope that you are having a great one.

Mine is... not off to a great start. Warning, this is definitely a vent about a (gross!) crazy day!

The Denver temple is closed for 3 months for some renovations (July-October). Trevor and I set a goal to drive up to the Fort Collins temple at least once a month in the meantime. We didn't hit that goal last month because first I got sick and then he caught it. But we were excited to set out today.

The problems started early on. Last night, I checked the temple schedule to figure out which endowment session to go to. Fort Collins is 2 hours away, so we needed to time things right. I could swear there was a 1:30 session. That's what we planned on. We got out the door at 11:15... I called the temple to verify the schedule, and it turned out... there isn't a 1:30 session. There is a 1:00 session that we now had no chance of making. The next session wouldn't be until 3. No problem, Trevor said. We could do other things before the 3:00 endowment session.

So we kept going on our merry way. Trevor drove, and I read to him from the Primary manual (the little kids' Sunday School curriculum) so we could plan our lesson for tomorrow. We made it to Denver, our halfway point. I'm not usually one to get motion sick, but I was getting a bit carsick. I ignored it because it wasn't that bad, and it was important we get our lesson done.

Then... WHAM. All of a sudden, things got unbearably bad. I stopped reading and tried to will myself to get better. I'm not going to get sick... I'm not going to get sick... Yeah, positive thinking didn't work. I told Trevor, "Uh.... I might need you to pull over." "Why?" "I might... throw up." He had time to say, "You think you're going to throw up?" and then I delivered on my promise. Yuck.

A couple positives... there wasn't that much (thank you, light breakfast!) and I didn't get any on Trevor's car. I protected the car and just threw up all over myself. Awesome.

It took Trevor a little while to get off the highway and find a gas station... I tried to sponge myself off with the paper towels out by the window cleaning stuff. Then I swallowed my pride and endured the humbling experience of walking into the gas station in a black dress covered in sick. I cleaned myself off as best as I could in the bathroom, but... yeah. No way was I in any shape to go into the temple. Fortunately Trevor had some old work clothes in the back of his car that I changed into.

Do I look manly and tough?

I wanted to give up and go home, or at least have Trevor drop me off while he went without me. But Trevor knew how much I'd looked forward to this trip.... so, somehow he talked me into shopping for a new dress and continuing on our way. We found a little shopping center with a Marshall's, an Old Navy, and a Nordstrom Rack.

In our faith, we wear modest clothes--and we define that as covering our shoulders, covering our chest, and at least knee length. It is SO HARD to find a dress that meets those criteria, and I only had 30 minutes! I struck out at Marshall's and Old Navy only had sleeveless sun dresses. I charged in Nordstrom Rack determined to find something in 10 minutes to less. It took some work, but I finally settled on a dress that I liked. It had sleeves, it went past my knees. I left the dressing room to show Trevor and he liked it too, so we were off (with a quick stop at McDonald's to get Trevor lunch, and to give me a chance to change in the bathroom).

We made it to the temple with 8 minutes to spare. As we were frantically dashing in, I discovered something about my new dress. Sure, it looked fine when I stood still and looked in the mirror (or stood still and showed Trevor). But... when I was walking, it quickly became apparent that I'd missed a minor detail.... It has a slit in the front that goes up mid-thigh. GAHH! We wear sacred garments under our clothes that go down to our knees, and mine was just hanging out, flapping in the wind for all to see. Turns out white stands out A LOT against dark green. 😕 I just kind of held my temple bag in front of it awkwardly as we went in. Inside the temple, we change into all white, so I was okay once I got into my temple dress. After our session, when I got back into my regular dress, I attempted to pin the slit closed. It didn't work. I'm not great with pins.

Also on my way out, I got lost!! It's not that big of a temple, I'm not really sure how it happened. I made one wrong turn and got completely disoriented. Fortunately one of the sweet temple workers noticed I was wandering in circles and pointed me in the direction of the door. 😖

Oh well. The endowment session itself was a good experience.... hopefully our next trip to Fort Collins goes better.