Yesterday wasn’t the best day.

Our morning went well. Wes and I were both up early, he got his run in, I got my run in, we had our quiet times, and by the time he was off to the church, the girls were waking up on their own. Dressed and looking pretty, the three Faulkettes headed out for Sunday school and church. Wes had meetings afterwards, so we said goodbye and came back home.

And then… my key broke off in the front door.

I would’ve used the garage door opener. If I had it. (Wes had it.) And if the garage door wasn’t already locked. (We’ve been having trouble with it.) I would’ve used a key to get in the back door. If I had spare. (Wes had the spare.) And this all would have bothered me more had the door not always been hard to unlock anyway. I had been counting on something like this happening.

“Girls, this is a problem,” I told them, adding that it would be just dandy if Mr. Derrick from church would come by to break in to steal my cool vintage Disney map right at that very moment so that I could get inside. (He had warned me he might!)

Alas, no. There was no thieving taking place, so I was on my own.

Ana observed my efforts (which consisted of ruining my fingernails, a couple of pens, and a random wire I found) and said, “We should pray about this.”

I told her that was a brilliant idea. I prayed, she prayed, and Emma, who must have missed the conversation about why we were praying prayed, “Oh, God, help us to obey You.” I guess it’s always good to pray that, even if it has absolutely nothing to do with the current catastrophe that you’re facing.

“Girls,” I said, after many failed attempts to retrieve my key, “let’s go to Taco Bell.” This would give us some time in the air conditioning for Ana to go potty (she only had to go once we realized we were locked out of the house), for us to eat (because we were now well past lunchtime), and for us to concoct a plan as to what we were going to do.

Don’t they look serious as they contemplate our options?

Wes still wasn’t answering his phone after lunch, so we decided to make the most of the time we had to spend out and about by taking care of some of my Monday errands, specifically grocery shopping. Wandering the aisles at Wal Mart sure beat sitting out in the sun… but not by much because it was crazy crowded and crowded with crazies. (Have you been to Wal Mart on a Sunday afternoon recently? Then, I need not say anything further.) While we were there in the store, Emma read her first word.

“Look, Mommy! COORS! COORS!”

That’s right, the pastor’s daughter was yelling her head off on the beverage aisle, thrilled by her newfound ability to sound out words.

My response? “Well, by golly, you’re right. That does say Coors.”

“Yeah! I read-ed that! COORS! COORS! COORS! COORS!”

She kept on until an employee walked by, at which point she loudly observed, “Hey, he is SUPER handsome!” Which was… better than shouting about beer? (It’s a toss up, really.) She did express some dissatisfaction that this guy wasn’t nearly as cute as the cart guy at Target last week who Papi told her was Tim Tebow. Emma spent the rest of THAT shopping trip trying to catch his eye while Mommy spent it trying not to stare because, y’all, he DID look like Tim Tebow! Curse that Wes Faulk for having the uncanny ability to spot any and all Tim Tebow look-alikes just because he likes to laugh at how it makes his wife blush!

Anyway, that’s another story for another time, I suppose.

Emma and Ana continued discussing the handsome Wal Mart employee even as I paid for our groceries and loaded them into the car. Wes called then, telling me that he had gotten into the house via the back door with his key (hooray!), leaving me wishing that I had bought the frozen groceries as well. Oh, well. What’s a Monday without another trip to the grocery store, right? And what’s a Sunday afternoon without re-keying all the locks in your house because your key broke off in the door, and no amount of poking and prodding will get it out, so if you’re changing ONE lock, you might as well change them ALL so that you’re not carrying around a thousand different keys and constantly forgetting which key goes where, right? Right?!

Once we were heading back to the house, Ana (who was completely unaffected by all this, apparently) said, with complete sincerity, “I think maybe Cupid is real, because I am IN LOVE with Jackson.”

I considered this for a moment, then clarified, “You’re in love with Jackson? From church?”

“Yes,” she declared, “I’m IN LOVE with him.”

“Ana, you’re not in love with Jackson.”

“Ana,” Emma asked her, totally ignoring me, “do you want to MARRY Jackson?”

“Yes, I do.”

“MOMMY!,” Emma yelled at me, “Ana really is IN LOVE with Jackson!”

Oy.

Finally, we were at home…

…where I noticed that Wes’s car had been hit in the church parking lot. Unfortunately, HE hadn’t noticed yet, so I got to be the one to tell him, “Hey, Pastor, there’s a big dent in your door.”

Which, you know, wasn’t welcome news.

It’s on days like today that I’m reminded to be thankful for certain things…

– Whoever hit our car didn’t total it. (Although that might have been covered by our insurance. But what a headache that would have been!) We weren’t in it and were kept completely safe.

– If my six year old is going to be in love with anyone, isn’t it great that she’s in love with a nice boy from church? I think so.

– We probably needed to get those locks changed anyway, right? Why not!

– Changing the locks gave Wes a good excuse to use his power tools. And it gave me a good excuse to get out a wrench/grippy tool thingy (whatever, y’all), call it Mr. Clampy, and have it serenade him as he continued to steam/stress over everything that had gone wrong. A Mr. Clampy musical revue makes ALL of this completely worthwhile!

– And, last but not least, my five year old finally figured out how to sound out words. And is now a super big fan of Coors.

Here’s hoping today is a little better!