Getaway!!!!!!

Since K was born almost six years ago, I have not had more than 24 hours away from my children. And most of those times away were things like staying in the hospital to have S and getting kidney stone surgery. Not really relaxing experiences.

All that changed last weekend!

My friend and college roommate, Joni, moved to Nashville about six years ago (so I haven't seen her since before I had kids). She owns a house, has a guest room and knows a lot about the city, so I decided for all these reasons that it was time for a visit-without kids or husband. (I would have loved to have James with me, but it was nice to have a bit of alone time and girl time. And it was a lot easier on the kids to have me gone with their Dad around to take care of them.)

My next couple of posts will be about my trip, starting with Day 1:

[S and I at Dunkin Donuts before my flight.]

I left Chicago around 11am on Friday. My flight was delayed due to the very, very rare snow of this winter. I couldn't believe that the ONE time I'd be flying in years we'd have snow, after almost none up to this point in the year. My mom scared me good on Thursday because she had heard we would get nine inches, possibly by the morning of my flight! Thankfully, that prediction was wrong and I only had a one hour delay. James and the kids drove me and then I was on my own!

I got a seat between two fun people and had lots of conversation before and during the flight. One man was an "oil and gas man" from Tennessee via Texas, who travels all the time and knew everything about flying, the plane, airlines, etc. The other was an 80-year-old woman from a farm in Nebraska going to visit her daughter, who recently got divorced and is redoing her kitchen. I didn't get any reading done, but it was a fun flight!

Nashville was about 20 degrees warmer than Chicago, and had no snow, it was nice! Joni picked me up and we had a nice lunch before she had to return to work. I spent the afternoon in the GORGEOUS Nashville library, reading and exploring. So it was pretty much heaven!

[Marble staircases]

[Reading Room, aka "a little piece of heaven".]

[View from my seat.]

[Library courtyard]

[Front of the library]

After Joni got off of work, we went to her house so I could see it and drop off my stuff. We got a couple more hours to chat before meeting her friends for a sushi dinner. It was so great to have conversations with Joni and later with her group of friends with no kids interrupting or need to leave so the baby-sitter could go home! After dinner, we went to a sort of pub called the Taproom to hang out more. I felt like such a grown up!

The day ended late, but I got the rare privilege of knowing that I would sleep uninterrupted and get to sleep in as late as I wanted. If the trip had ended there, I would have been more than happy, but I still had three days left!