It's needed

Friday night we were driving back from my parents and the boys were tired and cranky and all "where's the moon, I don't see the mooooon" from the back seat and I looked over at Pat and said, "I'm going somewhere by myself after naps tomorrow".
He looked back at me startled and said, "Ok, where do you want to go?"
"I don't know...I'm just going. I'll probably be gone for 2 hours". I think my tone ended the conversation there.
It's not often but sometimes when I'm feeling a little worn thin and a little snappish I try to remember when the last time was that I got in the car by myself and completed a thought in my head. 99.999% I feel completely content to be surrounded by my boys but every once in a while I need to clock out from mom duty for a little bit. Pat is always so kind to give me space if I ever ask and I probably should be better about asking more but I always feel guilty for it.
So that Saturday everyone kissed me goodbye as if I was heading off to war and I hopped in my car, turned the music from "We like Sheep" to the radio and headed out to a consignment store.
I scored homegirl her first two little gowns...

And then headed to my favorite place: Barnes and Noble. I used to go there weekly before I had kids and sit on the comfy sofas, drink hot chocolate and catch up on meaningless magazines. It was bliss. When I got there I did my usual rounds of gathering magazines (hello Cosmo,welcome People) and grabbed a peppermint hot chocolate. THEN I realized it had been so long since I had been there that they no longer had couches!

I picked a section where I thought there would be no traffic (philosophy section) and plopped myself down on the floor.

Perfection, minus the hard floor and my sciatica. It was just what I needed and I returned home missing my boys and grateful to my husband for getting take out for dinner. It doesn't take much.