My Day Off

Saturday from 8am to 5pm, I was on my own. No kids, no husband. I didn’t even make plans with friends, because I needed to have this time just for me. And it was fantastic.

I started off with an early morning appointment at the Apple Store at the mall. I’d gotten a free iPod Touch when we purchased a new computer last summer, and had never even turned the thing on because I didn’t feel I had the time to  figure out how to use it. The music and photo part, I was pretty sure I could handle, but everything else was new to me. So, I sat down with one of the Apple gurus, and tried to soak up everything he was explaining about getting emails, searching the web, and adding new apps. After playing around with the iPod for about an hour, I felt like I was pretty much up to speed, so it seemed like time well spent.

I had planned to to a bit of shopping after my appointment, but most of the mall stores were still closed. Sears, however, was just opening their doors, so I popped in and browsed around the clearance racks. Unfortunately, after selecting a ton of clothes for Tiny and Buba (stocking up for next fall/winter), I found the pricing to be a huge headache and ended up putting it all back. It was a situation in which the racks said take an additional 40% off the already reduced prices, but when I took them to the price check scanner, they all rang up higher than even the reduced price that was on the tag. I wasn’t head-over-heals about any of the clothes, so I chose to put them back rather than try to figure it all out at the register.

By the time I left Sears, the other stores were just opening, and I headed down to The Children’s Place. They had five or six racks of winter clothing all marked down to $2.99 a piece, so I was able to do some stocking up there. Then, I continued to browse around a few more stores, but didn’t find any other great deals. So I decided to go off in search of an early lunch.

I ended up at The Cheesecake Factory, which is usually ridiculously crowded, but apparently not when it first opens for lunch. I was seated immediately and ordered one of the lunch plates- BBQ chicken pizza with a garden salad. Now, once upon a time, I might have thought it sad to see a woman eating alone in a restaurant, wondering where are her friends or her family? But I can honestly say that I very much enjoyed my lunchtime alone. I had brought a book (that I’ve been working on forever) and found it very peaceful to sit and read while leisurely eating my lunch without having to worry about feeding two other mouths or refilling sippy cups.

After lunch, I left the mall and headed to the spa for my absolute favorite part of the day- an 80 minute massage that was, without a doubt, the best massage I’ve ever had. The pressure was just right (not too light, but not so deep that it hurt). It was heavenly!

Then I headed back home to my empty house and just lounged about for a while. I ate a piece of chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake (that I’d taken to go from lunch) while I caught up on shows on Hulu. By the time I needed to head over to my in-laws to join the family for dinner, I felt ready to jump back into my mommy role again.

My day off was everything I had wanted it to be. It was nice to have some time to relax and do things for myself without having to worry about all the other things that needed to be taken care of. And another benefit was that T finally got to experience what I’ve been dealing with the last couple of weeks. When I walked in the door he told me what stinkers the kids had been all day- hitting, toy-stealing, climbing and jumping on furniture. I just smiled and said, “Not just all day. All month.” And I could see it all click for him in that moment. It’s one thing to tell someone about your day over dinner, but it’s a completely different thing to have that person experience your day for himself.

Needless to say, I’ll be talking more days off from now on. Maybe not every week, but a day or two every other month or so sounds reasonable, don’t you think?