I mentioned last week that my husband was taking my kids camping for the weekend with all of his family. I opted to stay home (I tried tent camping...once...it's not for me).

Truth be told, you couldn't have wiped the big smile off my face on Friday when I was looking forward to an entire weekend all to myself...to do what I want, go where I want, sleep in the middle of the bed and eat (or not) whenever I want.

First thing I did (and women, you will understand this completely, right?) -- I went home and cleaned the house from top to bottom. Why? Because it would STAY THAT WAY for three whole days.

I had planned to sleep in on Saturday, but was too excited to sleep and didn't want to waste a minute of my free time. I headed for the early-bird sales at the mall -- which were, actually, pretty disappointing. JCPenney's had kids clothes advertised for buy one get one for a $1. Great...except, of course, that one shirt was $28. Well..yeah...I can do the math and that's $15 a shirt which is still more than I'm going to pay.

Despite being disappointed in the sales, I managed to spend plenty of time and money at the mall by the time I left at 2 p.m.

Spent the rest of the day gardening and reading. I went for a long walk at dinnertime. I ate popcorn for dinner and finished the night in the tub with a cold drink and a good book. I even dragged the TV in there so I could watch the Olympic women's marathon (wow!).

It was about this time that my mom called & left a message on my machine sounding kind of sad and saying something to the effect of, "Oh...hey..I just wondered what you were doing on your lonely weekend."

I laughed out loud.

Seriously? It's going to take a lot more than a day or two to miss my brood.

Sunday was the Hamot 10K...I got there early and stayed as long as I felt like it. Then, I went to Target and wandered around for a couple of hours. Then, I went grocery shopping all by myself and still had time to come home & do some computer work before the kids and husband came home.

Ah...sigh...my vacation at home was over.

Lonely? I suppose that depends on how you look at it.

Looks like they were having plenty of fun without me, too. Here they are with Grandma and her giant candy bar. (Imagine how wired up those kids were after devouring that baby).