A peaceful morning

Do you hear it? Do you? In case you don't recognize it, as I didn't before today, I'll help you out. It's silence. Blissful, calm silence.

"But Merrie," you ask, "how did you come by such a precious commodity?"

Oh, I'll tell you how. My beautiful children had their first sleepover last night, and I haven't seen them since 6pm yesterday! That's how!

Amusingly, here's how the evening went without them.

6pm "Bye kids -- have fun sleeping three doors down!"

6:20pm On our way to dinner out! We had a gift card to a very nice restaurant in the next town that my brother had given us for Christmas. (Thanks B!) We grabbed a bottle of wine to take with us, and headed down the road. Hubby and I switched roles in what we ordered -- he went for a pasta dish that included roast duck, and I went for the pork tenderloin marinated in jalapeno and lime. How yummy does that sound?! And it tasted even better. I cleaned my plate (minus the dreaded cooked carrots) and managed to stay sober enough to drive home. (Always a priority for me.)

7:45pm We stopped at Safeway to pick up something to share for dessert. I couldn't see spending an additional $8 on something at the restaurant when I was full. So we got a slice of $2.99 chocolate cake to take home for later.

8:00pm Arrived home, and while getting ready to check email, heard a crash and a yell out in the garage. (To bring you up to speed, Hubby has been fiddling with our garage door all week. Something went wrong and he's been trying to fix it. Unfortunately, it's hell bent on being busted, and we'll be hiring a professional soon. That's unusual around here -- Hubby is Mr. Fix it!) Anyway, I ran out to the garage envisioning serious injury, and for once, was right! Hubby was standing there with blood all over his hand. It turns out he was manually closing the garage door, and some part of it came down on his head. He had quite the cut, and I wasn't sure right away if he'd need stitches.

9:00pm Kept pressure on Hubby's head and ate cake while watching "That's Entertainment 2." Don't you just love Gene Kelly?

I wish I could be mysterious about how the rest of the night went, but the truth is, we went to bed early and slept very well. All the way to 7:30, which is astounding for us!

And now we'll enjoy the quiet until the rugrats return, and we enjoy having them back with us. Until then...aaahhhh.