So it’s 11:32pm and in less than nine hours I will be getting in a car with three of my gal pals and heading to a beach house. We will spend 24 blissful hours, just us girls, drinking coffee, shopping, reading magazines, talking, eating, getting spa treatments, doing more shopping, lounging on the deck, doing more talking, drinking wine and lingering over a long dinner with dessert. Then we will awake when we feel like it, and drink more coffee and do more lounging on the deck.

Today, in anticipation of the time I will spend away from my family I did the following:

- Filled up the minivan (leaving car on empty for husband’s solo weekend with the kids = improper spouse protocol).
- Got cash (just for me, hee hee).
- Made sure all kid’s sweatshirts/sunscreen/bug spray/shoes/hats/sunglasses are in a consolidated place and not strewn throughout the house/car/garage/laundry room.
- Packed my clothes and organized the kids’ dresser drawers so that my husband will not dress them in bizarre outfits all weekend because he couldn’t “find anything else.”
- Made sure there is an adequate supply of milk, peanut butter and string cheese.
- Wrapped a gift for a birthday party and put the invitation right on the dining room table so that my husband will have all the details and know when and where to take our son and and, more importantly, so he won’t call me in the middle of my pedicure to ask me where he’s supposed to go.
- Nursed my daughter back to health after a 24-hour stomach bug that I pray doesn’t hit her brother, or her dad, or me, in the next two days.
- Completed four loads of laundry to ensure that all pajama options will be available because you never know what pajama mood a five-year old will be in when it’s time to go to a pajama theme birthday party (I’m guessing he’ll go with the Diego but he could go the Lightening McQueen route).
- Painted my toenails because I really want to wear sandals and I’m not getting a pedicure until tomorrow afternoon so therefore can’t go a half day with unadorned nails.
- Fretted over which of the two bottles of red wine I should bring. Perhaps both.
- Emailed my three friends back and forth about 15 times discussing the weather/wardrobe/agenda for the weekend. And wrote the word “yahoo!!!” in at least five of those emails.

I’ve spent at least the last 24 hours prepping for my 24 hours away.

But as the clock nears midnight now, I can already smell that Dunkin’ Donuts cappuccino that will be in my hand tomorrow morning as we head on down the highway…

And therein lies the beauty of a weekend with the girls.

We haven’t even left yet and I’m already having a great time.