S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night!

In case you ever wondered what forty-something-year-old moms like to do for fun on a Saturday night, here's a clue: it probably will involve eating out at a restaurant and going shopping. Both of those things are usually more fun without the people who call us "Mom" (although we love them dearly).

Tonight was a case-in-point. My friends and I made plans to go to eat at California Pizza Kitchen and then shop around in the Green Hills area, maybe even take a "field trip" to Trader Joe's (yes, we know that's a grocery store!). In spite of the tornado whistles that were going off in Williamson and Davidson Counties at the time we were leaving to go on our night out on the town, we headed to CPK and got seated right away (maybe it was the "early" hour, maybe it was the weather, either way, it worked in our favor). Neither of my friends had been to CPK before, so I suggested that we order a Thai Chicken pizza and a Field Greens salad to split between the three of us. It was delicious and the perfect amount of food.

Thankfully, the storm passed over while we were eating (and we didn't get blown to the Land of Oz), so we went on with the rest of our planned outing. First stop: Anthropology, the cool store where we couldn't really afford anything, but just enjoyed walking around and seeing all the stuff they have. After that, we went to Trader Joe's (another "first" for one of my friends). It was pretty hopping for a Saturday night and we helped ourselves to a free cup of coffee and a cookie and then proceeded to walk up and down every aisle, probably more than once (can you stand how exciting a life we lead????).

After we'd done our shopping, I had the idea that we needed a picture to document our night out on the town. Where better place to take it than in front of all the pretty flowers at the front of the store? (I would have also loved to go back to CPK and Anthropology and take pictures there, too, but don't think I would have had a following). So, there we stood by the flowers, all ready to pose, but nobody was really in close range to ask to take the picture (there was one lady, but she conveniently ignored me when I tried to ask). We were just about to try to get the one with the longest arm to hold the camera out in front of us when in walked two of our favorite friends! They were just coming in to get a few things and unknowingly were our next target to ask to take our picture. It was so funny when we recognized who they were and we all started laughing at the perfect timing of seeing these friends walk in the door. (I think they wondered about our sobriety levels.)

The sad end to the story is that just when the picture was being taken, the battery pack died on the camera. I had hoped that our picture was the last one on the memory card before the camera died, but we weren't so lucky. So this painting with words will have to suffice.

The evening had a happier ending though, involving Starbuck's and Cheesecake Factory! We moms like to "live it up" on our nights out on the town!