Things I learned on my birthday getaway

Earlier this month, Steve and I got away over my birthday weekend without the kids. It had been years since we had done that and we were due for some time alone as a couple. We decided, after much consideration, to go to a resort on a lake in North Alabama where my family had held a birthday celebration weekend for my mother a few years ago.

It was the right decision. The cabins are comfortably outfitted and each one has a hammock just waiting for you to curl up with a good book...or your husband...in.

At first, I had a very hard time relaxing. It seems that I've started to identify myself as so many things other than as a wife (mother, employee, boss, Sunday School teacher, photographer, Auburn fan) that I don't know how to just be Steve's wife for an extended period of time anymore.

That's a darn shame, people.

I did finally relax and enjoy being somewhere where there was no laundry to fold, no DVR'd TV to catch up on, no grocery shopping to do, no birthday or wedding or shower gifts to buy, no work to do...

Next trip (and there will be one), I'll be better prepared mentally to enjoy the time. I'll definitely prepare more for the next trip. (You should have seen the stupid way we grocery shopped that first night, having no plan for what we were going to eat and having brought nothing with us.)

But, I won't find myself swinging in the hammock five minutes after arriving worrying about what it is I should be doing. I'll just snuggle up to my husband and go to sleep! (It's a promise, Steve.)

Other things I learned on the trip:

They just don't make good romantic comedies anymore. The much recommended "It's Complicated" fell flat for Steve and I. I would love it if some commenters would prove me wrong with some suggestions. Seriously. I love rom coms but the last few we've watched were stinkers to us. We were much happier with our second movie: "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World". Greatness. (And, for real, shouldn't we have known when we rented those two movies that we were going to hate one of them?)

Canola plants stink. (At least, that's what my Googling tells me the fields of yellow flowered crops across the lake from us probably were.)

I love to read, but not so much during the day. Me + a book + the hammock should have been a match made in heaven, but I couldn't settle into that.

I'm still that little girl who didn't want to wear the brand new dress right away...always saving things for some special occasion. I bought a wonderful set of Prismacolor pencils and a book on drawing for the trip...and didn't open them. I need to take a lesson from Lizzie who wears all three dresses you buy her the very day you buy them...changing into one in the car before you get to the next stop. Live a little, Terri.