Last night, I telephoned my husband while I drove back to my hotel. He suggested that I postpone my return home until 4:30 p.m., which stretched my parole to almost forty-eight hours. I was gone from home for forty-seven glorious hours.

I watched two movies in the theater.
I shopped at two different outlet malls.
I ate dinner with a friend and we sat talking until she admitted she must pee or bust. Then we realized how late it was.
I stayed up very (very) late and slept in very (very) late.
I read a People magazine.
I came home with five new pairs of shoes, five new shirts, four new sweaters, a game for the kids, a book for my daughter, a pair of pants, an umbrella, a new comforter for our bed, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Movie reviews and an open letter to the Guy with the Triangle Hair Who Would Not Slouch later.

The rain slants sideways in the wind and though it’s just 12:17 p.m., the Yankee candle on my windowsill emphasizes the gloominess of the day. I am down to the last two loads of laundry. The school books are put away. The three-year olds are upstairs making what I’m sure is a devastating mess of toys in my daughter’s room. But I don’t care.

I feel like I’m running away from home. I have makeup stashed in a ziploc bag and hair-care stuff in another. My blue jeans are clean and folded neatly, ready to slide into a suitcase. Speaking of which, I’m taking the big rolling one, though I’ll only be gone two nights because I am taking my pillows, both the feather pillow and the long plush body pillow. A good night’s sleep demands these pillows.

In yet another ziploc bag, I have three books–Jodi Picoult’s “My Sister’s Keeper,” and Anne Lamotts Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, and a guide to Seattle. I intend to sleep, shop, eat, shop, see movies, and roam the antique shops with a friend, shop, eat and then sleep some more. And read.

Only five hours and twenty-three minutes to go. Not that I’m desperately counting the minutes. No-sir-ee-bob. Not me. (At this very second, my 3-year old begs, “I want some more candy!” and the 5 month-old baby is crying and the t.v. is blaring and one of the twins is making a whooping sound.)

It’s not everyday you come across a mother of twelve children, especially a mother who has such a varied background as Barbara Curtis. I count Barbara among my internet friends, one of the best people that has happened to me since I started writing this blog just over two years ago.

Barbara is a professional writer, an adoptive mother of three boys with Down Syndrome, and former homeschooler who now sends most of her children to public school. (She is homeschooling her 12-year old daughter this year.) She had homebirths and hospital births (in the opposite order of most people who’ve had both). She lived through a childhood full of tragedy and became a Christian when she was in her thirties. She has quite a story!

I read Mommylife every day. Check it out and maybe you’ll want to do the same.

Remember a long time ago, when I suggested that perhaps we each take $150.00 and a bad haircut and see how far we could get?

Well, now I have this:

And I happen to have a bad haircut.

Tomorrow night, at 5:45 p.m., I will pull out of my driveway for forty-five hours of kid-free time.

I’m thinking of making a run for the border.

Sometimes, I wish life had a preplanned soundtrack. You know how when you sit in the theater the background music ebbs and flows and sometimes even tells the story? Music fills in the awkward silence with harmony and melody and rhythm. At those times when you are speechless, a soundtrack would be just the thing.

The soundtrack to my life is a mish-mash, a hodge-podge, a hoot.

The soundtrack to elementary school years included such popular songs as Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head. My dad crooned this song while we drove in the car and soon, I was crooning along.

In third grade, I auditioned for the school choir and that’s when I first learned “Sing” . . . which more recently can be heard on Sesame Street. We also sang a Ray Charles hit called “Fifty Nifty United States.” I can still recite the states in alphabetical order thanks to that song.

I won the first record album I ever owned. Most of you have probably never heard of Love Song, but it was released in 1972 and began a new era in Christian music. I still have it somewhere.

I started playing the piano when I was in second grade. But as you can see, I had aspirations to be a lounge singer from a very young age:

When my parents divorced, my siblings and I moved in with my dad and my stepmother. She was (and still is) a classical flutist. Perhaps that led to the decision to buy a new piano just for me. From sixth grade on, I had a piano in my bedroom. No stereo, just a piano. I spent many hours playing classical music and also accompanying myself as I sang.

My abilities as a pianist were somewhere limited by my inability to play by ear. I could read notes, but I couldn’t pick out a tune, at least not with more than one finger. So, I tended to pick songs to sing that I could actually play. This ruled out anything uptempo. My favorite songbook was (WARNING! WARNING!! Locate your barf-bag if you are prone to seasickness) by Barry Manilow.

Okay, so that’s really embarrassing, I suppose. While I’m at it, let me also admit my teenage adoration of Olivia Newton-John. Until, of course, she went and got physical. I was strictly a fan of the 1970s stuff.

In junior high, the other kids were rocking to heavy metal, but I was devoted to “The Morning After” from the Poseidon Adventure. I also had a short love affair with Gordon Fitzgerald’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzegerald.”

In a school gong show, I dressed up as a war-protesting hippy and sang “The Merry Minuet” by the Kingston Trio. I was gonged. That might be the most humiliating moment of my life, actually, eclipsed only by this written confession of my shaky musical history.

In high school, I was fond of The Second Chapter of Acts, Amy Grant, and Keith Green. In fact, when I was fourteen (in 1979), I heard Amy Grant and Keith Green sing in at Jesus Northwest, an outdoor Christian festival near Portland, Oregon. (Keith Green’s music that night literally changed the direction of my life. From that moment on, I have been attempting to follow God with all my heart. I’m not kidding, either.)

In high school, I worked at Taco Time with a heavy-metal fan. I am shocked to realize I can’t remember his name, though I remember his face. He introduced me to Iron Maiden and Motley Crue, but you knew that I never became a fan, didn’t you?

Mylon LeFevre and Broken Heart peformed at my college and I became an instant fan. Much later, I’d meet his daughter (who ended up marrying Peter Furler of the Newsboys) and date a roadie. No really. Look here: (Okay, well, really, we just went out a few times because–and I apologize, Ryder, I really do–he just wasn’t my type, despite the fact that we had the same hair.)

I introduced myself to Michael W. Smith once and saw him in concert. (He must have given me tickets.) I listened to Kathy Troccoli and Russ Taff. I spent a lot of time in the music building, playing, singing and listening to other musicians. That rickety old building was my haven in the emotional storms of college.

The music that evokes the most emotion from my college days is Chicago, specifically songs like “Hard Habit to Break.” How can you not weep when you listen to that album? (You’re weeping now, aren’t you?)

One road trip (with Mindy in her Mustang) featured Janet Jackson’s Control. That was a long, long road trip, full of rhythm and marshmallow pinwheel cookies. And delirium and caffeine.

Nowadays, I have a collection of hits by The Carpenters in my CD player. I wanted to be Karen Carpenter when I was young. I sing along now, fully aware of my nerd status of musical tastes.

But I don’t care. And it doesn’t matter if “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore”-I have my slipshod soundtrack and I. Can’t. Hear. Your. Laughter. At. My. Expense.

If I ever lose a jacket and must offer a description to reclaim it, this is what I’ll say:

“Check the pockets. You’ll find three crumpled, used tissues in one pocket. In the other pocket, there will be a small wad of new tissues, two black hair rubber bands, and an empty candy wrapper. You may or may not find a rolled up dollar bill and a penny.”

Every single jacket or sweater I put on has these items in the pockets. I am extremely predictable. Plus, I have a sniffling nose all winter. And I eat too much candy.

So, what’s in your pocket?

Last week, I gave my daughter some toast before bathtime. Some time later, as she was climbing into the tub, I asked, “Did you eat your toast?”

She eyed me for a moment, then flashed a quizzical grin, lifted her foot up and stuck her toes into her mouth. I stared at her in some confusion until I realized she thought I said “toes,” as in “Did you eat your toes?”

I just had a moment of utter bewilderment in which I could not remember if it were Tuesday or Wednesday. My thoughts went something like this:

Wait, today the boys went to P.E.
But today is Tuesday. P.E. is Wednesday.
And Monday.
Wait, Monday was Halloween.
But this morning was quiet.
Oh no, that was yesterday morning. This morning we caught up on all the half-done and incorrect assignments.
Are you sure it’s not Wednesday?
No, Halloween was Monday. That was yesterday.
So it’s not Wednesday?
No, it has to be Tuesday because the Real World was just on.

A little more than three years ago, I told my husband I needed to get away. Overnight, at least a couple of nights. Time was running out and I had realized that I had never spent a night away from my then-four year old son. I was about to give birth to another baby and I knew I’d be sticking close to home for a long time after the baby arrived.

I ended up having my little fling a few days before my daughter was born. She was born three days early. (I returned home on Saturday night and Monday night I gave birth to her at home after six hours of almost complete denial of my labor.)

But the point of this story is that I haven’t had a break–an overnight break–away from my children in over three years now, since that time away when I was forty weeks pregnant, give or take a day or two.

On Friday, I am leaving. My husband hatched this plan for me to go away to a hotel for two nights. I’m not going far, but far enough. I’ll be shopping, reading, seeing movies, sleeping, and basking in the silence of solitude.

To say that I’m eager would be an understatement. That’s why I was hoping it was Wednesday, even though it’s just Tuesday. Only three more work days and I’ll be footloose and fancy-free.

I described my father as a somber kind of guy in that Halloween post. And he was when I was a very little girl. But after my parents divorced and we moved in with my dad and stepmom, his wacky side came out.

As proof of this wackiness, I offer this photograph, taken at the same time as a passport photo, about twenty years ago:

And here is me, when I was about two:

Once upon a time there was a daddy. This daddy was the strong, silent type, apt to yell at inanimate objects like lawnmowers and car engines. His little girl was the quiet, timid type, apt to shrink into corners. She’d examine him shyly out of the corners of her eyes at the dinner table, and if she spoke, it’d be in a whisper.

But one time a year–guaranteed–this daddy would throw off his burdens and dig out his stage-makeup kit and play. He’d carve pumpkins into smiling jack-o-lanterns. He’d laugh. This was a holiday unlike any other, a holiday devoted to being childlike, a holiday comprised of candy and costumes.

And so, I’ve always loved Halloween. I regard it now as I did as a child. In my neighborhood full of mostly retired folks, a ring of the bell is met with a handful of candy and a smile.

Tonight was no different. My 3-year old girl (dressed as a green cateripllar) said, “Trick or treat time!” at each house, then said, “Thank you,” in her piping baby voice. My 7-year old only had to be reminded at every other house to say thank you. “But, Mom,” he’d say, “I’m so excited, I forget!” He was dressed in a homemade cape with the word “FLAME” emblazoned on the back. “Flame” is a superhero of his own creation.

After trick-or-treating, we dropped off the little one at home and I took the boys to the YMCA for their festivities, an old fashioned carnival. They had as much fun as you can have at a carnival in an hour.

And so every year at this time, I relish the joy of a holiday that brought out my somber daddy’s fun side. Besides that, I get to create cute costumes for my cute kids so I can make cute scrapbook pages. And then, when they’re tucked into bed for the night, I can go trolling for Snickers bars and other nut-filled chocolates they hate. That is my duty as a caring mother.

This is to inform you that Daylight-Saving Time has come to an end for the year 2005. Please adjust your internal clock accordingly.

Thank you.