What's a weekend for?

It's funny how weekends change as you get older or your life moves in a new direction. Kevin and I often make jokes about the before and after of our weekends, and honestly a lot of week nights too. It seems like life changed over night! Where did the time go? Are we spending the weekends the right way?

A good cup of coffee is obviously the right way to start a weekend morning, but what about the rest of your free time? A weekend should packed full of all the things you enjoy doing before heading back to work. I thought I knew how I liked to spend a day off...

I am not sure how I managed to get through a Monday at work on so little sleep so many years ago! We loved meeting for a drink and dancing the night away every weekend! For me, I loved getting dressed up and doing a full face of make up. It was exciting when you first start dating someone to plan out your Saturday night. I knew that he was a guy the guy that I could spend my life with right away. I'm pretty sure he felt the same way about me. What I don't think we fully understood was how much different our weekends would look once we started this life. We still tried to keep up on date night fun, but it was getting harder. Once you start a new chapter in your life a lot things you thought would remain the same suddenly take a back seat.

We obviously still look forward to the weekends, but for different reasons. Our idea of fun is surprising the kids with a night out or a shopping trip to Costco. When we are feeling really wild we make use of that unexpected Kohl's coupon, you don't just waste 30% off when everybody needs new socks! Don't get me wrong, we still love to get dressed up and go out for date night. I have traded my heels in for ultra comfy slip on shoes from Payless, and I'm not even sorry. I still put on lipstick, it's called balance. It's just that date night feels different now, in a good way. A night out feels earned, it's appreciated much more these days. I feel like I've actually worked for that glass or 2 of wine, I deserve to eat my meal without sharing and while it's still hot.

Weekend days are no longer spent recovering from staying up too late and having drinks with friends. Weekends are now for recovering from a long week of being responsible, which is exhausting on a whole new level. We spend our Saturdays and Sundays running errands, catching up on house and yard work. We have gotten pretty good at grocery shopping with all 5 kids, we even manage to stay on budget (sometimes). I'm not complaining though. It was a lot fun being younger, dating Kevin and going out on the town. Our life is even more exciting now... I'm serious! There's something to be said about raising a family with the person you love. Especially after knowing what it's like to be a single Mom. I appreciate my husband and my life more than I could've ever imagined. I actually find it pretty refreshing knowing that my life is predictable, I'm not big on change anyway.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that weekends are for enjoying whatever stage of life you are in. As much as fun as it was to live in the moment all those weekends ago, I'm happy those days are gone. I do joke quite often about reliving the fun times, but I definitely wouldn't go back. I am thankful and excited that I get to be in this new stage, making memories with my family. I will look forward to date nights with my husband, joking about how we've changed as we pass out by 10 pm. One day our kids will be off spending Saturday night their way too, and we will start a new stage of weekends again.

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