It’s Sunday night and like many of us right now… I feel like I haven’t had a weekend. I can’t believe it’s Monday tomorrow, and all I have to show for my weekend is eight loads of laundry, over 100 emails for work, two prepared dinners for the week, and a grocery shopping trip. But right when all seemed lost…I had an unexpected Girls’ Night Out (GNO) in the freezer section at the Safeway in Arnold!
I know it seems silly, but truly there is a lesson to be learned here. Hear me out. I’m going up and down the aisles, and I see my friend, Laura Price, with her son. She looks over at me and we start chatting. We work together on projects between Rams Head and Annapolis Moms Media, but that’s not what we were talking about. No, we were talking about how it was already Sunday and we were shopping for the week and about how much sodium is in a corn dog, I think. Then her friend, and now my new friend, Cathy Shaw, walks up and they are so excited to see each other because it had “been forever” and before you know it, it’s a GNO in the frozen section!
What makes a proper GNO? It’s not alcohol, little black dresses, dinner at the best restaurant, or any of those things… although they can be fun for sure! For me, GNO is about connecting, commiserating, and mostly it’s about laughing and a feeling of camaraderie!
What did we talk about? Who even knows? It lasted 10 minutes (my husband says 15) and I’m pretty sure we were in everyone’s way as the fellow shoppers tried to reach for frozen pizzas. We were probably loud as heck, but we had a blast in between apologizing a lot for being in people’s ways. For 10 (or 15) minutes, we forgot that tomorrow is Monday and that we had work to do, laundry to finish folding, or dinners to make and it was fun! The fact is that, many times, it’s so easy to be looking down because we are tired or disappointed. If we would just look up for a second, we could have an unexpected moment of sheer joy–a sudden Girls’ Night Out. And if you were wondering, yes, I forgot to buy the stupid corn dogs … but it was worth it!
Author: Lisa Peri, MSW
Founder & Chief Enthusiast Lisa Peri has dedicated her life and career to both the parenting field and has been integral in many business ventures in sales and media. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Clark University and a Master of Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania. Lisa is also a proud mother of two wonderful children and is married to Jeff Peri.
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