It's actually hitting me than in about a month, for the first time since May 1, 1982 my husband and I will be living all by ourselves.  Yes, the furry kids will still be here, but other than that, it will be just the two of us looking and talking to one another at the table.

Of course we've eaten by ourselves before, but with the firm knowledge that within a day or two, our table would be full again.  Not this time.  Our daughter and her family live 35 miles away and our son-in-law works the graveyard shift, so having them join us for dinner isn't the usual thing that we can actually expect-it's usually something of "Mom, we're coming out to use Auntie's pool and we thought we'd stay for dinner."

You should see how fast I can expand a menu or run to the market!

Our son and daughter-in-law are only moving 7 miles away and they'll be working about 4 miles away, but keep telling us "oh you won't miss us, we're planning on stopping by for dinner every night before we go home"

I'm not actually sure how serious they were on that-guess I'll have to wait and see.  Especially now that Sam has started taking classes to further her entrance into nursing school.  Our son could actually be thinking about coming by at least 2 nights a week.  

I suppose that what I'll be thinking of is how to get the kids to all come for the "traditional" Sunday night dinner-even if it turns out to be on a Wednesday.  

Let's talk about Sunday night dinners-did your family have them?  You know the type-where the grandparents, parents and all the kids gathered around the table and shared their week and food?

My parents did, in a matter of speaking-until everyone's schedules just became to darn hard to actually count on.  My sister's kids had who knows how many functions and extra curricular activities.  Our kids were either going to soccer or karate tournaments, we had various errands that had to get done.

Suddenly we went from gathering and making food to going out to a local restaurant.

Now, we can't even get everyone together except for Thanksgiving-sometimes not even then!

Friday-let's talk about some good sharing dishes for our new wave family dinner.