3 Days of Peace, Love, and Acidified Foods

Today I signed up for this fall's upcoming Better Process Control School at the University of Maine.  Yeah, I know the fall seems like a long time from now.  But it's a course you have to take if you want to sell pickles to the public within the standards of the FDA, they only offer it every other fall in odd years.  While talking to the woman at Maine's Cooperative Extension (she was lovely), I learned the course is three days and takes place in Orono, which is rather far from here to travel back and forth for three days, don't you think?  She was going on about course details, the acidified versus non-acidified parts of the class, things I would need to plan for, and yet all I could think about was being away for three days, albeit in Orono, with no responsibility outside of the class.  No kids.  No responsibility outside of the class.  I interupted her to ask where I would stay while there.  I think I sort of caught her off guard actually.  She thought I'd be more interested in what she was saying, of course.  Suddenly I imagined myself napping in the afternoon between class sessions, drinking my own personal bottle of wine each night, maybe lounging in a hot tub-- totally uninterupted peace.  If you're a mom, you understand that I love my girls.  I mean I  LOVE  them with all my being.  But can a girl get a couple days of peace?  I shall shout it from the rooftops:  "THANK YOU, PICKLES!!!"  And thank you, lady at Maine Cooperative Extension, for suggesting several hotels in the Bangor area.