I’m not as young as I used to be…

One of my good friends turns 40 today. She’s the model. She definitely doesn’t look forty.

For her birthday celebration, we had a Girls Night Out. We went to a swanky bar for drinks and then went to a five star restaurant for dinner. It was a very fun, classy, goofy, and unforgettable night.

There were only a couple of drawbacks. The first was that I offered to be the designated driver.

I mean, we were all moms with young kids and we needed to be responsible.

Can I just tell you how difficult it is to navigate an S.U.V. that isn’t yours but that fits eight people and then has seven non-drivers telling you where to go while driving down streets that you haven’t travelled since your younger days (as in 21 years of age when you were an experienced bar hopper)?

I survived the night with a smile on my face. In fact, my face hurt when I got home from laughing so much.

But the getting home at 3 a.m. was another story. It was quite a wake-up call for me in that I really, truly can’t handle staying out late and partying half the night. It took me two days to be fully recovered.

Of course, painting my dining room (primer and two coats of color) and going to a swim meet the night after my late night certainly didn’t help my recovery efforts.

And I won’t even get started about how wearing a strapless dress was not the best idea.

Because you never know when someone might sneak up on you with a camera as you are trying to set your dress to rights.