From my eyes…

I’ve had a fun last few days. I’ ve been checking in at my MySpace site and been reunited with some great friends from high school. My favorite part about it, is that it seems like no time has past since we last talked. Sure we needed to catch up on marriages, divorces, kids, jobs, etc, but the humor and the love were abundant and so enjoyable! So. Enjoyable.

I am very much looking forward to my trip to AZ in June! I have plans to see some of these people already and I just simply can’t wait.

The newest ya-ya is here! We welcomed Madalyn Sara to the world November 1. I am so excited to squeeze her little warm chubby body when she is 6 weeks old and I get back to AZ.  Until then, I’m living on pics like this one. I hear that the pictures don’t do justice to just how beautiful & tiny she is.

And here is one of Mommy the day before Madalyn arrived. Isn’t the nursery adorable! And Shay looks so happy and glowing

Thanks to Rebilou for blogging about a mutual friend of ours! I was excited to see that someone I believe in and know is running for a political office.

This chick rocks (though she may not like me referring to her as a chick)! Trinity Donovan has such a great heart it would just sound sappy for me to tell you about her. But please visit her site and if you are in AZ, specifically Chandler, VOTE FOR HER! And the rest of us will have to keep our eyes and ears open for when she moves on to higher levels that we can be a part of also.

Good Luck Trinity! You’ve always got my vote!

Because of my laziness in posting I’ve missed several birthday wishes. Top two go out to my fellow Ya-ya’s who celebrated their special days this weekend and early this week (other birthday’s were those of the first two petite ya-ya’s who turned 5, FIVE! and one )

Panda & Shay, Happy Birthday. I hope ths year continues to please you. Amanda, I send wishes for a quick & safe return. Shayla, I send wishes for a healthy baby & flawless, quick labor.  Love you both more than I can put in words.

One of the many babies in my life was brought into the world at 4:30 a.m. on Sunday morning. Mom and baby are well, no complications of emergencies. I’m waiting for mom to get home and settled with her new baby girl, then I am headed over to present the finished product of the first no-sew fleece blanket I’ve ever made. I still love the fabric. Hope she does!

Oh, and here is a picture of the progress that was made on my quilt last weekend. I’m very excited about it! And I just love all the pieces so much. I can’t wait to have it finished and curl up on the couch with it and a good book.

And one last minute birthday wish for my dear Rebilou. Welcome to your 26th year. May it treat you well and deliver everything you wish for! Here is where I would like to post a picture of you from junior high, braces and all, but alas we were not yet in the digital age. Lucky you ;) Instead, I will post this one of you being beautiful.  

Yesterday, June 15th, 2005, I toasted a glass of wine with my best friend in honor of National Wine Day. See, we have a book of great things to do in a lifetime. One of them was “start a national holiday that doesn’t already exist”. About 6 months ago we decided that we just couldn’t possibly survive another year without honoring the tasty beverage we so much enjoy as adults. We looked it up online and found nothing in existence, so we declared that June 15th would forever be known as Wine Day. This date was selected because there are no other holidays this time of year, and we needed something to get us through the second half of each year. We chose the 15th because it is easy to remember. We chose wine, because we are certain neither of us will A) stop drinking and B) stop drinking wine. If only I could get myself to drink the “blood” to help out my heart, or so they say….

This wine day Melissa and I were apart, but we toasted over the phone and enjoyed our own glass of wine while we gabbed about stupid people in the world and how we are so much better, our jobs and how much it sucks to work, great guys with bitchy girlfriends and how we aren’t bitchy and stuck being single, then we reminded each other that we prefer being single and talked about all our friends in marriages/relationships, then talked about our exes and how stupid they are, then sex, then boob jobs, then IL, then LA (where Mel lives), then Katie & Tom and Scien-freakin’ crazy shit-tology, then our families - yep all over ONE glass of wine.

Here’s to you Wine Day, May June 15th come again quickly!

Well, I just wrote an incredibly thoughtful post all about each of my ya-ya friend’s husbands and detailed accounts of various bonding experiences, but then I switched screens to try to add photos and lost my post! BOO!

I would rewrite it, but well, Charmed is on and I am not going to. I do however want to recap the general emotions that provoked the post in the first place.

I love my friends’ husbands.  I love that I have a special friendship with each one of them outside of the woman they married. And I love that we share a special bond because of the woman they married. I feel like I have 4 big brothers that would do anything for me.    

Lately, I’ve been finding myself wanting to say “my best friend” about several different people in my life. I always stop and think that if I do that I am somehow discrediting my friendship with my “best friend”. Then I think about how ridiculous the whole thought process is and that I am 26 years old and allowed to call a friggin’ tree my best friend if I feel like it!

Here is what I’ve concluded: “Best Friends” is a label that comes based on a degree of closeness and love one has for another. It can be used to describe anyone in my life who I share something with in a special way.

I’ve decided there are best friends you went to high school with and share everything with, and have all sorts of fun trying to do as much as you can without getting arrested, and probably at some point had one of those heart necklaces with be fri on one half and st ends on the other, each wearing their appropriate half.

Then there is the Ya-ya kind. The one you knew from various places, church, sports, camp, band, etc. This is the best friend that knows more about you than you know about yourself. The one that is constantly in the back of your mind when you make decisions, because of course you would never want your Ya-ya Best Friend to be disappointed in you. The one who kicks your ass when you screw up and the one who throws a big party in your honor when you least expect it.

There is the E.T. and Elliot Best Friend. The one in your life who you can go years without speaking to and when you do it is like no time has past. The one who calls you crying and you cry before you even know the reason. The one you never lose your connection with even when it seems the friendship is hibernating. The one who you can talk to using only your eyes and have an entire conversation.

Then, there is the Relative Best Friend. As a relative, we often use the relative title rather than saying “best friend”. This is truly a unique type of friend. The friendship may feel like one from an above category, but the level of connection is more concrete because of being related.

With that said, I am no longer censoring my use of the words “best friend”. I have several in my life who I love in one or more of the above ways, so here’s to you, Melissa, Ya-ya’s, Angie and Gretchen. 

I love you, Best Friend.

I arrived at work one morning last week, just like normal. I put my things down and ran up to the copy machine and my mailbox. It was then that the music teacher (a thesbian in all ways most specifically over-dramatic) calls in to say that she will be late because of an awful accident at the intersection our school is on. I was thinking fender bender, because I know her tendancy to over exagerate events. Then the vice principal and another teacher called in with the same story. Apparently, someone turned into someone else at high speeds. A person flew about 30 ft. I could then hear the sirens - they wouldn’t stop - and the helicopter coming in over the school… At about 6 years old I started to become really paranoid when I heard sirens and I wasn’t with my family. As an adult. I am still just as paranoid - I’m sure everyone is, but now not just for my parents and brother but my friends. I also like to consider myself rational, but that played no part in the moments of this particular morning… After the calls came in, I felt my stomach turn, but then walked back to my classroom and planned to continue my day. I sat down at my computer for a few minutes, but couldn’t get the accident out of my mind. I could still hear the endless sirens. I looked out my window, but couldn’t see the intersection, only the cars in the parking lot.  The music teacher had confirmed that none of the cars looked like any from our school - no staff cars, no student cars. I ran that through my head and then remembered a dear friend who lives nearby. The music teacher wouldn’t be able to rule out cars she didn’t know. I immediately grabbed my phone and completely lost it. Even after she answered and I knew she was fine and had long since been at work, I kept crying. I didn’t realize how much it would effect me. My Rebs has been such an important part of my life for more than half of my 26 years. The 30 seconds of thinking that she may have been hurt, or worse, put me over the top.  I don’t tell her, or my other Ya-yas, how much I love them nearly enough. That morning was a strong reminder just how important my friends are and how I truly could not live without them.