Life is Richer With Friends

This weekend was off to a great start! I discovered a "care package" in my mailbox on Friday when I got home from work. It was from my best friend, Beth, who relocated back to Alabama last year. She is too funny! She well knows my penchant for dark chocolate and had sent 4 small bags of M&Ms (both the plain and the peanut kind). Also included were a couple of sticky note pads in the shapes of flip-flops and she put this little stuffed frog in there. What a hoot: you squeeze it's little "hand," and it plays "I like to move it, move it." I had quite a good laugh out loud over this. Beth, you're too good to me! She knows I'd been feeling kind of low over Chris' passing, and so decided I could use "a little happy," as she wrote in the card she included.


On Friday evening, I met 3 of my girlfriends for dinner at the Firehouse Grill. It really did used to be a firehouse back in the day. It's just a little place -- there are maybe 6 or 8 tables in the "dining room." I think the place survives on bar business. The food is inexpensive and adequate -- nothing to write home about, for sure. Now, the girls and I try to get together for dinner 1 night a month. I hadn't been able to make it when they got together last time, and what with the holidays and all, it had been quite a while since we'd had a chance to get all caught up with each other. So, I'd really looked forward to Friday. It was fun! We had cocktails, dinner, then moved to the bar (they were setting up for live music in that li'l ole dining room) for more cocktails. It was great to relax and talk and laugh the way that we always do when we get together. I have known Karen and Shelley since the early 80's, and Debbie I've known since the 90's, so we go back a ways, the 4 of us. Karen, bless her heart, is working to get her master's degree -- I say "you, go, girl!" Unfortunately, once she's done with that, she and her husband and 2 kids will be moving to Pennsylvania (in 2009). I'll be sad to see her leave the area, but I'm happy that they'll have a house they've had built and in an area that's probably much better for the kids to grow up in. God knows I won't miss this area when I finally move away!

On Saturday evening, my friend Marie made me a fabulous meal at her place and we had a really fun visit. I got to meet Tiffany (her Yorkie) and Gabriella (her cat) and fell in love with both on the spot!

Life is richer with friends like I've got. I wouldn't trade them for the world, and may God bless each and every one of them!