Food, Friends, and Conversation

Never underestimate the joy you get from spending the day with some friends you love, eating good food, and talking.... especially when there is a spectacular view. As this year is coming to an end, I am excited about the prospect of moving forward in our work as a writing circle. I cherish the group, our writing, our talking about writing, our camaraderie.

Happiness is having friends...

to write with
to laugh with
to eat with
to drink with
to enjoy life with
to share with

Friends of Friends

I have to admit, reading this post reminds me of Deep Thoughts With Jack Handey, the old Saturday Night Live sketch. So be it. It still makes me wonder.

It's weird isn't it, when you meet your friend's other friends? It makes you wonder if you'd ever have become friendly with those people if your mutual friend wasn't in the middle. I've felt this way about a couple of different friends. I just adore them and considered them among my closest, even best friends. Then, I meet some of their friends and wonder, are those friends I would choose for myself?

*I tried to embed a Deep Thoughts video for those who never saw them, or wanted a funny flashback. I wasn't able to, but you can click here for an nbc.com page that has lots of them!

Understudy

Tonight was an unusual evening, that really wasn't unusual at all. My son's friend, who is as much another kid in our house as he is our son's friend (they've been friends since elementary school and he's the son of our good friend) is staying with us for the weekend because his parents are away. We had plans to go out for dinner and run a few errands, and our son was at work. So we planned an evening out as usual, only our weekend son came with us instead. Max is three years younger than Jacob and we've watch him grow right along side our own boy. He's been like a kid brother to Jacob and now they have grown into young men. Tonight we took Max out to dinner (where Jacob works) and ran errands. It was kind of neat. We are so comfortable with Max, and he with us, that he felt like an understudy for Jacob. No plans were changed, no awkward moments transpired. Just a Friday night out with someone else's son!

Simple Things I Love

I love when we're at a Mexican restaurant and my son won't eat the guacamole because he insists it can't be as good as mine.

I love when my son and my husband laugh at a joke between them that I think is stupid.

I love when my son crawls in the dog's bed to cuddle with her.

I love when my husband surprises me with little practical things, like a new ergonomic can opener for my hands that are developing arthritis.

I love when my husband is holding the leash, but my dog will only sit for me.

I love when my son says, "I have a song I want to play for you."

I love when someone posts an old family photo.

I love when my best friend calls to tell me I'm her best friend (she really did that the other night).

I love when my sister sends me silly little Valentine's Day presents like straws with hearts on them.

I love when my mom calls me "baby" in her high pitched cutesy voice.

I love when I can end my really exhausting week by thinking of special people I love and the things they do to make me feel grateful.

    These are the straws my sister sent me. ❤️

The Things We Love

I created a cute little digital book tonight about all the things my friends love! A few days ago I asked people to tell me, besides their friends and family members, what in the world they love most. The answers were fun, and made me realize how much my friends (and my sister) and I have in common.

I'd love to share it with everyone here, but there are a couple of things standing in my way...

1. I created it on Story Creator, a new app I downloaded to my iPad. I had such fun with it, and it was so easy to use. BUT, I didn't realize other people needed to download the app to view it. I'm not sending my friends a request to add an app just to read my work.

2. No big deal, you can log in with Facebook. Okay, even though it wasn't in my original plan, I figured I'd post it to Facebook for everyone to see. BUT, the only way I can do this is to allow FB to give the app all of my friends' info. Nope, not going to do that either.

Soooo, I'm going to enjoy my little book on my own. If you want to see it, I'd be happy to email a link to you. I'd rather protect your privacy than promote my writing. Though it is awfully cute!