Friendship

Lucy fixed this necklace for me which was a REAL LABOR OF LOVE....I bought it at the wonderful Art Store in Asheville, NC, and wore it quite a bit until it broke. Rita had to crochet the wire with the tiniest crochet hook you ever saw to fix it. She also put a magnetic clasp on it so "no more fumbling with a tiny clasp."

These are the gifts I received from my friend Lucy (aka Rita) when she returned from West Virginia!

On the left is a beautiful handmade necklace she got at an art fair. It is so gorgeous and the picture doesn't do it justice. Then my Q is for Queen necklace...made from a Scrabble tile. Lucy knows I am in a Scrabble Club and I like to be Queen of it.

Then she brought me Five Fat Quarters.....actually they may be Fat Halves.....that is Quilt Speak for a quarter or half a yard of fabric. I will put them in my Stash (what quilters call their cache of fabric).

Saturday we were invited to our neighbors, Mac and Pam's, for a Braves game.

Pam and hubs are huge Braves fans. They went to Atlanta in May for a series of 3 games against the Mets. So for her birthday, Pam had Granny and Hubs and me, and her husband's Aunt Bessie to watch the game. Her son John declined to join us because the average age in our room was 83! LOL.

Pam cooked supper for all of us on HER birthday!

Friendship takes many forms and I am thankful for all of them.

Any friends you want to tell us about?

The Girls from Coker and Their 48 Year Friendships

I picked up The Girls from Ames A Story of Women and a Forty Year Friendship at the library today and I have had my head in the book ever since.

These "girls" formed their friendship while in high school in Ames, Iowa. Born in 1969, they are now about forty years old. All of them live in different areas of the country, but almost every year they reunite somewhere for four days.

The author, Jeffrey Zaslow, interviewed them individually and corporately, poured through their scrapbooks and diaries (with permission) and gives us his conclusions based on all of their input and the scientific data available about the friendships of women.

"...females with close female friends are far less likely to be lonely"

"....women tend to let their childhood and adolescent friendships go until their forties when their own children are more independent .....

What about this book resonates with me? I LOVE my girlfriends past, present and future.

AND I STAY IN TOUCH WITH THEM.....whether they like it or not!

Childhood friends are so precious.....my BFF, Leslie, and I reminisce about playing Toni dolls together, having secret hideouts in our neighborhoods, getting caught smoking by my mother, her teaching me to drive her mother's ever so cool convertible.....we have a bond no one else will ever have with us....she was the sister I never had.... Precious Memories!

High School Friends.....BTE Forever....our high school sorority.....formed by a bunch of us who weren't asked to be in any of the other sororities.... I still am in contact with two of you "girls" and we have other great memories....rush parties, joint meetings, skipping school, double dates, biology lab, Senior Prom......more Precious Memories!

College Friends......we confirm Jeff Zaslow's research.....we came sporadically to college reunions until our forties.....one of our classmates had a serious recurrence of breast cancer and a bunch of us went to Isle of Palms to celebrate her recovery with her. Now we get together almost every year somewhere. We don't share childhood memories but college memories. In thinking about the book, I realize at Coker we were like a very small town with no parents, just dorm mothers, and professors that we all had in common. You can mention anyone who was on staff or a student at Coker during our time there and everyone of us will know who you are talking about and can contribute something about them.

Now that we are older, ahem, we are turning 66 this year.....we share our woes over aging, our joys over grand parenting, losses of husbands (and boyfriends) and we LAUGH!

Zaslow says, "...a study that tracked 1500 women as they aged found that close friendships---even more than family ties--help prolong women's lives"

I could go on naming other groups of friends.....Women's Aglow.....Bible Study..... Job's Daughter's...... that have enriched my life but you get the picture.

Girlfriends are a Girls Best Friend......so take care of yours!

Scrabbleiscious

These are my Scrabble "Peeps". On the left is Elizabeth Hodge, then me, then Eleanor Clark, and Peggy Peck.

Three Cokernuts and a Gamecock (that would be Elizabeth, our scorekeeper since Coker didn't teach Math (or at least none of us took it) and our Scrabble scores are so very high (not) you need an advanced degree to add them. Or at least have a few brain cells left that help you remember to WRITE DOWN THE SCORES....

Elizabeth is working on this skill....she does forget quite often which necessitates remembering who made what word twenty minutes ago and what the score was. We would fire her, but none of us wants the job; it is like the Supreme Court, a position for life, you can't get out of it except by dying and she is not ready for that. (yet)

We meet every few weeks at Peggy's house. We take turns bringing dinner. I would say cooking dinner but several of us rely on our husband's culinary talents (that would be me) our mother-in-law's cake baking talents (that would be me) or Little Caesar (that would be the Elegant Eleanor.

Elizabeth cooked last night. Brunswick Stew like you have never had in your life.....Yummo second helpings all around. AND a chocolate roll (Chocolate cake filled with REAL whipped creme and rolled like a jelly roll and covered with delectable chocolate icing.) Even my mother-in-laws lemon filled cake could not top this creation.

I so wish I had taken a picture BEFORE we completely demolished it!

On to the Scrabble Game. Eleanor ALWAYS wins; I am usually second and Peggy has come up and now beats Elizabeth regularly. I look for her to bump me out of second place. I will lead the whole game and then Eleanor puts a 35 point word on the triple word and leaves me in the dust.

But the most fun is the social interaction between the four of us. We are all in different "circles" so we all bring something different to the Scrabble table. We laugh continuously the whole night. We do not drink anything alcoholic (or even coffee or caffeine in any form) so it is not an artificially induced hilarity. It is pure fun and the joy of being sixty-five (Peggy finally reached this milestone January 30th....the youngest person in our class of 1965.)

So all you youngsters out there reading this.....hang in there.....the BEST times of your life are ahead....!!!