It's been a rough couple of months, I'm not gonna kid you, just a bit too much loss and stress for this laid-back city girl (I lost a very dear friend a month after losing my cat). I couldn't shake it and I was sort of wondering when it might be okay for me to relax and enjoy myself again without feeling guilty. I know everything I was going through is part of the grieving process, but I didn't know how to let it go. Enter the girlfriends...we had a weekend to ourselves at one of their houses in the woods. There's a trout stream just off her deck and down the hill. In fact, when I arrived Friday evening there were two ladies already sitting on the deck watching the Steelhead run upstream while the two of them drank a frosty beverage. I didn't even bother unpacking my car, I grabbed a beer and joined them to unwind. It was soooo good to be with them again. Oh, and the weather, so unlike March for us, was incredibly sunny and warm. Did it hit 80 over the weekend? I think so.
Others soon arrived and joined us on the deck. That set the tone for the weekend. Normally, we get together like this to work on scrapbooks or cards or some other paper type craft, but this weekend was more about connecting with each other again. We did manage some scrapbooking, but we also brought out the Scrabble board. Scrabble is my favorite board game and I'm good at it, really good, probably because I've been playing all my life. It's rare that I find someone to challenge me and play to my level, but danged if SB didn't give me a run for it. I won a game with the help of 'moisture', which was a double word score plus an extra 50 points for using all 7 of my letters. Whoot! SB won the next game and then we changed the rules and someone else won a game. I was having fun and relaxing, and no longer feeling guilty.
Saturday was another peaceful day with a bit more attention paid to our books. I hemmed a scarf I've had in my sewing basket, I read Hemingway a little, helped with a couple lay-outs and did a bit of journalling in my Taiwan book before wandering back out to the deck for more Scrabble and a shared Alexander Keith's. Wouldn't you know that SB would have one of my favorite beers sitting in her refrigerator and she didn't even know I liked it. The only place I know to buy this is when I go through customs into Canada, which is what SB did on her vacation last year. I detect a road trip coming up soon.
Because we normally get engrossed in our books and don't want to stop, we've come up with an idea for meals. Each of us will pick one meal for the weekend and we're responsible for supplying all the food, prep work, cooking and clean up. That way you only have to take time from your activities once during the weekend to take care of meals. You just never know what sort of food is going to be served and we've tried some amazing new recipes. It's agreed that this cake was the highlight of the menu this time. In honor of St. Patrick's Day on Saturday, SB made the Chocolate Guinness Cake which was to die for! So rich, so chocolaty, so delicious!
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. The companionship, the food, the atmosphere, the experience. I left the weekend feeling refreshed and regenerated, ready to face the world again. I love my girlfriends!
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