Catching Up

Here's a lazy one where I smash all of the events of the last few weekends into one post. Here's are some of my highlights from the last few weeks:

Dinner with my parents at Bahama Breeze while they were in town. We had a lively discussion about life and the elections this year. My Mom wiggled over my Dad's lap to switch places with him in our booth. The rest of us laughed hysterically except my sister's highbrow boyfriend who looked on in horror. His eyes and neatly manicured eyebrows nearly jumped out of his head and on to his appetizer plate.

I tried on bridesmaids dresses for my youngest sister Laure's wedding. She encouraged us to get the coolest dresses possible as the wedding will be held in Lake Havasu in August. Mine is a little black dress that could actually make a second appearance at a Christmas cocktail party or a friend's wedding. I didn't order it right away because one of my fellow bridesmaids, Sandra, brought her little baby girl to David's Bridal and she seriously put the baby voodoo on me with her giant brown eyes and sweet temperament. This temporarily clouded my judgment and made me put off buying my dress for a month. Definitely no plans, but just in case of the unlikely event. My sister would kill me if I couldn't have drinks with her at her wedding.

Just as Spring Break was beginning, I was knocked out cold by some kind of sickness. I lost my will to do anything but sleep and eat Cadbury Mini Eggs for several days, but I did recover pretty quickly and go hiking again last weekend. I luckily begged out of the early morning hike that Paul, Tim and Tim went on 5:30 am in search of a phantom trail Paul loves that leads to the top of a really high peak. When they got back they couldn't wait to tell Heather, who crashed on our couch from 5:30 until we woke up, and I about their adventures. Apparently on the way back down they rode a rock avalanche about a hundred feet down the mountain (it has grown to 200 feet in this weeks storytelling).
"We almost died." Tim said.
"Yeah," Paul said, "It was awesome."
Boys, boys. Heather and I joined them for some afternoon hiking that involved neither rock avalanche surfing nor almost dying.



The Girls Book and Wine Club reconvened after a three month hiatus at Ashley's last Sunday to discuss What Should I Do With My Life? by Po Bronson. Three months was way too long between get-togethers. Many factors conspired to continually get us off topic which led to a fun afternoon but with one that was light on the great book discussion we usually have. That's too bad because I think this book could really have generated some good questions and discussion since the topic is so universal. The book is a compilation of stories from people who have answered this ultimate question, what should I do with my life? I'll have to do another post to talk about it in more detail.

That bring us up to last week, my Spring Break. Still slightly recovering from my sickness, I basically split my time between my couch and Borders with a few trips to the gym sprinkled in towards the end. I caught up on some movies. I rented Dan In Real Life and Enchanted, both of which I enjoyed, but Dan had the edge if you ask me, and spent a lot of time writing, just not on my blog.

And to perfectly round out the week, dinner and a competitive round of Balderdash , my favorite bluffing board game ever, with friends were in order last night. I can sometimes dominate on game night, but last night not so much. I can't believe nobody voted for International Belly Dancers with Cancer Corps for IBDCC! That totally sounds real. Anyway, the last few weeks have been pretty great though I am a little sad to see Spring Break end.

The Month in Pictures - Part 2

Pictures from October continued-

Girl's Book and Wine Club - take 2
I want it to be book club day every day! I love our meetings. This month's book was Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, the true story of Chris McCandless, a young idealist who, at 22, gave away his savings to charity, cut ties with everyone in his life and set off in search of an authentic existence. His pursuit of an authentic life turned out to be a fatal one as he met his end in the Alaskan wilderness. This book provided a lot of good discussion although we all agreed that if Chris McCandless could see us now, a girls book club discussing his life over mimosas and mini crab cakes, he would probably be pretty pissed. Our next book selection - The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.

Halloween and Birthday Weekend
Where did this weekend go?? I can't believe its Monday already. Paul and I had a little too much fun on Friday night that resulted in a Saturday full of sleeping. We went to dinner and a charity event for Abby's birthday and then met up with some other friends at Cherry nightclub for our friend Marianne's birthday. We are not generally big on the club scene, but this was a blast. We had our own section with a few tables and I mixed a lot of drinks and took a ridiculous amount of pictures.

After a day of napping and eating KFC to absorb the alcohol from the night before we were ready to suit up for Marissa and Jeff's costume party. I was pretty happy with how my costume turned out. Here's some pictures from the party:

The Girls Book & Wine Club is Up and Running

Here's a good quote for all of us wine lovers out there:

"Sometimes when I reflect back on all the wine I drink I feel shame. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the vineyards and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this wine, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, "It is better that I drink this wine and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver." ~ Jack Handy

Cheers to that!

So, after several months of planning and rescheduling and shuffling plans around we finally kicked off our Girls Book and Wine Club the last Sunday of August. After several hours of catching up, snacking on fruits and veggies, and taking full advantage of the wine part of the book and wine part of the club, we finally launched into our discussion on our first book, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I was delighted that everyone loved this book as much as I did. Here's a picture of the "founders" at the top of the post me, Michele, Karie, and I in the back and Abby and Marissa up front.

Here's a little background on how the Girls Book and Wine Club came into existence:
One thing that's been on my mind a lot in the past months is making it a priority to spend more time with my friends and family, really working to reconnect with the people who are important in my life.

Its always been important to me to spend time with my girlfriends, both old and new. Unfortunately, its not always easy when everyone has spread out geographically and had grown in different directions in their careers and lives. In the college days, luckily, it was just a matter of walking down the hall. It was in the hallowed (and generally hazy) halls of the dorms at UNLV that I I met Abby, Michele and Marissa, (here's a picture of us from the good old days) the girls who would soon become my best friends and partners in crime. We spent our college years and beyond as a tight knit group of friends. We loved each other in spite of or maybe partly because of our quirky habits - mine of playing Shakira and Enrique Iglesias songs on repeat at an alarming volume, Abby wanting to go to sleep on the ground exactly where she was after a night of drinking, Michele's alleged "cheating" at mancala and Marissa's tendency to get dressed up and then fall asleep before it was even time to go out for the night. We were there for each other during that intense, awkward and exhilarating time when we were just trying adulthood on for size and learning how to find our place in the world. I think that there is something about spending a lot of time together in intense situations where a lot of personal growth is involved that bonds you together for life.

As we've gotten older and moved on from our college days, we've all grown a great deal. Each of us has met more people who have touched our lives and become our close friends. Marissa and I are both now happily married. With all of the positive things that have happened, still our lives and careers seem to pull us in different directions. I guess that's part of life, but I don't want to let go of my friendships just because its not as easy as it used to be.

I was thinking about all of this at the same time I started reading Eat, Pray, Love, (which I felt an immediate need to share with everyone I know) and the idea of the book club was born. My idea was to provide a shared experience that we connect through and give us some regularly scheduled girl time. The first meeting was great - good book, good wine (and mimosas) and best of all good company. Our next selection for October is Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.