Things are never quite as scary when you have a best friend - Bill Watterson

I'm really lucky to have a lot of best friends.

Remember when you were in grade school and you had only one best friend? It may have switched around from one person to another, but it was an elite position that could only be held by one special person who shone the brightest of the bunch.

Thank goodness all that garbage is over.

Nowadays I have lots of best friends and I cherish every one of them. 

Some of those friends I talk to on an almost daily basis. If I don't hear from one of them for a couple of days I start to worry. These are the ladies that run in my circle. We're in the same place in life - married (or in my case, permanently partnered), raising kids, frazzled with messy houses and car repairs and busy schedules.  

They're the ones I talk to when Bug throws an apple through Munchkin's bedroom window, shattering it all over her bedroom (yes - this happened).  They teach me to laugh at life and hold my hand as I step through the inevitable disasters that come from being a mom.  I cherish these friends for so many reasons. When I lose my mind, they're there to pull me away from the insanity, hand me a drink, and make me laugh until I cry. Every girl needs friends like these bitches. ♥

Some of my best friends are more distant, but just as loved. They're friends I've collected over the years. Some from childhood when I was learning how to be a friend, some from those tumultuous teenage years when everything was so full of importance and passion, and some from the years when I was learning how to be on my own.  Out of all the girlfriends that have walked through my life, these are the special ones that I will never let go of. 

I don't speak to them every day, sometimes I don't speak to them for a month or more. But they are no less important. They are anchors.  These are the girls who I would drop anything for and rush to their side in times of sadness. They'd do the same for me. When their name shows up on the Caller ID it might just be because they're checking in, but it's more likely that something important is going on and they're calling for support and love. 

They are lifers. They are the ones I'll be playing bridge with on an oceanfront balcony when we're in our golden years. 



When I think about all of my besties, I feel so full of love and fortune. I can't imagine my life without them. 

May the fork be with you.

About a year ago The Man and I found ourselves in a bit of a dilemma. We were out of forks. And spoons. Butter knives, we retained.... but forks and spoons were nowhere to be found.

"But where could they have gone?" we asked each other in disbelief. Even after the entire kitchen had been cleaned and all dishes and silverware washed, dried, and put away we would stare, baffled, at the empty slots in our utensil caddy where forks and spoons had once been.

Did the fork really run away with the spoon? All 12 of them? Had some cutlery obsessed thief been sneaking into our home and stealing them? What could have possibly happened to all of them?

Eventually we turned to the kids. Of course it was the kids. Those sweet darlings who might sneak a bowl of ice cream into their room, leaving the bowl and spoon stashed under a bed or in a drawer so no one would know. Perhaps Munchkin had brought all of our forks to the barn stashed in lunch boxes and they had been lost forever in piles of muck.

At any rate, we were out of forks and spoons.

After a brief period of using only disposable plastic forks, The Man and I ventured out to purchase some more silverware. But this time we were a little smarter.

We bought two sets.  One nicer set for The Man and I... and one $9.99 set with 24 forks, knives, and spoons that were just barely dishwasher safe. I cleared out another drawer in the kitchen, put a silverware tray in it, and we instructed the kids that they were only to use the silverware in that drawer.  They weren't to touch our nice, new, fancy silverware.

Here it is, about a year later, and you might guess what has happened.

The Man and I have plenty of nice silverware that we use on a regular basis.

The kids? They're down to one fork, three spoons, and a plethora of butter knives.

They're now using a box of 500 forks I purchased from Costco for a birthday party. When that's gone I think I'm going to encourage them to make their own silverware out of rocks and bits of wire they find while scavenging the neighborhood.