Girlfriends- Gotta Have 'Em!!

Last night I went out for sushi and a movie with my 3 closest girlfriends. It was another evening filled with laughter, great conversation and good food. After I came home I was reflecting on how lucky I am to have these women in my life. We certainly are a diverse group, we range in age from 50 down to 37, we have adult children in University and youngsters in primary school but we do have some important things in common- we all work educating kids and we all love scrapbooking!!

Gen is our oldest member, I meet Gen when I started my job as an EA at Franklin. I work with Gen all day everyday. She is my partner- we share the same vision for the kids in our special needs class, my advisor -her kids are older than mine so I get some good advice and we have spent many hours together at synchro meets cheering on our daughters.

Kirsten is my partner in crime. We meet volunteering in our daughters' grade 2 class together. The girls are now in grade 10 and still best of friends. Kir and I have done soooo many things with our 4 girls, from scrap club, to camping, to pumpkin and apple picking. Kir and I live close together so we run car pools, take care of each others dogs when we go away and are each other emergency contacts when the kids are at camp or we for get to pick them up!!! We are each other's kids surrogate mom. Kirsten now works with autistic children and I am inspired by her dedication.

I met Michelle through Kirsten and her creative memories business about 6 years ago. Michelle is the parent of the youngest child from our group. We love hearing Michelle's tales of primary school issues. Michelle is also a high school teacher so we get a lot of advice from her as our kids move up in the system. Michelle is our mathematician, she figures out our tabs & our tips. I spend many hours on my computer with Michelle- she is a whiz and she has a truly wicked sense of humor.

For many years when my kids were little I didn't have a lot of time to spend with friends, life was just filled up with kids, activities, volunteering and lets be honest- I was exhausted half the time!! As the kids have gotten older, more self sufficient and no longer require a babysitter life has gotten a lot easier, I have more free time- time I can now spend with my friends. We try to get together about once a week. We have a monthly book club that we all take turns hosting, we have a scrapbooking day and we go out for dinner and a movie. We solve the worlds problems, cry on each others shoulders, rant about husbands, kids & jobs. We share in each others successes and failures. It's not always easy, it does take some planing but we have all come to realize that friends are not to be taken for granted, time does need to be set aside- after all if you didn't have the girlfriends to turn to what would you do??