Maine, the Way Life Should Be.....

I went on an overnight to Maine on Wednesday. It was an absolute BLAST and a little vacation from reality too! I'll tell you why I went tomorrow, because my house is screaming at me for going away for 30 hours. No, not my kids or husband, my house is saying, "Where have you been and why doesn't anyone else pick up around here?" Yeah, that's a whole'nother post.

So, because I got to escape to Maine and my tight schedule allowed me 2 hours to do anything I wanted, I called up Hallie and said, "The time has come! I must meet you in person!" Hallie and I could have been sudo sister in laws. My sister dated her brother one blissful summer in Ogunquit, Maine where we had houses IN THE SAME NEIGHBORHOOD! As the stars were not aligned that summer, Karen and David broke up and I never got to meet fabulous sister Hallie. Fast forward 20 or so years, Hallie comments on my blog and a little back and forth, we realize how close our pasts had come!

My Maine BFF, Becky (yes, I have BFFs in lots of states), came with me to meet Hallie and Mary Ellen at Gritty's Bar and Grill. I think there was a grill included, but we only made it to the bar part. I have been following M.E.'s blog since it began, so not only did I get to meet one fabulous blogger friend, I got to meet TWO! I do love my brother in law and Hallie loves her sister in law, but we did wax poetic about how great it would have been to spend every holiday together for the past 20 years!

Our little visit only touched the tip of the iceberg, so I am sure there will be many more trips to Maine for me and perhaps a few trips to the Cape for them!

Yes, indeed, bloggers are real people, not just imaginary friends!!!

Friends....

I will post about friends tonight and post about the last few days, complete with pictures, tomorrow. A message to my friends that live here on the Cape, I love you and cherish every moment spent with you, to my bloggy friends... you have opened up a whole new world for me, one which I am loving and learning new things every day...

This week, I was able to spend time with "old" friends. One friend from Grad school and 3 friends from college. It is so unbelievably great to get together with friends that you have had for (oh, God, ) almost 20 years----how can that be????. You have history with them and things are easy. You pick up where you left off. The winter is not a great time to see or keep in touch with people, but come spring, we always try to get together. It's so easy to walk around Karen's kitchen and make lunch for our 5 kids, or to chat with Becky like we had spoken the day before or see Jen's kids and have them remember me from last summer. Becky's girls, when asked what their relationship with my girls is, say, "Um, they are more than friends, kinda like cousins, but not blood relatives...." We talk, drink wine, help each other out, catch up and of course, tell a few stories. For instance, there was Quisinnaire's Rod from Grad school. We were taking a class on math for early childhood education and were talking about Quisinnaire Rods. They are a measuring device that help kids with 1's,10's, 100's ect.. Well, one day in class,(with Matt Damon's mom as our teacher) our friend Elizabeth said something about Quisinnaire's Rod which sent us into a fit of giggles. Of course, we were in grad school and you would have thought we were a bit more mature, but evidently not. And we still laugh about it today.

We talk about our kids and what is going right or wrong and we can say anything and be assured that we will not be judged from one another. We can eat mucho ice-cream like it has no calories because it didn't when we were in college. Or maybe because we were athletes then, it didn't stick to the thighs like it does today. Either way, we just don't care.

Our kids get along together like long lost cousins. If we had to live on a commune together, we would all manage and get along swimmingly. There would be plenty of laughter, too. We definitely wouldn't be wearing dresses from the 1900's like in some other sects, but we would work as a team. Anyway, being home and finishing up a fabulous vacation week visiting "old" friends, makes me a little sad that my "old" friends are an hour to 3 1/2 hours away. Luckily, the Cape is a big draw for people in the summer and I am assured that they will all be down once school gets out!