True Friends…..

Well it’s bloggin time again!! I have been on a stamping marathon this weekend because Keith never made it home from his trucking job…..bummer…..but I have made the best of it and had lots of fun stamping the time away…..and now here it is, almost Monday and time to start over!! My fav fav fav card I made this weekend is this one on your left right here……it’s done with white craft ink and pure color pencils…..and it’s called Black Magic…..ain’t that a purty card?? It SINGS to me…..this set was really really challenging to me….sometimes that happens where you make cards and none of them sing to you……so in that case I usually just keep peeling layers off and trying new things until it sings!! This was the last card I made, and probably the only one I didn’t have to make and then remake….cuz it came out exactly like I wanted it to the first time!! The theme of this set of cards, is TRUE FRIENDS…..and I want to thank God right now, because I have been blessed with a LOT of true friends in my life……that is for sure. This week I had a neat conversation via email with ONE of my true friends……it came about because she had told me that her and her husband weren’t going to make it to Bermuda this coming year because they were going to go on a different trip and couldnt’ take time off for both…..oh that sad empty feeling when you find out one of your best cruise buddies isn’t going to be cruising……(and this year will probably be my LAST cruising year for a while so that made me even sadder) She also didn’t think I would make it to Leadership this year, (as I was having huge doubts that I would….) so in one email, I had gone
from I won’t be going to Leadership and you won’t be on the cruise, to I found out I WILL LORD WILLING BE AT LEADERSHIP, and she had a change in plans as well and decided she would in fact be on the cruise,,,,and oh the joy of knowing you will be seeing eachother again, and rooming with someone you feel very comfortable with……who knows your quirks and idioscnyricies, ( a friendship that has stood the test of time)……Aren’t TRUE FRIENDS wonderful? We have some other TRUE FRIENDS who will be driving out here all the way to Ohio in a couple of weeks, friends who we became so close to during our 23 years at AIM that we really consider them to be more like family……..and I am looking so forward to that visit, they have NO IDEA. When you move hundreds of miles away from your friends and most of your family, the word lonely takes on a whole new meaning. Throw in Keith’s job, and some menopause blues,,,well….you get the picture. So when a friend comes all the way from home to see you……it’s just plain special. When were first got here, we got invited to a birthday party for family’s we had a budding friendship with, and people stood up at this guys 50th party and shared stories of friendship, and I blubbered all the way home as I lamented, “Keith we do not have enough of life left to make friendships WITH THAT KIND OF HISTORY here – and we left them all behind” – and he said, “We’ll make friends, and we are where God wants us to be” – and I know he was right, but never take those TRUE FRIENDS for granted. In New York, we didn’t live by any extended family, so we kind of made our own………You know that saying, “Friends are the family you choose yourself” – it’s so true…..we had brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, who were really just TRUE FRIENDS…There’s another saying that goes, “It takes a long time to grow an old friend” – and that’s so true too…..we had 3 other TRUE FRIENDS come all the way from FLORIDA to see us this year in our new home……talk about JOY!!!! Two other friends who gave our son his only brothers came at the end of the summer…….we truly have been blessed with so many TRUE FRIENDS…..not to lay the guilt on, but there are still alot of you TRUE FRIENDS OUT THERE WHO STILL HAVE TO MAKE THE TRIP!! One lone guy came to see us in the summer without his fam…..another family we call TRUE FRIENDS…..SO ALL OF MY TRUE FRIEND CARDS ARE FOR ALL OF YOU TRUE FRIENDS,,,,,AND SINCE I WIPED OUT TWO CARDS TRYING TO DO THIS BLOG…. (i AM STILL A BLOG NOVICE) I am going to go pull them up and tack them on, because I made LOTS of TRUE FRIEND CARDS….because truly, we have been blessed by lots of TRUE FRIENDS!!