Tag Archives: female friends

On Girlfriends, a weekend away, and how not to take a selfie

I did something I rarely do this weekend: took off for a girls birthday getaway. Busy work schedules, life and geographic dispersement makes it difficult for me to hang out with my girlfriends as much as I’d like to. So this past weekend three of us finally managed to plan an entire two days of away time, just us, to hang, eat, exercise, shop, eat some more, and shop until we dropped.

Did I mention we shopped?
The first warm and sunny weekend of Spring allowed us to visit Newburyport and Portsmouth, NH, two gorgeous New England-y towns, rife with fun, food, tourist sites, and – you guessed it – shops!

From an old fashioned General Store that had more candy than even I could eat (!) to a housewares store that featured some of the best tea towels I’ve ever read:

   

 

Remember the specialty store SPENCERS? I haven’t seen one in a while now, but I found what I think is an upscale Spencers –  lots of funny stuff but not so dirty ( and by dirty I mean sexually explicit!)

When we weren’t eating and shopping we were walking along the beautiful coast line New Hampshire possesses. Yes, we are mostly landlocked, but we do have several miles of gorgeous coastline. And it was during our attempts at getting selfies with the beautiful water and sky horizon that I learned a valuable lesson about taking selfies, namely: I can’t!!

My girlfriend in the middle looks like one of those fashion DON’Ts from the old Glamour magazine back page, but that’s really my hand holding the camera up. This taught me that in future we need a selfie-stick to take pictures when we are looking toward the sun. And what’s with the prune face on me?? I think I was talking but who knows.

These are better, no?

One of my favorite places to shop is a bookstore. Any bookstore, and boy did we find some good ones. Here are a few of my newest Must-reads:

          

    

 

What a relaxing, fun, stress-free getaway! This was truly the theme of the entire two days:

I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have my girlfriends…and I don’t want to ever consider it.

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In praise of girlfriends

Writers, by definition and practice, are solitary creatures. Days can go by, especially if I am on a deadline, where the only person I will see all day is my husband before he leaves for work in the morning and then when he returns 14 hours later. If I didn’t make myself go to the gym I’d have zero social interaction. The only people I would  converse with all day are my characters, who aren’t, you know….real.

Most of my dialogue gets written with text-to-speech or Dragon, so the sound of a mechanical, robotic, voice coming at me for hours is kinda weird. Cool, but weird, too.

I know. Crazy.

This cloistered existence is not healthy mentally, physically, or spiritually. Not by a long shot.

Ever.

Which is why I am thankful for the girlfriends I have.

None of my close gaggle of friends are writers, and sometimes that’s a good thing, others, not so much, but having them in my life means I get out of my attic, interact with people I adore, and step away from the fantasy land and make believe people  I’ve created for myself.

Don’t get me wrong: I like being a hermit and in another lifetime in a galaxy far, far, away  I probably was one. But to actually sit and chat, reconnect, and gossip, with girlfriends who knew you when, is marvelous. They get me through the humps of plot points just by randomly mentioning something. They give me insights into what’s going on in the world  by telling me how their millenial children are faring. They bombard me with new character ideas ( and they don’t even know it!) when they tell me about crazy co-workers, or people they’ve come in contact with.

But they do so much more.

They keep me sane.

They keep me human.

They keep my feet on the ground.

They keep me centered.

They are shoulders to cry on, arms to embrace me, and a soft, safe spot to land when I need to jump off a ledge.

Thank God my for girlfriends.

when I’m not out with my girlfriends or being a hermit you can find me here:Tweet Me//Read Me// Visit Me//Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me// Triber// Book Me

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