Hanging Out With My Friends

If you wonder where I've been and what I've been doing - I've been hanging out with my friends.  It's a habit that started many years ago when I was a young girl.  Proof is in the photo albums my dear mother so lovingly assembled and kept.  That's me in the picture - a very happy, six-year-old girl - with my friends.  I loved my dolls and animals!  I can tell you stories about almost every one of them - and would you believe I still have some that are in the photo? 

Oops, pardon me - I got side-tracked.  It took me a long time to get over the horrible 'bug' that made me sick earlier this year.  It took antibiotics and cough pills for daytime and cough syrup for nighttime and then - viola! - I started to feel better in time to enjoy a visit with one of my very best friends.  We've been friends since college days and we've stayed in touch since then.  We try to get together and do something special every year or so.  This time she flew up here for a week's visit.  During that week we drove to the Oregon Coast to attend a wonderful ladies' retreat.  We had a beachfront lodge room and gorgeous weather.  Add to that a hundred and fifty other ladies to spend time with.  Great speaker - good food - sweet friends, new and 'old'.  What a special time we two had together.

I was there - honest, I was.  You can tell because those are my shoes!  I was enjoying some quiet time out on the patio of the lodge.  Time alone, in the sun, just putting my feet up and relaxing.

Shortly after my friend left to go home I met another dear friend for lunch.  She used to live close by before they moved to Georgia.  She comes often to visit her daughter and we get together when she's here.  Lunch at a new-to-me place in Portland and lots of good catching up made for a very special time.  I took this picture on my way to meet her that day.  Only in Portland would you find a chicken playing a violin on the corner of a busy intersection!

I had such a good time with my friends but I couldn't leave this post without saying that my very best-ever friend and I left town for a few days last month.  My sweetheart and I (and Joey) took our home-away-from-home-on-wheels to the beach for a few days of rest.  We stayed in a new-to-us place and had a quiet space at the end of road in an 'adults only' side of the RV resort.  It was a new experience for us and we had a good time.  Most of the reason we had a good time was because we were away.  Together!

(my sweetheart and Joey walking on the beach)

Other things have been happening around here but those will have to wait for another day.