Look at these. Aren’t they yummy looking? Now…look closer. They are stitched and beaded faux “cupcakes”…complete with little fluted plastic cups. These were created by one of the most amazing women I’ve ever known.

I met JO shortly after moving to the mountains when Hubby #2 joined a medical practice after residency. I was really new at the doctor’s wife thing (something I’m not entirely sure I ever mastered) and that first Christmas, I was invited to an ornament exchange party. We were to make a dozen ornaments and you took a dozen different ornaments home with you. I still have a large box of beautiful, handmade treasures that I will never part with.

My friend and I sat on her sofa this weekend and reminisced about those days when our kids were little and we gathered together once a week to stitch. There were sometimes 6-8 women gathered around her big kitchen table. We would laugh and cry, nibble on the latest delicacy someone was trying out and drink coffee. We would stitch and b€#% about whatever was on our radar at the moment. Eventually, we moved our gatherings when I opened my needlework shop. Things fell apart when the shop closed. The kids got bigger, life got busier, divorces happened, friendships got put on the back burner. And now, here we are…29 years later. Our kids are grown. We have grandkids. Our lives have become simpler again. We never stopped loving each other, though. We haven’t forgotten how important we were to each other. Girlfriends are vital. I always advise young women just starting out their marriages to nurture those friendships because there will come a time when they will need them.

JO is seeking a reprise of the great ornament exchange party this year. I’m probably going to have to participate by mail this time, but I will anxiously look forward to getting that box in the mail with the little treasures in it.

Do you have girlfriends you love but have lost touch with? Pick up the phone and call them. Send a card. Invite them for lunch. Make time for the women in your lives. They help keep you young…and sane!

❤

“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.”

Proverbs 17:17