A Southern Rehabilitation

Welcome, Friends... Three years ago I started hosting a Girlfriend's Get Together at Christmas time. Initially I started it because I wanted to thank all the girlfriends in my life who helped me get through what was then, the worst year of my life. You can read about the first get together here .These girls were there for me in word and action, and I just wanted to find a way to express my heartfelt gratitude to as many as possible at one time. I also wanted my different sets of friends to meet. I talk about everyone at different times to different people. I wanted folks to be able to finally put a face with a name. The 2013 party was hugely successful and so when 2014 rolled around, I decided I wanted to do it again, and then 2015 and so on. Now I think it has become something my friends look forward to each year.   As I was contemplating what to do for this year's party, I searched Pinterest for party ideas (let's just give an ol' shout out for P...

This week an eleven year old boy committed suicide. He hung himself. This was right here in our amazing little town, a town where a great majority are affluent people, middle class people, family oriented, hard working, we love our neighbors kind of people. We have an incredible Little League and we have Pop Warner Football and we have Friday Night Lights mentality when it comes to our high school teams. We have a brand new Krispy Kreme where the locals camped out for days waiting for opening day just because it was something fun to do with their kids or their friends. Yet we had this horrific tragedy occur only a few days ago and the ripple effects of this will continue out into our community in ways we will never know or understand. My heart is saddened that a vibrant 11 year old boy, youngest of four children--only boy with three sisters, felt that the only relief from whatever, would be to kill himself. I simply cannot wrap my mind around it. What on earth could have been so bad ...

Good Riddance 2015!! This has been a bear of a year! I usually post a "Best of Whatever Year or Top Ten in 20?" post, but this time I am going to incorporate the "best and the worst" into one post. I can make a pretty long list of "good things" that happened in 2015, but I can't really come up with  "AMAZING" things in 2015. Good things, yes, but the blow my socks off kind of stuff just didn't happen this year.Thankfully, there is always something to be thankful for--something in which to be grateful. 2015 was the most difficult  year of my life. I am hoping 2016 will be so much more... New Year's Eve I sat on my couch in my pajamas and wrote out a list of the "best of 2015" and the "worst of 2015" because I wanted to write this post. I have to see things in writing in order to make sense of my thoughts. It's why I love stationary and pretty paper and journals and beautiful life planners. I want to write thin...