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Friendship for Grown-ups: A Look Back
Three years ago, I reviewed a book by Lisa Whelchel called Friendship for Grown-ups: What I Missed & Learned Along the Way. Lisa talked about how she was on this show that was all about the strength and support that comes from having close female relationships, yet she was all alone. Lisa’s words spoke to me at that time. I remember I was going through a period of deep loneliness. I was surrounded by people {family, an online community of friends, coworkers} but I was living this incredibly solitary life. This life that made me feel like I was somehow incomplete… Recently, during a phone conversation, a friend mentioned that she’d had an experience that…
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Share Your Good News {In the Cafe}
If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you know that I like to do a little something called “Fist Bump Friday”, where I encourage my friends to share something that has made them happy during the week. Sometimes we get so bogged down with life and the crazy that comes with it that we forget to recognize the good things. So I thought it’d be fun if we all shared and celebrated together. So please, share your good news in the comments below. Remember, it doesn’t have to be big or earth shattering. If it’s important to you, it’s important to me. This week I’m happy that I managed…
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Do You Have “Couple Friends”?
Do you remember that episode of “King of Queens” when Carrie and Doug lose Deacon and Kelly to another couple who has kids so they spend the entire episode trying to find a replacement couple? Well, Tony and I have been trying to find that couple for years now. Ok, maybe I haven’t been actively participating in the search but Tony has done his fair share of couple scouting. And he finally hit the jackpot a couple of nights ago… There are these two couples from his job that we’ve been trying to get together with for a couple of months now but due to scheduling conflicts, someone always had…
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Book Review: The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women & a Forty~Year Friendship by Jeffrey Zaslow
The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women & a Forty~Year Friendship is an intimate look at the friendships of eleven women over a forty~year period. Interspersed with studies that highlight the importance of the development and maintenance of close relationships in the health and well~being of women, The Girls from Ames is part sociology study, part biography and part cultural reference book. The women came of age just at the tail end of the Baby Boom, so they are the immediate benefactors of the women’s rights movement and other social changes that marked the 60s, 70s and 80s. It was fun to read about the different hairstyles and clothes…
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Book Review: Friendship for Grown~Ups: What I Missed & Learned Along the Way by Lisa Whelchel
Like many women my age, I grew up envying the relationships between Blair, Jo, Natalie and Tootie on The Facts of Life. I thought the relationships between the girls epitomized everything that a friendship between girls should be ~ loving, supportive and genuine. In my child’s mind, I didn’t realize that the friendships were fictional. Lisa Whelchel, who played Blair, writes: “I think there is a certain irony in the fact that the television show I was on was all about female friendships, and yet in real life I had very little experience with close relationships.” This book is her exploration of what impeded her ability to develop close relationships…