A perspective on friends

The other day, I found out that my best friend M, that lives in CA, is coming to NC the weekend of my Birthday and I am beyond thrilled (one more thing to adding to my hurry up and get here list).  I am so excited that she's going to come to our home and visit us, it's a first.  It got me thinking about friendships and traveling.  I'll give you a little background at first. 

I come from a small city in Upstate NY (like really far - I can see Canada - Upstate) and moved to Western NY for college.  I kept up with my best friend from high school throughout college as she was only 20 minutes away, but it wasn't the easiest friendship to keep up with.  In the later years, I went to visit her at her school more frequently, and I became friends with some of her friends (girls) as well.  I don't want to go into what happened, so I'll call it somewhat of a falling out ensued, and put more strain on my relationship with my high school friend.  

Most of my friends at my college were boys (except for M).  (Side note:  M and I had numerous discussions about how hard it was to meet 'girls' at our school to be friends.  We sometimes felt like the two most 'normal' girls in our classes.  This might sound weird to you but in our major we were 2 of the 6 girls in a class of 125 that graduated together, so we were surrounded by few girls to begin with.)

Following graduation KC and I moved to NC, M moved to CA and the others stayed in the North East (NE).  The guys I hung out with scattered and I only stayed friends with one.  That one guy has since moved and fallen off of the face of the planet.  I talked with most of the girls every 1-2 months.  Lately it's dwindled down to less (and sometimes just an email).  M and I talk(ed) as frequently as possible, sometimes weekly, sometimes, monthly, depends on the situation, what's going on in our lives, but nothing has changed in our friendship over the years (heck we went 3 years without seeing one another after graduation).  The frequency does not impact us at all and that is something I continue to cherish. 

With M's impending visit, it got me thinking:  What happened to my (other) old friends?  Why is it so hard to meet new (local) friends?  When did friendships change?  

I feel like getting married really changed things for our (mostly single) friends here.  When we were just dating it wasn't a big deal but being married we don't see things the same way as them anymore.  We have different goals and ideas.  I find it hard to make new friends sometimes, I don't have that out-going personality, but that's for another post.  The other girls graduated as well, got jobs and some are married themselves.  Everyone has a different life now.

I've lived here for a couple of years and our visitors have been limited to family, 1 college friend, local friends and now M.  I was really shocked when I realized this.  First, I got upset that people didn't visit, or make the effort to see us.  I can't say that we 100% go visit them but every time we are in the NE we make and effort to connect with them on some level.  Then I realized that me being upset is really not justified, it's simply me being selfish.  We all have (different) lives to live and vacations to take and things to do.  Friendships change and evolve over time.  

I used this quote in my senior profile for my high school yearbook and I think it puts things into perspective:

“We all take different paths in life,
  but no matter where we go,
  we take a little of each other everywhere.”

~ Tim McGraw

This really puts things into perspective for me.  At some point in my life I knew someone and somewhere down the road our paths diverged, and it's probably nothing either of us did.  But I will always carry those friendships with me.  There are pieces of those times that made me who I am today.  I will still do whatever I can to make it work and do whatever I can to see these people and continue a relationship with them.  If they need something, then I am there however I can be.  If they return later on then, that's a gift to me. 
 

"A friend is a gift you give yourself."

~Robert Louis Stevenson

For now, I'll give my current friendships my all.  Do whatever I can to make them ever-lasting and appreciate every last one of them. 

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's had friendships that change over the course of time.  Were you surprised at how friendships changed after high school? college? marriage?

Weekend Recap & Random Info

It was a pretty good weekend even though I had to call in to work periodically.  I didn't take any pictures, I need to get better at doing that.

Friday

Hubs and I went out for sushi and it was delicious.  I don't think that we've ever been out for sushi just the 2 of us but it was nice.  We got to get rolls that we both liked and finished them all!  After that we spent the evening home together and just caught up on some TV shows.  It was nice to just spend a quiet evening together just the 2 of us.

Saturday

We spent most of the day cleaning the house, working outside and doing little things (I had to call in to a conference call for work).  We made some chili in the crock-pot, for probably the last time this year. :-(  For dessert I made Rocky Road brownies and they were pretty good.  I made some modifications - doubled it, used 1/2 brown sugar and 1/2 white sugar for "cake-like" brownies, pecans instead of almonds and 1/2 of the chocolate chips were butterscotch chips instead of chocolate, yum!  We'll be adding these to the keepers list.

Sunday

We had some beautiful weather on Sunday and I went for a 5 mi walk on one of the trails around a local lake and it was beautiful out!  After the hubs got out of work we had softball practice.  Hubs has never played before and he did great.  I'm so happy he'll be playing on our team this season.

We had some birthday dinners to celebrate so we went to Brasa the Brazilian Steakhouse.  If you've never eaten at a Brazilian Steakhouse, it's an experience.  You're meat comes out on swords (anywhere from 10-12 different kinds/cuts) and you have a little stone (or coaster-like object) in front of you that is green on one side and red on the other.  If you want them to stop by you when they bring out new meats, then you have the green side up and if you don't then you put the red side up.  I would recommend not eating much for the day before you go!  There is also a cold/hot bar that goes along with your meats.  I enjoyed some of the cuts of meat better than others, but definitely ate too much.  The pineapple with cinnamon is my absolute favorite!  It was a bit pricier than we had all remembered but we were celebrating 2 birthdays so, I guess it equaled going out 2 different times.

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Random Info

• A new Stampin' Up order is coming in today, hopefully I'll be able to spend some time making some cards and card sets for gifts for people.  New supplies always make me excited!


• I finished my first 4 times through the first circuit of the 30 Day Shred and will be starting the second work out this week.


• I really really want spring to come and quickly!  The weather was a tease!


• We might be going skiing again in a few weeks!  We had so much fun at Snowshoe Mountain over Valentine's Day weekend.


• We got a Save-The-Date in the mail for a destination wedding next March!  I'm really pushing hard to go, it's just so far in advance to plan already, who knows what we'll be doing 1 year from now.


• I finished "The Last Song" last night.  I liked it, I didn't cry as much as I normally would because I had been reading it in small chunks.  It wasn't my favorite Nicholas Sparks book but I'm glad I finished it before the movie comes out.


• I'm swapping my books for March and April because someone is going to give me "The Help" instead of me going out and buying it.


• I added a picture to my sidebar listing what I'm reading now and I what I just finished reading.


• Hubs is out of town this weekend again, but that makes for a fun meal planning week (I'll explain more in my next post)


• We watched the Academy Awards last night briefly.  I don't usually watch them, but I enjoyed what I saw last night.
  
  
  
  • I thought Sandra Bullock looked fantastic (and I loved "The Blind Side")
  
  
  
  

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  • I didn't recognize Cameron Diaz at first, but I thought she looked great as well
  
  
  
  

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  • There are many others that I liked and disliked, but those are my favorites so far!  I have pretty simple fashion tastes so there were quite a few popular ones that weren't my favorites.
  
  
  
  

Have a great day!

My own "My Boys"

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I went out to the bar (our version of Crowley's) last week for dinner and a drink and there were 7 of us, 6 "boys" and me. I feel like I'm living in my own Raleigh version of "My Boys".

Left to Right:  Mike, Kenny, Bobby, PJ, Andy, Brendan (Source)

It made me think, I have my own version of everyone.  Some are quite similar to the characters on tv too!

• Bobby (actually he was dating P.J. last season) - The hubs - loves baseball and has the "nice guys finish first" attitude (no hubs didn't call off a wedding prior to ours)


• Brendan - Brendan - no really, my friend's name is Brendan, dating or in a relationship - maybe, depends on the week, care free and always has interesting ventures to pursue


• Andy - Bryan - not my real brother - or married, but he's very much like him in with a 'stuck in the middle' mentality, as the oldest he can't decide to be the responsible adult or go out for a pitcher of beer


• Mike - Jason - a toss up really,  he's the perpetually single guy, who could be a hit with the ladies,  he would be a great catch


• Kenny & Stephanie -  Matt & Fav Roommate - They had an encounter and started seeing one another behind everyone's back (only I knew).  My friends are now getting married this fall, I'm waiting to hear about Kenny & Stephanie.  (They weren't out this Thursday evening in particular)

(I think TBS needs to update their character descriptions a little.)

There are still 2-3 more guys that hang out as well on a regular basis.  One just got engaged so that brings another girl into the mix, but she doesn't always come.  On a normal dinner outing, there are 5-6 boys and myself.  If we all went out we might be a little bit more balanced, but that only happens on rare occasions.

Here we are at the beach-house we rented in 2008, plus 2 extras.  (Big guy in the back moved to SLC and one girl (far right, floor) no longer hangs out with us)

Minus the couple on the far left, here's my own "My Boys" cast at our wedding last year (May 2009). (Taken By)

Sometimes I think I need to find some more girl friends or that these boys need to find some girls on the dating scene, but there are other times when it doesn't bother me that much.  Like PJ, I work in a male-dominated field and it can have it's pluses and minuses.  I usually take my share of the jokes, but have also been known to dish out a few without missing a beat.

Luckily we have a few other couple friends (the ones in the far left in the above photo) that we hang out with on other occasions, otherwise I might not be able to handle all the testosterone.  I would love a good girls night or couples night but I know that will come in time as we all grow up and make new friends.  Plus, I would only trade 1 or 2 of them in for a girl or another couple (kidding, kidding!).

Looks like "My Boys" is returning this fall, until then, I like my own version.  :-)

Doing your civil duty

I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later, I was called to jury duty. I had been called to serve when I lived in NY but did not have to go because I was in college a few hours away and was excused. This time was different. I called the night before and my number had been called to report the next day. I had no idea what to expect and everyone kept telling me to say different things, but it was part of being a grown up and I knew I had to go and if I was needed I'd serve.

Arriving bright and early I filed into a room and sat there. And sat there, and sat there. Every 90 minutes we got a 15 minute 'break'. As if sitting there wasn't enough of a break! We were released for an hour and a half lunch at which point I returned to my car so that I could charge my phone, because I'd drained much of my battery sitting there the first 4 hours in the morning. While on lunch there was a bailiff behind me who said that there was a murder trial going on and boy was I glad that I hadn't been called last week and serve on that jury.

Returning after lunch we sat there some more, chatting with the people around me, everyone came from varying backgrounds, a stay-at-home mom, career mom, career husband, and a variety of other people. Finally at about 3 o'clock they called back about half of the people in the room and everyone around me had to go but I was left in the room to hurry-up and wait.

The murder trial mentioned earlier reported a verdict at 3:45, which turned out to be lucky for me because if theyhad finished earlier we probably would have been called into that courtroom for the next case.

Finally at 4:15 we were released for the day. Bored and $12 richer, I served my duties of reporting for jury duty and thankfully don't have to go again for 2 more years. Just another step in adult life.

Have you had to report to jury duty? Did you have to serve on a jury or did you luck out like I did?