Forever Friends

You ever had a friend that you just clicked with on every level. Someone who was a kindred spirit. Kind of what some people say about a sister or a twin. Sisters are someone who you didn't get to pick, you are stuck with them for life, they are your blood. I'm not knocking anyone's sister or anything, but a friend is a sister that we pick, someone that because of all their likes and dislikes, their differences and taste, you still like. A friend is someone who when the phone rings at 2 in the morning and you hear a tearful voice, you immediately retreat to somewhere you can talk and cry with her. Or you get that call that she is so excited that you have to catch every other word to figure out what she is saying. I have that friend. Let me introduce her. She is the best cook. You know you are at home when you set down at her table. You will have to make her sit down and quit worry about this entree or that. And please don't tell her you are stuffed before she brings out the dessert. You really will be then, because you won't be able to pass it up. We spent many, many hours compiling recipes for a cookbook one time. Turned out pretty darn good, if I have to say so myself. Still use it and love to use her recipes, because you know they are going to be good. A year or two ago she gave me great recipe for salsa. This happens to be my son's favorite. Bless her heart she practically help raise the poor child. He more or less lived with her (and her sons) for a couple of years. Guess he knew where the good food was also!!! Thinking back that is how we meet - through the boys. They moved into the neighborhood late one summer and she being the outgoing soul that she is decided that she was going to organize a Halloween block party so that she could meet all the neighbors and introduce her boys to playmates. That was the beginning of a wonderful friendship. It was one heck of a block party too! We have thrown several parties since that one, everything from a formal dinner party to an all night slumber party with a scavenger hunt across town for the "girls". What a blast. She is one of those people you love to hate. You know what I mean. One of those that makes her own lemon verbena sugar for her tea. That grows her own herbs and spices. That sews up a Halloween costume that will win first place in any contest. Writes a note that leaves you saying " I wish I had said that". Doesn't sweat when the boys come running in, wet and muddy with handfuls of tadpoles and frogs, screaming for a jar. She can recreate a craft item seen in a magazine or on TV with ease. Bless her heart, I kidded her unmercifully about her "then idol" Martha Stewart, although she was as practically and cleaver, resourceful and talented as Martha was. And I bet my friend wouldn't have ended up in jail either!!! Let me let you in on her wild side too!!! You ever see Thelma and Louise, well maybe not that wild but we did go on a road trip one time and decide to hang our bras out the windows as we went down the highway or the time that we stuffed way too many people in one vehicle and went out looking for a haunted cemetery. Never did find it! She introduced me to scrapbooking, Fiesta Stoneware, Internet Chat rooms, midnight walks, Fitz and Floyd, Longeberger baskets, margarittas and "girl talk". She taught me not to sweat the small stuff and to take life one day at a time. To enjoy the simple things in life like watching movie marathons with plates of brownies and a box of tissues. This is the portrait I want to paint of my friend if you could paint all of this in one picture. I'm sure it would look like a Picasso but then that would kind of be a good representative of our lives!!!