TWTW - the one with the girls

I love being with my girlfriends - you're no one’s wife and no one’s mother, no one's employee, not a volunteer or blogger or any other role you might play. You’re just you as you’ve always been - they see you as they knew you then and as they know you now, as all the versions of you you’ve been and the versions of you you might be in the future. The mantle of the real world can be dropped for a few days. You can co-exist in a timeless space and be exactly who you are. You can exhale, make room to breathe, use these halcyon moments to fortify you before you have to go back out there again to face whatever it is you’re facing. It's fun, it's relaxing, it's restorative. It's awesome and I'm so glad we're doing it annually now. I took like less than 1/4 of the photos I normally do but that's fine. It's fine. The images will stay in the starfish of my mind.

Thursday night Angie and I tried Heartbeet Kitchen, walked home on the boards, made some dip, and had some porch time. I watched the sunrise Friday, Laura arrived early and we strolled Asbury with Bruce and got coffee.

We hit the beach in the afternoon and had Primavera pizza and watched Angie get attacked by a seagull while the Kims went to Angelo's. Melissa arrived soon after. Back at the house we snacked, had some drinks, lost our minds on Facetime with Libby (thanks for the pic Steve), sang it out, tried to get Bruce acclimated to girls weekend, and laughed a lot. We also attempted to track a college party that was on social media and got a lot of laughs out of that at 40+.

Saturday started with coffee, of course. Some of us hit the beach and attempted to wait out the rain but were sent off by lifeguards so we played some skee ball and had ice cream before collecting our sopping wet shit and heading back to the house to meet Laura and Melissa.

We had some snacks, Laura and I walked the boards, we read each other astrological info and decided if it was right about the others, spent about six hours in total talking about and deciding on dinner (takeout from 16th Street Seafood), and played Cards Against Humanity.

Sunday morning was coffee and QT with Lil Kim and Bruce. Melissa and I hit the beach and Angie joined us before we took off like bats out of hell at 2 before the rain came. No clean up for me, these awesome ladies paid for my cleaning lady. They also got me an Amazon gift card and a bag of beach-themed (and a pug themed) item. I feel spoiled. I'm always sad when this weekend is over but so grateful and happy to have these women and their friendship for the past 25 to 30 years depending on if we met in junior high or high school and to still feel the way around them that I feel. Love you all so much!

Weekly food prep: breakfasts are power breakfast muffins. Lunches are egg salad on english muffins. Dinners are pasta with veggie meat sauce from the freezer. Snacks are strawberries, bananas, cucumbers, and bell peppers. I'll use mozzarella and tomato salad for something too.

I was home by 4 with laundry going. I attempted to figure out Disqus comments and eventually it installed as you can see. 

Bruce used his crate for the first time this weekend. Outright barking subsided to little whimpers and on the third day, silence. Whew. 

Show Us Your Books tomorrow!

How was your weekend?