Make it last forever, friendship never ends...

Happy Galentine’s Day!

 

 

 

 

Wait… what’d you say??? You never heard of Galetine’s day!?!? For realz? Um, it’s only the greatest holiday ever invented by a fictional character from a television show!

 

 

Bam! Now you know.

Celebrating Galentine’s Day is extremely important (so important that I am missing the Pens pre-game show to put together this little post). We need to show a little gratitude for our Ladyfriends and all they do for us! I, for one, appreciate that I have the type of friends who don’t judge me for still having Outkast’s “Hey Ya” on my iPod. They let it slide when I declare at least seven times a year that I “OFFICIALLY HATE JEANS!!!” after just having purchased another 3 pairs the week before. And best of all, they have never questioned my ridiculous/slightly-unhealthy obsession with FOUNTAIN Diet-Coke (SodaStream is for the birds!).

 

My thoughts on February 14th vary between "lamest day ever invented, I'm going to die alone smothered by cats" to "all you need is love, even chocolate isn't horrible today" depending on my relationship status, but I ALWAYS look forward to February 13th & the chance to celebrate my favorite friends :)

 

That being said… I’m totally in a happy, healthy relationship this year so bring on Valentine’s Day!!!!

~M

 

*You may have noticed a pro-longed absence in my blogging. Sorry about that, the craziness of life threw up all over me. But good news- I gave up NOT blogging for lent (see what I did there, Jesus?). Your prayers have been answered, get ready for some nonsense posts you crazy fools!

 

 

 

It's a Love Story, Baby Just Say "Yes"...

Check out those two love birds, pretty adorable huh? Today is the 44th anniversary of my parent's wedding. They have one of the BEST love stories ever, it's like a fairytale! For the 38 years they had to celebrate together my dad always made a HUGE deal out of this day: flowers and a great meal (usually calamari included) and some bling! But the real magic of their marriage was how they treated each other every day, the little moments are the ones that counted the most and gave me the best example of what a loving, happy marriage should be.

 

Thanks mom & dad for taking a chance on love- for being crazy kids determined to make things work, even when "there was a war on". August 24th will always have a special place in my heart, it's a great day to be in love :)

~M

And It Was All Yellow...

I woke up with this song running through my head. I sang it (poorly) in the shower, and then started YouTubing it and found this adorable little video. It's adding some sunshine into an otherwise gloomy Tuesday.

~M

birthday celebration

Below are a few pictures from Mindy's fabulous tiffany-blue themed birthday party.

tablescape

Pinterest idea

Mrs. K's beautiful flowers

pom-pom ball

petit fours

bubbly to start the night

   

the birthday girl

smores bar

Alcoholic content

delicious cake

3/4 of girlfriends

Hugs to our followers,
LC

Celebrate Good Times

Mindy,

I love that when I think back on the best moments of my life, you make an appearance in so many of them.   From the sink aisle of Heckinger's to watching you open your "defective" earbuds on our trip to Aruba, you've kept me laughing for the last 26 years.

Image found  here 

I love that you allow me to talk way too long about my kids' playdates, growth curves and sleeping habits, while you wait to share much more interesting news about following your dreams, career changes, and traveling overseas.  As we've said before, it's a true testament to our friendship, that we're still best friends even when we're in completely different stages of life.

Thank you for working hard to earn twice as many chore points so both Kate and I could come over for playdates.  Thank you for understanding when I "tune out" girlfriend's conversations that turn to books.   Thank you for allowing me to vent for hours on the phone.  Thank you for dropping everything to drive to the hospital to meet Goosey and Maverick right after they were born.  Thank you for being a wonderful M to Goosey and Maverick (even during their many spit-up fiascos.)  Most importantly, thank you for being a truly wonderful friend, always.

HAPPY, HAPPY 30th, Mindy!

Here's to a life-long friendship,
LC

Happy Birthday BLPE!

Happy Birthday Mindy!

I hope you have a fantastic day (or week, month, birthdays should last awhile)! I wish I was there to celebrate with you but know that I am from afar. Blow out those candles, make a wish, and eat that darn cake!

Hope your birthday is wonderful!

Kc

Birthday Girl!

The fourth girlfriend is joining the 30th birthday club! Happiest of birthdays to you, Mindiroo.

Dear Mindy,

You're not only my oldest friend, you're also one of the most thoughtful. Sometimes a text pops up from you at just the right moment. Sometimes, I wonder if you have a sixth sense about that sort of thing.

I saw this print and thought of you:

{photo}

Specifically, I thought of this one day when you came to visit me in DC not so long ago. We had this amazing conversation about our life paths and how our journey has been so different than we expected. What a lesson for us...such planners! But there was so much more in store for us.

I remember we kept says, "We're living life."  "Yeah, LIVING life!"

 We traveled and took risks and acted silly.  We got our hearts broken and went on adventures and occasionally behaved like hobos. We started over. We're chasing our dreams. We experienced loss and along the way realized that the support of friends and loved ones is what's most important in life.

But best of all, we did it together. Every step of the way, dear friend.

To say I'm thankful for our friendship is the understatement of the century. On your birthday, I want you to know what a rockstar you are.

You have a space in the giant blue chair anytime you want it :)

xoxo,

Kate

I Have A Dad Who Watches Over Me...



Family Easter photo 1984. What a crew.

Dad visiting me backstage before my final performance of "Guys and Dolls"

A few thanks for my dad...

Thanks for holding my hand at the edge of the Grand Canyon when I was too scared to walk out there by myself. I'll never forget the first time I took in the view I would have missed had you not been there to give me a little extra courage.

Thanks for never giving us money for doing well on report cards. School was so important to you, but getting good grades was just what was expected of four smart kids like us. You were always really proud but now I can see why you never rewarded us "doing our jobs".

Thanks for renting that limo to take us to the airport the first time we visited LA. I was a 7 year old celebrity for 45 minutes. It was better than Christmas.

Thanks for being SCARY mad at me on my first weekend home from college when you found a few extra rings and a bar in my ear. I'll never forget you telling me that you and mom had made too beautiful of a child for me to go "putting unnecessary holes and permanent weird shit" (tattoos) on my body. It never happened again.

Thanks for not wasting time changing out of your business suit when you got home from work before practicing my hook-shot with me in the driveway. I always thought it was your Clark Kent/Superman impression, but really you probably knew I needed those extra minutes of sunlight to get that move down.

Thanks for waking us up in the middle of the night to go on adventures: Walking through Times Square at 3am in our pajamas; Dragging ungrateful teenagers out of bed at 4am to drive to Cape Canaveral for a shuttle launch; Leaving for the beach at 2am so we could beat the rush and stop at our favorite pancake place; Walking through the woods of White Rock at god knows what time and then turning off the flash light for just a second to scare us.

Thanks for teaching me to drive... and to curse at bad drivers and traffic.

But most of all, thanks for showing me for 24 years how a husband should treat a wife, how a father should mentor his kids and how a family should take care of each other. Family was always the most important thing in your life- no questions asked. And while no family is ever perfect, ours still is pretty great.

Happy Father's Day Dad!

I love you and miss you every single day.

Love,

Melinda Anne



Happy Birthday BLPE!

Today is one of my favorite days of the years, KC's birthday!!! Not only is it pure joy to celebrate the birth of such an amazing person and beautiful friend, but Karissa's birthday will always hold a special place in my heart as it so often fell on our last day of school growing up. We'd spend the afternoon at her parent's pool celebrating the birthday girl while kicking off the start of summer. And let me tell you, NO ONE can enjoy eating birthday treats while rocking a swimsuit quite like KC can.


If you have to be stuck under an umbrella in a rain storm, make sure it's with your best friend



KC: I know it hasn't always felt like your 20s were super easy, but I hope you know how happy I am for all the joy you've been given and will keep praying that the other parts fall into place as they're meant to. It's all going to be worth it :)

Happy Birthday and Lots of Love,

M

Happy Birthday Kate!

Being there in person is always a decent excuse for a belated birthday post, right?! Well lucky me got to spend a few hours visiting with Kate on her birthday yesterday. We talked and talked and talked the night away while we got pedicures and went out to eat. I was fairly forgetful about taking photos this trip, mostly because we didn't stop gabbing long enough to pose for any. Luckily, I documented my amazing meal at the very chic restaurant we went to.

Pineapple Chicken served in a FREAKING PINEAPPLE!!!



YUM YUM YUM

After dinner we retired to Kate's, put on cookie pants and relaxed away the remainder of her birthday. Pretty run of the mill night for us, just shocked we avoided eating nachos :)

Kate- I'm so lucky that our friendship has grown even closer throughout our 20s. We've been able to guide each other through some unexpected adventures and I'm so happy that I've been able to be by your side through it all. 

Here's to the start of your 30s! May they bring you all the things you never even thought to dream of yet :)

Happy Birthday and Lots of Love,

M

Happy Birthday Laura!

This post is only late because I had the pleasure of visiting LC and her delightful family on her birthday. Babysitting so that she and her husband could go out for a birthday meal (and beers!!!) was the best gift I could think of for this Supermom. Whenever I get a chance to spend time around her family, I'm always in awe of what a wonderful mom she is. It's a joy to see one of your best friends doing exactly what they were meant to do. We had a lot of fun playing with the kids, relaxing at the pool and catching up on all of our goings-on. And of course I took 8,000 photos of her adorable kids.

Maverick the Man

Goose Giggles



It was a great time and I'm so happy I could be there to help celebrate the start of a new chapter in your life, LC. Here is a little birthday quote for you...

 I'm so happy that you found your "bounty" in life during your 20s, can't wait to see what your 30s will bring!!!

Happy Birthday and Lots of Love,

M

Love Is Like A Novel, Read The Blessed Pages...

Well, well, well... long time no blog huh? I've been half busy/half on a break up with this blog BUT the other night I was out at a bar when one of our BIGGEST (only?) blog fans inquired why I haven't been writing. I took that as a sign (and NOT a drunken rant, it was clearly his plea to have more of my AWESOME writing in his life!!!!) so here I am- filling your day with a useless, boring post! You're welcome :)

Today's post is very near and dear to my heart. It's all about one of my most favoritiest things EVER in the entire world: BOOKS! <here's where you clap in excitement>

I heart books. I read more than almost anyone else I know. I do own a kindle, but I'm still terrified that most technology is going to kill me in my sleep someday so I hardly use it. I even love the smell of books! Some would call this "nerdy" (myself included) but a good book makes me incredibly happy!!! I happened upon this website the other day and collected a few lil doo-dads for all you fellow book lovers out there. Think of it as my kind of porn.

Dream Room

This is my motto.

At first I was confused/concerned, and then I was like "Totally!"

Gentlemen, take note

BOOK NAILS!!!!!

Hey teeny, tiny book necklaces! You rule!





True Confession: my greatest fear about getting older is how little time I have left to read.

If I had more wall space, this would be MINE!!!!



Pictured Above: Mindy's future child. Or Mindy herself in 1983. Take your pick.

A map of fictional places I wish I could visit. For reals, I "eeeeeeeee"'d out loud in excitement when I saw this.

That's it. Surely we're all in agreement that I need a 12-Step program to deal with my odd book addiction. I'll await your intervention. In the mean time: 11/22/63 by Stephen King??? SO GOOD!!!!

~M





May I Have the Pleasure of Your Hand to Lead this Dance?

It's cold in Pennyslvania today. Like, late fall/early winter cold. Some places even got snow. Gross... gross, gross, gross, yuck. And since I'm still slowly battling back from this pneumonia junk I've been fighting off for three weeks (no, I'm not 83 years old), I've been spending any free time I can spare laying around in sweatpants (surprise, surprise) listening to music. Mostly I've been listening to my favorite girl crush, Rachel Sermanni. She is a beautiful & talented girl from the Highlands of Scotland that my friend Noel introduced me to. When I was in Dublin last month (ha, remember how I had billions of photos from my trip but never uploaded any of them?? that was fun), my friend Eamon got us tickets to go see her and it was amazing!!!


Proof.


The show (or "gig" if you hipsters prefer) was in this great venue in Dublin called Whelans. There was a fireplace in the room with a REAL FIRE GOING!  I loved it until they shut the doors and I feared being cooked alive, but still- not many places like that to see music here in Central PA. If she wasn't so sweet and her music didn't soothe my soul I'd probably want to stab her eyes out for being so beautiful. That's the nature of girl crushes I suppose. Anyway, since I am obsessively listening to her tunes these days I thought I'd share a few...

"Waltz" might be her best known song, although since she's yet to play any shows in the States I doubt many of you will have heard it.

This is the song she did as an encore in Dublin, which I believe Eamon and I agreed was our favorite. Ned's usually wrong about everything but this time he got it right.

Finally, this is her latest single that is available for download on her website.

Isn't she the bestest?? Here's to a warm & sweatpants-cozy week :)

~M







I Put Some Whiskey, Into My Whiskey...

St. Patrick's Day is one of my favorite days of the year because I love celebrating the banishment of snakes (public enemy #1), listening to Irish music and drinking green beverages. This year did not disappoint!!! I spent the early part of the day with family. And our mom, like every St. Patrick's Day of my life, made our Irish Dinner.

Shamrock Shakes with my sister

Mom's amazing Irish meal

This plate brought to you by the letters Y-U-M

Then I went by the cemetary to take some flowers to my dad. Growing up he always gave my mom and my sisters and me a green corsage on St. Patrick's Day, so I try to return the favor.

After I that I went down to meet up with some friends. It was CRAZY crowded down there, who knew there were so many Irish people in Central PA ;) We drank beers and listened to a band in one of Harrisburg's "Irish Pubs". (Side Note: can we talk about how terrible DT Harrisburg is getting? No. 20 most dangerous city in America???)

Late night it was time for me to fulfill my little sister duties by picking up my brother from his yearly St. Patrick's Day celebration. It's the ONE day a year I have to do this for him so I don't mind, and it ended up being great times (there was a game called "Battleshots", enough said). I crashed the end of the party and got to reconnect with one of my favorite people from my past- my old babysitter, Erin. She was the COOLEST teenager. She introduced me to U2 at the age of 6 and her love of Bono and all things Irish has never waiver. It's been probably 15 years since I've last seen her but she's still one of the sweetest people you'll ever meet and it was so fitting that our reunion happened on St. Patrick's Day.


World Peace is photo bombing out reunited love

Party Host Brian- he's pretty happy about his outfit

Good seeing you, St. Patrick's Day. Looking forward to next year already- who know's where I'll be celebrating by then :)

~M



Hey La, Hey La My Boyfriend's Back...



This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen



Sid the Kid is finally back (again) for the Penguins and I couldn't be more excited to see his beautiful face out on the ice. It was a great welcome back win last night, 5-2 over the Rangers. Playoffs are just around the corner and you know what that means- playoff beard hotness!



"I've been working with a new trainer this season to perfect my beard growing skills"



Let's Go Pens!!!

~M