Weekend Antics

Beautiful Deserted Rehoboth Beach

Hey everyone!  Hope your weekend was full of unlimited amounts good times or at least full of what one of my guy friends calls antics! Mine certainly was!! 

 

Three of my best friends treated me to a weekend at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware and it was a blast; and I don't mean a blast of wintery cold but a blast of the healing powers of true friendship!!  Snow and ice and chilly winds surrounded us in our 23 degree climate -- because after all it is January on the East Coast -- but we didn't care because it was a weekend of great conversation, delicious food (Thank God Grotto was open!), unique shopping destinations and no schedules.

 

When in Rehoboth, Dewey or Bethany Beach,
You Have To Go To Grotto For The Pizza

No schedules.  Which in real life means we didn't have anyone telling us we had to be anywhere at any particular time.  We could go where we wanted, when we wanted, for how ever long we wanted to be there and that is my idea of freedom.

 

I have known and treasured these three best friends for decades and they are the salt of the earth.  I am lucky to know them and have them in my life and being with them can cure anything that life hands out!  We all love The Beach no matter what time of year it is and love to eat all kinds of seafood and just hang out, shoot the s$&t and enjoy each other's company.

 

As the saying goes, friendship isn't a big thing -- it's actually more like a million little things that are said and done and shared while living our lives and it all comes together in some kind of spontaneous combustion and makes time with those special people what life is all about.  The weekend was all about the chi or the flow of friendships and good times and it was a simple and as easy as that.

 

As I drove over the Bay Bridge to Rehoboth and tried to catch quick glimpses of the icy Chesapeake Bay, I said out loud to myself in the car:  "That's it stress.  I am leaving you far, far behind.  I am moving in to a stress free zone this weekend and you are not invited."

 

Life can change you, your personality, your expectations, your beliefs and your desires but hopefully you are not changing so drastically that you lose yourself and your friends don't recognize you.  They may be changing too in the face of life's experiences and increased responsibilities but at the end of the day you are all in it together and the reservoirs of strength that comes from good solid friendships and knowing that your friends have your back is what moves us forward and comforts our souls. 

Home Sweet Home

 

 

Yesterday was a well needed luxury: a whole day spent at home.

 

I have not had one of those days for months and I really needed it.  A day to catch my breath and try to put things back in place.  A day with no schedule.  A day of waiting for Hurricane Sandy to slam into the East Coast so I didn't feel bad about staying inside and tending to my nest. 

 

Recently, there has been so many medical developments going on in my family that my time has been spent on more important things.  As a result, the house is definitely what you might politely call disheveled.  I am not complaining; just explaining that I am one of those people who believe that house chores will always be there, but the people that you care about will not.

 

So while the wind and rain swirled around my neighborhood, I found it was the perfect time to go through the many mini piles of papers that have been sitting on the dining room table.

In the middle of one pile of magazines and opened mail I had yet to file, I came across an old Parade magazine I had saved because it had an excerpt from a new book written by Anna Quindlen.  Quindlen is a best selling author and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for her New York Times column, Public and Private.  Quindlen's new book is titled, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake.  I love Anna Quindlen because she is a beautiful and insightful writer and is always able to wisely put her finger on the core meaning of many of life's common yet bewildering situations.

 

In this case, Quindlen addresses stuff.  You know, the common stuff that surrounds us; the stuff that keeps piling up.  As in Americans' need for stuff and how material goods innocently creep into your house and then one day you discover you are buried under an emormous amount of things you really no longer want.

 

How timely that I should find this story as I am trying to get rid of stuff in my own house!!  There's a message here for me and as the holidays approach, I know I've got to get rid of things that I don't use.  If you aren't familiar with Quindlen's work, please allow me to share some of her sage advice from Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake:

 

--"At some point desire and need became untethered in our lives, and shopping became a competitive sport.  It was generally agreed in our family that my grandmother Quindlen was a world-class shopper, but for her, there was always an object to the hunt: a Hitchcock chair, a pair of Naturalizer pumps.  Sometimes I feel as though credit cards have helped us concentrate on quantity, not quality.  Plastic is magical, as though the bill will never come due."

 

--Statisticians say our houses are almost twice as large, on average, as they were 40 years ago, but we all understand that that doesn't mean the people inside are any more content.  Now that I'm nearing 60, I understand the truth about possessions, that they mean or prove or solve nothing. Stuff is not salvation."

--"There was a period when I believed stuff meant something. I thought that if you had matching side chairs and a sofa that harmonized and some beautiful lamps to light them, you would have a home, that elegance signaled happiness.  I fooled myself into thinking House Beautiful should be subtitled Life Wonderful.

Amen, Anna!