The Saving Graces

I told myself that I would get up this morning and hit my list of stuff to do with a vengeance, knock it out and enjoy the rest of the week. That was before I started a new novel last night and had to finish it this morning. I just finished reading the novel "The Saving Graces". The story is about 4 women who have formed a tight knit group of friendship, love and support that sees them thru many of life's struggles and challenges, chapters rotate being told from the perspective of each woman. They started out as a group of women with basic interests that would meet at one of their homes once a month for dinner and conversation, over the years they became inseperable. The story is touching, sad and heart warming and really brings home the value of true friendship. It left me with a sense of longing, longing for a group of friends that are only a phone call away, a quick trip across town to bring you ice cream when your feeling down. Sure, I've had groups of close friends but life intervenes, some move away, we got married, some of us had kids and jobs became demanding. Phone calls became fewer and e-mails became more forwards than communication. How fun would it be to have my own Saving Graces....
It did remind me that I needed to say thank you to my friends, I love you all and the contribution that you have made in my life is invaluable. I know I don't write enough or call enough but you are in my heart!

Grandma Mary Ellen found Miss Lilli a Princess light up vanity with a seat and Grandpa brought it over the other day. Lillianne loves this vanity. She will pull the drawers out over and over, putting her brush, mirror, comb, lipstick and paci in and then taking them back out. She will sit and brush her hair while making faces at herself in the mirror. I am not sure that she knows yet that the baby in the mirror is her, it is too funny!

Morgan came upstairs the other day with her very first purse, it is a pink Minnie Mouse purse that I had bought her at the Disney store when she was 2. I cried when I saw the purse, it seems like it was just yesterday that she was toting it proudly while letting the ladies that I worked with at Estee Lauder fill it with samples for her. She will be 13!!! Where have the years gone? I can still smell her baby smell, still hear her sweet toddler voice saying "I love you, Mommy" but today it is mingled with the fragrance of Tommy Girl perfume and the sounds of teenage giggles shared with friends. Morgan passed the purse on to Lillianne, a symbol of sisterhood, a right of passage.... Each of my babies moving on towards independence.....Lillianne towards toddlerhood... kitchen sets, barbie dolls and baby dolls and Morgan toward teenhood....telephones, dances and boyfriends! My heart is breaking knowing that I'll never recapture the child they were before yet it is glowing with the pride that my girls are both strong and independent, each growing into something even more beautiful than they were yesterday. I love you, my babies~