Change is Inevitable. Growth is Optional. Let's Grow.

We had our closest friends over this past weekend to get together one last time before we leave for Greenville this Sunday.  Throwing a going away party was a first for me.  I'm more of the keep moving forward and don't look back kind of gal.  With every major change that I've ever had in my life, I got in my car and just kept driving.  I've never been one to walk around my apartment/town/college and say farewell to my life.  I suppose for people like me, it's easier to just cut the strings, rather than allow for the potential to watch them fray, and eventually break.

This time it's different.  I'm not just going on a long trip that I'm coming back from.  I'm not moving a few miles further from my parents.  And it's not just about me.  I have a husband and a daughter that add a whole different feeling to the equation than when I would just pack up and leave when I was single.

Before I had Laela, I had a pack of acquaintances, and probably two really good friends.  I've always had a difficult time maintaining female friends because my emotional argument tolerance is pretty low (one of the side effects of being raised by a man I guess.).  So it was always my two best buddies, my parents and everyone else. 

When I got pregnant, I happened to befriend some amazing women.  Towards the end of my pregnancy, Kyle and I took a birthing class.  I became good friends with Michelle, one of the smartest, sassiest people I've ever met.  While everyone else in birthing class was freaking out, her husband Marcus (who's equally awesome), Kyle, Michelle and I were giggling like teenagers at the ridiculousness of it all.  People have been giving birth for how long?  And we need a class for it?  But hey, we were there, getting told by our instructor to "google it" if she couldn't answer our questions.  When she gave birth to her gorgeous daughter Milan, she was a big support to me while I waited (and waited, and waited) to give birth to Laela.  Our daughters have grown up together over the last two years, and it's been such a trip to watch them grow.

While in a friend's wedding, I met two other amazing women, Ali and Dawn, who I feel so completely blessed to call my best friends.  They went to college together for horticulture, but they couldn't be any more different.  Ali is the sweet friend that you always wished you had.  You know when you read a book, and there's that character that's the popular girl who's gorgeous with a heart of gold?  That's Ali.  She could be covered in cow dung and still be the most beautiful girl in the world.  And the best part of it is that she'd be the one spouting out the most disgusting jokes about it.  She's amazing.  I'm so sad we're going to miss out on being there for her when she has her little girl.  The three of us love her to bits and are going to miss her terribly.

Dawn is that friend that if you're in jail, she'll bust you out.  If you just had a baby, and all you want is a damn margarita, she'll bring you a jug.  And drink it with you.  Dawn probably gets my foodie insanity more than anyone.  She never looks at me strangely when I tell her I need to get my food from the farm, or that I need to see them grind the meat in front of me so that I know there isn't any pink slime in it.  Above everything, she always supports and encourages me when I don't have the energy to do it myself.  She gets it.  She's the only girlfriend I have that has a husband that travels all the time and has to parent on her own for days or weeks at a time.  It's one of those things that you can't understand unless it happens to you, and I'm so grateful to have her in my life.  Our husbands work in the same industry, so it's been kind of cool to have friends with a baby who enjoy a lot of the same things.

Then there is Jessica, also known as super mama.  I met her at my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary and we became fast friends.  She's one of the few completely genuine people in this world.  Jess has it completely together and makes motherhood look easy- and most importantly, fun.  Whenever I get down on myself for feeling like I don't do enough, she is always there to remind me that we're mothers.  We'll never feel like we do enough, but at the same time, we probably do too much.

Last, but certainly not least, is my girlfriend Corinne.  I always tell her that she's my best "current life" friend.  She went to college with my husband, and her husband Nate was in Kyle's fraternity.  Nate, Corinne and Kyle all been friends for years, and the two of them have become our closest friends in PA.  Corinne has been such an amazing, steady force in not just my life, but in Kyle and Laela's as well.  I truly believe that there are people in this world that contain so much goodness in them that it is simply beyond words.  Corinne is that person for me.  She has been there for me in every way you can think of.  She's probably the only person outside of my family that I've trusted with my child more than once and not freaked out (which yes Corinne, I know as you read this you're yelling at the computer for me to get a babysitter!).  She's been there cooking during contractions, bringing dinner after having the baby, lending an ear when I need to vent, bringing girl time and wine when I need grown up time, and most of all, just being her.  By looking at the way that Corinne has changed my world, as well as my perspective of the world, she has renewed my faith in the fact that there are people in this world who can make a real difference.  And guess what?  They don't have to be famous or millionaires. 

Someone once told me that your friends are a reflection of yourself.  After writing all of this about my girlfriends, and thinking about my closest guy friends, I think I'm alright with that.  I've got amazing friends.  Did I mention them all?  No.  But these women have been my main support system since I've had Laela.  They've been the ones to share laughs and big moments and even the seemingly unimportant ones.  They've been there for first teeth, getting ears pierced, first words, weeks of parenting alone, you name it.  And for the first time in my entire life, I wanted to say farewell.  I wanted to let them know how much they mean to me and my family.  How they've impacted my life over the last two years.

A good friend recently told me that home isn't a place.  It's in the people where your heart lays.

The next few years of globe jumping are not always going to be easy...but it makes it a little easier to know that we have a network when we need it.  And for the record, it's never really farewell unless you make it so.

Oh, and we can't forget that we're in an age of planes, trains and automobiles...so we can always visit! : )

*After we get settled from moving, I'll be posting some new recipes, as well as updates on our road trip adventures from Philly to South Carolina!

Four Months to Go.

We're moving in exactly four months today.  I've been going crazy making spreadsheets of everything from what areas we should look at to move (because nope, we still haven't found an apartment), to activies for Laela, to what we do and don't need to bring (because making a spreadsheet of stuff is a lot less headache than packing it for some reason.)  I've slowly started packing away the "extra stuff" in our life- Laela's infant stuff that I can't bring myself to get rid of, and have convinced myself I'll get a quilt made, books that we've both accumulated over the last twenty years or so, doubles of games (Ky, do we really need two of every Trivial Pursuit Game?  I'm just sayin'), and most of our winter clothes (since the climates we're moving to are going to be considerably warmer than here). 

To be completely honest, I didn't realize we had this much stuff.  I'm not usually the most sentimental person in the world (I lost my yearbooks and a lot of photos during the courses of my nine or so moves over the last few years and didn't really care too much), but when I found my box of things from Kyle- cards, notes, post its, pressed flowers, etc., I put it in the "move with me bin", because a Momma needs those things to look back on now and then. 

It's amazing how much one person can change our life, and how we react to life.  Kyle's probably the only person in my life that can keep me so grounded, that gets me so well, and can make me so ridiculously happy, even when things seem like they aren't so great.  Like not knowing where we're going to live and feeling like nothing is done, he still manages to be the calm in my storm.  I think the funniest thing is that he saves everything.  Seriously.  Everything.  I have a box of beer bottles in our basement- one of every one he's tried.  I think it's weird.  But then again, I don't even have a yearbook, and until I met Kyle, no real desire to hold on to the stuff, or the memories of the stuff, so I guess I'll have to respect his desire to save everything...so long as he doesn't turn in to a horder.

As I'm writing this, I'm realizing that I may not have pictures or momentos of every time in my life, but I do have this- the memory of making my best friend Xana chocolate chip cookies when she found out she was pregnant for the first time, and all of the cakes I've made her since.  I've got a chocolate peanut butter cake for my Daddy and Kyle for Father's Day that they loved.  German chocolate for my Mom.  Lemon squares at barbecues.  My great-grandmother's cream cheese icing that I loved as a girl.  My gram's ginger cookie recipe that got me through pregnancy nausea.  Anniversary chicken from the first time I made Ky dinner.  Learning to make spaghetti and meatballs from my Dad, that I now make for my litte girl.  Kyle's grilled cheese.  Spanakopita as early as I can remember from South Street Soulvaki, and then trying to make it with my birth mom when I was a kid during a snow storm.  Corinne's chicken enchiladas that she made us when we had Laela.  Mom's banana bread.  Mom's disasterous "fat-free" scones. 

All of these things are stories, memories, recipes that I share with you and my family.  Proof that you can have all the pictures in the world, but the stories behind them- the smells behind them, they stay with you more than anything.  When you're old and your sight goes, what will you remember?  For some I'm sure it'll be the smell of chocolate chip cookie dough and the taste and feel of licking it off the spoon.  For my husband, I'm pretty sure he'll get old smelling his favorite- Easter ham.

Appreciate today.  Appreciate family dinner.  Those memories can't get lost in a move.  Neither can the recipes.