With a little help from my friends

I sent my friend Gina a cheese basket last year and she sent me back an heirloom piece of art hand-painted on the lid.

My friend Jeannie recently delivered an unsolicited bunch of garden-grown tomatoes just because she knows I like them.

Similarly, my friend Catherine texted me a picture of a tomato with my name on it and invited me to help myself to her bountiful crop.

I have the best friends — patient with my crazy schedule, so creative I stand in awe, strong, funny, resourceful and so, so kind.

Here’s to friendship and the joy it brings us all.

Yesterday I had to resign from my Bunco group due to full load of weeknight commitments. It’s a lively group with a mile-long list of subs, but I still felt bad for pulling out.

That’s the thing about good, quality friendships, though. They last forever because they adapt to each changing season.

I have really good high school friends I rarely see. But, when we do get together it’s as though we’re still 16-years old and giddy with the fresh freedom a driver’s license can bring.

My college friends offer the same perennial support. Of course our lives have moved on and we’ve all grown from the twin fertilizers of sorrow and joy, but we don’t have to work hard at all to recapture those intense feelings of friendship formed so long ago.

I also enjoy neighborhood friendships with people that range in age from four-year old Evelyn to 93-year old Connie who, by the way, is celebrating a birthday on Friday. Stop by and say hi if you’re driving by. She’ll be on the porch waving and she lives just one block from me. Honk a little Happy Birthday to her!

I even have some friends I’ve only met through blogging but I value their humor and their insight every day.

Work friends, booster club friends, boot camp friends, drama mama friends, gourmet club friends, grade school friends, church friends, childhood friends I rediscovered on Facebook, college friends, former student friends, former teacher friends, teammate friends, blogging friends, college internship friends, first job friends, Packer friends, friends I’m worried I’m leaving out…I’m so very grateful for you all.