Garage Cleaning Recommendations

When cleaning out the garage there are some supplies that are necessary. I recommend a good supply of back injury medication. Other recommended items would be:

• A large sign for the front yard stating, "WE ARE NOT HAVING A GARAGE SALE!"
• A trash dumpster delivered right to your driveway.
• A sentry posted to keep away those nosey neighbors who have just been dying to see what you've kept in your garage all of these years.
• A sense of humor.
• A cleaning partner who insists you throw away 5 items for every one you keep.
• A mid-size army to assist.

And if all of that fails - perhaps a gallon of gasoline and a match.*

*Disclaimer: I am in no way promoting arson as a garage cleaning method.

Changing Technology

Sometime in the mid 1990s we purchased our first real computer. I say real computer because we actually bought a Texas Instruments TI-99 computer prior to this, but I never considered that a real computer - all it was ever used for was to play games. The first real computer we bought was a Macintosh computer. We purchased it primarily so my oldest daughter, who was then entering junior high school, could keep up with the junior high Joneses. My husband and I had no idea how to use the thing, nor did we really care to learn. At that time I was a stay-at-home mom and he was self-employed, neither of us thought we needed a computer.

Shopping for the first computer was an experience. I remember likening it to purchasing a car if you had never even ridden in one and having the salesperson ask if you wanted power windows. Who cares about power windows if you don't even know what a steering wheel is for! We basically relied on our salesman at the computer store to tell us what we needed. To this day I am not sure if he ripped us off or made us a good deal. He did seem to enjoy talking over our heads and making us feel extremely ignorant. Not much has changed with computer salespeople over the years.

Our daughters were quick to figure the computer out once we got it home and slow to bring their parents into the new world of computer technology. Gradually we caught on; I learned how to email, and my husband (who still doesn't much like the things) learned to trouble-shoot whenever there was a computer glitch - which seemed more often than not in the early days. Before we had our new computer paid for we learned it was obsolete and a new new computer was in order. And so the computer upgrade game began. Just when I would finally figure one out (or pay for it) it was time to buy a new one. Then they each had to have their own. Then it was time for college and a laptop. The only good thing about all of this computer upgrading was I got the hand-me-down. I always had the third best computer in the house!

Of course there were other electronic items associated with each computer purchase. There were printers, and scanners, and once even a fax machine (my husband decided this was one electronic purchase he could use). I lost track of the number of desk-top computers, lap-top computers, and printers we have purchased over the years - until this week.

This week we uncovered a computer graveyard in the garage. Even the TI-99 was in there. Why did we save these? Did we think they were going to come back into style? Did we think the computer fairies would find them and wave a magic wand over them making them no longer outmoded? Did we think they would gain antique status and suddenly be worth more than we paid for them? I have no idea why we kept them. That is what we do. We keep things. That is why I am writing this blog.

They are gone now and my garage is that much closer to being clean. However, I still have the third best computer in the family - maybe it is time for me to upgrade? I promise I won't stash the old one in the garage.

Look What We Found in the Garage

The garage cleaning project is coming along nicely! You never know what you might discover when you clean out the garage.

Our Project Manager Needs a Project Manager

The garage project (aka - the project from hell) is underway. My husband and daughter have put in two days in the sweltering garage. My daughter is the self-appointed project manager, saying it is a necessity due to my husband's reluctance to throw anything away. She has always been the purger in our family. Even as a small child, cleaning her room meant simply throwing everything away. By the time she was in junior high school, she would re-decorate her room by putting everything that went with the old decor in huge black trash bags and expected to buy everything new for the new design. She is definitely the right person to be in charge of the garage purge! (A word on the black trash bags she filled with her discards - I did go through them all and keep three-fourths of everything she tried to throw away.)

But a funny thing happened once she got into the garage - she actually wanted to keep some of the "stuff." A box of eight-track tapes, the school desk she used as a child, an antique ashtray and stand that belonged to her great-grandfather may all find a new home at her house. The hard-line project manager has a soft spot for retro.

As difficult as it is for my husband and I to part with our "stuff," it is a little easier knowing we are passing some of it on to the next generation.

The Holy Grail

In my house there are (or were) several major areas of clutter. I began this blog to force myself to deal with (read - clean) these areas, but the blog has turned into more of a forum to write about life. I have tackled some of the housekeeping disaster areas, but I have ignored, or put off others.

I am proud to say I have conquered the kitchen cabinets, (including the much despised Tupperware cabinet). I have worked my way through messy drawers, be they dresser, desk or bathroom. Both of my daughters' rooms are now presentable, and a once unusable part of my backyard is now a garden area. So all-in-all great progress has been made. But, (aha - the infamous "but") there are still two major projects remaining.

One being the hall closet. The damn hall closet, once actually listed as a reason to purchase this house, has become a repository for "stuff" I don't want to, or can't deal with. Hundreds of books, most originally belonging to my parents or my husband's grandparents - books I don't want and will never read, but I dread discarding because of some bizarre emotional attachment. Another shelf in the closet contains framed photos. Photos of nieces and nephews and friends and family. Wedding photos and graduation pictures encased in cheap brass or plastic or tarnished silver frames. Again - the emotional attachment. Then there are the tchotchkes - the small figurines, the candlesticks, the vases, the book-ends, decorative bowls, ugly lamps, wooden boxes with carved or inlaid lids, and who knows what else, lurking on, under and behind everything.

The closet is also storage for usable, practical things - wrapping paper, vacuum cleaner, step stool, tool box, craft/art supplies and other items I need or use regularly , but always have a difficult time finding because of the clutter.

I've made several attempts at cleaning this closet over the course of my blog, to no avail. I'm detailing this today only for background information - when I tell you that the hall closet, as daunting a task as it is, pales in comparison to the mother of all purging projects, the Holy Grail of clutter - THE GARAGE.

My husband and daughter #2 proclaimed today as "begin cleaning the garage day." Even they know it can't be done in one day.

So the gauntlet has been thrown down. They are committed to the absolute, most heinous household task imaginable. I, on the other hand, am going to work (not in the garage, but to an actual clean, non-cluttered, air conditioned office across town from this insanity).

Will I lend a hand with the garage project? Certainly, I will continue to blog about it as the purging ensues.

The Aftermath

We had a fun party at our house this past weekend. I love having my family and friends over for dinner, drinks, conversation and laughter. Everyone usually ends up congregating in my kitchen - which seems to be some sort of family tradition or genetic trait possessed by everyone I know (or at least every one who comes to my parties). Or perhaps there is some sort of magnetic pull or force field in my kitchen which draws guests in?

Having a party is a lot of work. Even for one who is not obsessive/compulsive about housework, there is a certain amount of housecleaning that must be done before guests arrive. Fortunately, this blog is not about the pre-party cleaning rituals, so I won't bore you with that.

Then there is the food and drink. As effortless as every hostess tries to make it all look - there is a bit of planning effort that goes into it. Followed by shopping and cooking and arranging platters and trying to keep everything warm (or cold) until the guests arrive and are ready to eat.

But the guests do arrive (most bearing additional food and drink) and the preparation was all worth it. The alcohol and conversation begin flowing, good food is heaped upon plates, strangers meet and usually make some sort of connection (oh my God, my daughter was on your son's t-ball team 23 years ago). The laughter grows louder as the evening grows later and the standing room capacity in my kitchen is tested.

A good time is had by all - especially me! But, as is rumored, all good things must come to an end and the guests begin to leave. The first to go usually sets off a chain reaction of departures and before I know it, only my husband and I are left. "That was fun," we will say to each other and then go face the party aftermath. Plates, wine glasses, beer cans and all of the leftover food still laid out buffet-style are lying in wait. Normally we work together discussing the various conversations and happenings of the evening while we make some order out of the mess. But not this time; this time I was exhausted (and maybe a little "over-served"). I had put in a 19-hour work/travel day on Friday and by the time the party was over on Saturday it was all I could do to make it to my bed before falling asleep.

When I awoke Sunday morning it was with a sense of dread - knowing the mess that awaited me. Remember the children's tale about the cobbler who would return to his workshop every morning to find his work had been done for him during the night? I now know exactly how he must have felt. When I entered my kitchen on Sunday morning the only evidence of a party were the rinsed out wine bottles ready for the recycling center. Did elves or fairies or sprites do my work while I slept like they did for the cobbler in the children's book? No, one of the guests at my party did it. One of the guests who stayed late, cleaned everything and then saw herself out. That wonderful guest was my daughter!

Someone sure did a good job of raising that child!

Better Man

A childhood shattered,
A beloved parent battered.
A family divided
Half a lifetime.

To forgive is traitorous.
To forget is impossible.
To move beyond
Is a better man.

To release,
But not relinquish
The man.
The better man does.

Home Is Where the Heart Is

My father-in-law arrived Monday at 4:00 p.m., the guest room was finished Sunday night at midnight. We cut it close, but we got it done - we always do. Why do I doubt my husband's abilities or mine, for that matter? The bigger question is: Why did we wait ten years to re-do this room?

The answer is multi-faceted.

1. Both my husband and I have been too busy with work to even think about the time involved for this room transformation.
2. Changing the room would mean changing our daughter's room. If we left it as it was we could pretend she hadn't grown up.
3. Our daughter wasn't ready to relinquish her hold on her childhood room.
4. Our daughter couldn't move her "stuff" across the country into her small New York City apartment, so we really needed to store all of her "stuff" for her.
5. I kept the door closed - out of sight, out of mind.
6. We never have that many visitors anyway, so we really didn't need a guest room.
7. We didn't have any other place to put all of her "stuff."
8. Her room has ALWAYS looked like this, we can't change it now.
9. We can't afford to re-do it.
10. We want our daughter to always feel like she has a home here.

All of these reasons are valid. But, the real reason is probably number 10. Fortunately, our daughter, and our son-in-law, know they always have a home here. No matter if the room has been repainted, the furniture re-arranged, or some of the books put away - where ever I am, there will be a home for my children.

The real home is not in the physical "stuff," but in my heart.

What About Bob?

Sometimes people are great, sometimes they're not, and sometimes they are idiots. There is a popular Country & Western song with a refrain - "God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy." That pretty much summed up my experience on Saturday night at the Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, Bob Dylan concert in my hometown.

I had not had the opportunity to see Bob Dylan before and I was so excited to finally have the chance. I've seen Led Zeppelin, James Taylor, The Rolling Stones, ZZ Topp and others, but Bob Dylan is a classic. Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp were the icing on the legend-of-rock-music cake.

The evening was beautiful for the outdoor venue - a college football stadium so large only one side was used. Sixteen-thousand tickets were sold for this fantastic musical extravaganza. An exception was even made for the normally "dry" venue to sell beer. And sell it they did - even at $7 a bottle. I have never seen so many obviously intoxicated people attempt stadium stairs in my life! The night was warm with a gentle breeze, there was an almost full moon and no mosquitoes. Willie Nelson brought the Texas crowd to its feet and John Mellencamp kept us there with his powerful rock standards.

By the time the headliner, Bob Dylan, the great Bob Dylan who was dubbed the poet laureate of Rock and Roll before 3/4 of the attendees were even born, (the remaining quarter of the attendees were oldsters - even I was on the young end of this percentage) took the stage it was late. Actually, it was only 9:30, but the music had begun at 5:30 and the crowd was mostly intoxicated. Not in a nice mellow, "I've got a good buzz on to enjoy the music" way, but in a rowdy, falling down, screaming way. The great Bob Dylan took the stage for a bunch of beer-soaked ingrates.

Dylan started off with three popular classics - "Maggie's Farm," "Lay, Lady, Lay," and "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again." The most incredible thing began to happen as Dylan was singing; people began leaving the stadium. Unbelievable. The next five songs were great Dylan songs, but not as well known and even more people were leaving. I was shocked. Who could walk out on Dylan? Apparently the imbeciles in my hometown.

I closed my eyes and listened to the voice, the arrangement, the music, the genius and tried to forget that all around me others were missing out on the greatness I was enjoying. And miss out they did. Those of us still left in the stands brought Bob back for an encore and he treated us to a cover of our very own hometown boy's "Not Fade Away." I couldn't help but think this was the same town that once shunned another musical genius -Buddy Holly. Buddy's song was followed up with "Like a Rolling Stone" and "All Along the Watchtower." Classic Dylan, classic rock.

All-in-all, a great evening of rock and roll; one that I will remember for the rest of my life. Those who left early will probably only remember a killer hangover or bruises from falling on the cement stadium steps or perhaps the remorse they will feel when someone tells them what a mistake they made by leaving early.

Thanks, Mr. Dylan, for a wonderful evening.

My Hero

Some people you are meant to have in your life. Call it Divine intervention, Karma, or a cosmic conundrum, but for reasons unknown to us, special people are placed on our path.

Yesterday Daughter #2 and I worked together to complete a health insurance application. My company is changing insurance carriers and our agent suggested it might be cheaper for her to have an individual policy. (I'm still wondering why no one told me this before.) Part of the horrid application asked, "Have you seen a doctor, a counselor, a therapist or been hospitalized or gone to the E.R. in the last 5 years? (Are you kidding me?) If so, please list date of your visit, your diagnosis, any medication prescribed, including dosage and if you were cured. They must be insane. Who remembers if, much less when, they saw a doctor five years ago for a cold or perhaps strep throat? After a lame attempt at answering and after our doctor's receptionist told us to be vague - that the insurance company would request records anyway, the next question was - "have you EVER (bolded) been admitted to the hospital or emergency room for anything other than what you have previously disclosed?"

Thank you insurance application for dragging up the worst time of my entire life! When Daughter #2 was three years old, what appeared to be a cold with a fever, that the pediatrician on call for our regular doctor told us to treat with children's Tylenol, turned out to be spinal meningitis. After a night spent administering Tylenol, tepid baths, praying and repeatedly calling the doctor on call, we met our doctor at his office at the crack of dawn. He, Dr. Glen Boris, took one look at her, did a spinal tap right there in his office and told us to go directly to the hospital emergency room (located right next door - he said we could get there quicker than calling an ambulance). One of the clear memories I have, in an otherwise blur of a day, is of my stoic husband breaking down in tears as we made our mad dash to the emergency room. At that moment I realized the severity of the situation and knew I, for the first time in our marriage, had to be the strong one and must save my breakdown for later. The emergency room was ready and waiting and Daughter #2 was immediately admitted into Pediatric ICU. That day was both the worst day and the best day of my life.

We were advised to call in our family, as our daughter was not going to make it through the day. My parents and my brother immediately boarded a plane in Houston (my sister was in another state and was frantic that she couldn't be with us). I have been told that almost everyone we knew converged on the hospital that day. I have little memory of anything other than my rough-and-tumble, very active (her nickname at that time, given to her by her great-grandmother, was H.T. - for Holy Terror) three year old lying comatose in a hospital bed with i.v.s and tubes and oxygen. The thought of losing my child was inconceivable. There are no words to convey the heartbreak, the despair.

By late afternoon our hero, Dr. Boris, met with us and I will never forget his words, "I feel that I can tell you now she is probably not going to die." He did go on to tell us that she would most likely be blind and/or deaf and/or have some brain damage as a result of the illness. Can you imagine being thrilled beyond belief to learn your child might be blind or deaf or brain damaged? I was! I didn't care about anything as long as I got to keep my daughter. If God would leave her with me I would celebrate any disability - what was that compared to losing her?

The next nine days were spent in Pediatric ICU and each day brought another miracle. Vision tests, hearing tests, showed no impairment. And on the day my aunt brought a complicated toy to the hospital and my daughter knew right away how to operate it - I knew there was no brain damage. Months later, Dr. Boris was still ordering tests and shaking his head in disbelief that she came through the ordeal unscathed.

So, he is our hero. He saved her life. He and the power of prayer. One day, long after our release from the hospital, I met a woman in the waiting room of my daughter's ballet class. We struck up a casual conversation and somehow ended up discussing my daughter's illness. She brightened and said, "Oh, that's the little girl my Sunday school class has been praying for." I gradually learned that strangers from near and far had prayed for her recovery. If I had ever doubted the power of prayer, or miracles - I don't anymore.

The awful insurance application brought this all to the surface yesterday. We finally completed it, submitted it, and are now awaiting "approval". About two hours later I went to my neighborhood market to pick up something for dinner and who should I run into? Dr. Glen Boris. He still refuses to call me by my first name, opting instead to call me Mrs. ____, and he still gets a teary twinkle in his eyes when he asks how my girls are.

Some people you are meant to have in your life.

My Daughter's Books

The bedroom project is actually advancing - we have paint! The ceiling and walls are done and it looks great! The current snag is the trim. Apparently the metallic silver paint (that seemed like a really cool idea when my daughter was thirteen) is some sort of mutant paint that is not compatible with the paint my husband has selected for the trim and it will require a haz-mat team or some other special treatment before it can be painted over.

Dismantling my daughter's room for this paint job has been interesting. So many fond memories of her childhood, adolescent and teen years have come rushing at me every time I've gone in her room (to check the progress of the painting).

She was three years old when we moved into this house - a very precocious three! She had to have a "princess bed" (a canopy), space for all of her stuffed animals and dolls - all with their unique names and personalities (Santa-baby still has a place in her room and in our hearts), and she had to have a shelf for her books. We found a large, very sturdy, wooden bookcase at a garage sale, hauled it home, and painted it Kelly Green to go with the primary color decor of her childhood room. That case has undergone more transformations than Joan Rivers, including one yesterday. It is freshly painted to match the, hopefully soon to be applied, trim color.

My daughter has been a bibliophile since, since when - probably birth. As an infant she was colicky. I soon discovered if I read aloud to her from whatever I was reading at the time she would stop crying and listen. Fortunately, her taste in authors was not influenced by my reading material which was probably Danielle Steel or Stephen King at that time.

When we moved into this house she already had an extensive collection of books: Pat the Bunny, Farmer Grover, Goodnight Moon, Chicken Soup with Rice, and every Golden Book in print come to mind. Books from a children's book club soon began arriving every month. Classics such as Caps for Sale, Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel, and The Snowy Day. We also made weekly excursions to the downtown public library for Miss Jane Stuart's children's programs, after which we loaded our "library book bag" with as many books as it would hold - and it was a big bag.

Many an afternoon I ignored housework (my excuses go way back) and read aloud to my daughter for hours. She always wanted "just one more." When I had to stop to fix dinner or to start a load of laundry she would read to me. At first just pretending to read, but soon actually reading.

Our bedtime ritual took hours. Once she was in bed (her princess bed), my husband and I took turns reading her bedtime stories. We each read her two books every night. This was okay when the books were short, but she quickly moved to longer books and the bedtime reading went on forever. We soon moved on to chapter books and limited ourselves to one chapter a night (unless I was too engrossed and would make an exception - which happened more often than not). Water-Babies, The Secret Garden, Anne of Green Gables - all seven in the series, The Chronicles of Narnia - all seven in the series - all read aloud - spanned her childhood. The greatest compliment I have received in my life came from my daughter just a few years ago when she told me that when she reads it is my voice she hears.

The books on her shelf changed and she preferred reading to herself. Many nights I had to make her put away a book and turn off the light. She devoured the entire Nancy Drew series. She won her school's Accelerated Reading Program every year. And the books just kept coming. Birthdays, Christmas, vacation trips - there were always books she had to have. She filled that original book case and we made room for another.

All of this recollecting brings me to the current room painting project. The books, the books that have replaced Nancy Drew and Anne Shirley. The books purchased at college and in Spain and in New York and in Mexico. The books given to her by professors and friends. The books we have purchased together at estate sales and auctions and book stores all over the country. The books she cherishes are in residence in her childhood room because her New York apartment is too small to house them. So, we have carefully moved them out so my husband can paint the room and I will carefully move them back when he is finished. I will store them until the day she has a proper home for them. It is the least I can do for a child who hears my voice in her books.

A Simple Project?

I am finally getting Daughter #1's room ready for guests to use. This is happening, not because I was ready (or had the time) to tackle the job, but because my father-in-law is coming to visit next week. While I was out of town this weekend my husband decided he would surprise me and paint the room. I arrived home Sunday night to find large pieces of bedroom furniture in my living room, books lining the hallway and every available surface in my home, c.d. racks in my bedroom, a trunk by the den door (which husband forgot about and ran smack into on Monday morning), and not a drop of fresh paint anywhere in sight.

I can certainly sympathize with his plight. He is experiencing my cleaning nightmare. A seemingly simple project turns into the twelve labors of Hercules. Innocently, he thought painting one bedroom would be an easy job. I bet it happened something like this:

• He decided a fresh coat of paint would make the room look nicer for his father's visit.
• He went to the paint or hardware store, looked at paint chips, and chose a nice neutral wall color, stocked up on brushes, rollers, trays and drop cloths.
• He came home, thinking he'd be finished by the time I arrived on Sunday night.
• He goes into the room to remove the 1980's grunge-rock, classic rock and Texas alt-country posters from the walls and ceiling. Goodbye Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins (you will be missed Billy Corgan). You're out of here - John, Paul, George and Ringo. You too, Jimmy Hendrix and Bob Dylan. Hate to see you go Rhett Miller. Removing the posters becomes a painstaking process because he has made a solemn vow not to damage anything, to roll them all into poster tubes and save them. Why? Because she is my daughter, need I say more?
• Once the posters are down there is much more wall and ceiling damage than he anticipated. The mirrored disco ball he removed has left a hole that now must be repaired.
• Then there is the matter of the padded wall. In 1984 I covered one wall with quilt batting and a beautiful fabric (at least it was beautiful in 1984). If he's going to paint the room he may as well get rid of this and paint the entire room.
• As he pulls the fabric off of the wall he realizes I installed it using industrial-strength staples from a staple gun - lots and lots of staples, thousands of staples. He spends hours with a screwdriver removing staples out of the wall.
• Then he notices something on the ceiling he hadn't seen when the posters were covering it. The entire ceiling is covered in miniature glow-in-the-dark stars, planets, comets, suns and moons. The adhesive has only grown stronger over twenty-five years and each one must be scraped off with a razor blade.
• Now the window treatment, balloon shades made from the same fabric that was hours ago covering one wall, must come down. They are attached to a massive cornice apparatus that has been bolted to the window by professional installers.
• A search for the right screwdriver ensues and the eight-foot, bulky (heavy) shade comes down revealing mini-blinds that must also be removed.
• Now the furniture must be moved. For a small room there is an inordinate amount of massive furniture and every surface is covered with books. There are also several bookcases full of books - these are not cheap paperbacks, these are scholarly "tomes" (heavy).
• The books must be moved (carefully, as these are the prized possessions of my well-read, intellectual child) before the furniture will budge. Ergo books covering every surface in the rest of the house when I arrived home on Sunday night.
• Books moved, he can now move furniture. Daughter #2 is enlisted to assist. What they can carry is distributed through out the rest of the house. What they can't move (this is all massive mission-style, heavy wood stuff) is scooted to the middle of the room awaiting shrouds of drop cloths.
• Once everything is moved away from the walls he notices the baseboards and all of the wood trim around the windows, closet and doors has been painted metallic silver. (This was a Junior High era decorating choice.) This must be repainted as well.
• Sanding, Spackle (lots of Spackle), more sanding brings us to today.

It is Tuesday. The quick, weekend project is scheduled to begin today. I'll keep you posted!

Enchanted

I just returned from the second annual college sorority reunion. It was great fun and a huge success. Following last year's first annual college sorority reunion I was afraid the novelty would have worn off and it wouldn't be as much fun - but my fears were unfounded.

If this weekend's reunion were ever to be made into a movie - a special effects director would have their work cut out for them shooting the arrival scenes. As each woman parked and made her way towards the lake house we rented for the occasion, the rest of us watched as she "morphed" from a fifty- something stranger to a familiar eighteen year old coed. It was as if the ground around our cabin was enchanted. Sadly, the special effects wore off once we left.

One of my favorite classic movies, The Enchanted Cottage, from 1945, starring Dorothy McGuire as a homely woman and Robert Young as a physically war-scarred G.I. has them transformed, once they are in the enchanted cottage, to a beautiful young couple in love. Perhaps that is the same effect our lake cabin had on us. Regardless of our thirty year separation, we were all close friends during our college years. Does love enable us to look past our physical selves and see the beautiful people we are inside?

I am so proud to be a part of this special group - wonderful and accomplished women. Among our group we have an attorney, a doctor, several business owners, a diamond broker, a jewelry mogul, a CPA, an aviation company owner, two cattle ranchers, a free-spirit artist, a probation officer, a home builder/developer, educators, and mothers who have raised phenomenal children (and some who still are - several women had surprisingly young children).

Who could have/would have guessed that we - those fun-loving sorority sisters from the 1970's would have turned out so well? To quote one of the most successful business women at the reunion (my sorority little sister, who flunked out and whose Daddy made her come home because of her propensity for partying), "You didn't make a mistake when you brought me into the sorority, I was just a late bloomer."

We all (almost all, not our doctor) struggled with grades and enjoyed the parties perhaps a bit too much. (Our college had the distinction of being the #1 party school in the nation my freshman year!) But we survived it, and look at us now!

On my six hour return drive I had time to replay the events of the weekend. We laughed so much I am actually sore, we cried, we slept very little, we ate, we drank, we congratulated each other's successes, we sympathized with each other's failure, we marvelled at each others lives since our college years. I am so honored and so proud to be a part of this group of strong, dynamic, empowered women. I am also inspired by them. Inspired to become a better woman, knowing I can - knowing that I took (we all took) a piece of the enchantment home with us this weekend.