friendship | Crossroads of the Heart

“I’d start walking your way. You’d start walking mine. We’d meet in the middle. Underneath that old Georgia pine. We’d gain a lot of ground cause we’d both give a little. And there ain’t no road too long when you meet in the middle.” ~Diamond Rio

This past Saturday, a group of women met in the middle.

The middle is a calm place, but includes chatter.

It’s in-between our houses, but we bring a lot of our homes with us.

It exists in the middle of the restaurant, but we really sit in the middle of our lives sharing the middle of our hearts.

It was the quasi-annual(?) Blogger Meetup; only the second one we’ve ever held. (The third is scheduled for August 17th and I’m sure a fourth will be in the works soon after.)

There were six of us who attended and a few we carried with us. We picked up right where we left off the last time sharing stories, words of wisdom and lessons learned. My 27th birthday is in a couple of months and I can’t help but view this year as a turning of the page for me. All my childhood visions of bells, white picket fences and little ones running around now seem much different from just a twinkle in the eye. They are real and tangible and things that could probably happen in the next five years or so not just something that might happen “one day.”

It’s scary and weird and strangely exciting, but these women all make me so much more calm and eager to embrace this part of womanhood and life. I learn more from them each time I’m around them and I’m so grateful that we all originally connected in the middle of the internet.

Here are some updates on everyone

Melanie from Now a Queen who taught me about instagram last time (I’m now on it.. find me… crossroadsheart !) is pregnant with her second child She looked so cute with her little bump and her attire of spring colors. I definitely hope I can rock the bump like her some day.
Krystle from Life Revolves Around Them taught me about SOLs. It took a couple of times of her using this acronym for me to realize that she was, in fact, not actually saying Shii out of Luck lol. Instead, it stands for Standards of Learning, which are required tests for Virginia students. Her kids are going through them now and I was impressed by Krystle’s grace and confidence when dealing with her children’s (ahem) “thoughts” on the assessments.
Abbey from Makings of a Mess (who yay I got to talk to more this time!) told a hilarious tale of grocery stores and patterns in her life. Trust me, it was hilarious. It reminded me to stay observant of obscure repeatable things because they will most likely make people laugh
Mia from Chronicles of Chaos looked fabulous and, as always, was cool, calm and collected despite playing mom to two young boys and dealing with her husband’s crazy work schedule. I hope I can juggle it all like you one day, girl
Gayle from A Gayle Force joined us for this meet up for the first time but she met most of us before! Her and I went on a blogging date a couple of months ago and I got to hear all about her boyfriend E and pretty much her entire life haha. She reminds me of my sister in that it is super cool to still love the obsessions from our youth (including Hanson.) She also looked adorable in polka dots

And now on to pictures! Which one was taken by a self timer??!

Krystle, Melanie, Mia

Me & Gayle!

Abbey & Gayle!

Me, Mia, Gayle, Krystle, Melanie, Abbey

Same as above… but different…

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April, with its upswing in temperature and bright sunny days, has brought many different perspectives to me. Most importantly, its delivered a host of realizations of so many little things that I’m grateful for in my life including:

1. Waking up to the birds chirping – I love this time of year when the sun oddly rises between 6 and 6:30 and the birds chirp me awake. I get such a warm fuzzy feeling waking up to nature.

2. Miracles… literally – I am going to write a post in more detail about this, but my grandfather somehow survived a diabetic coma last week. The doctors said that the only other time they’ve witnessed a person come back from the severe vital signs my grandfather experienced was a guy in his 20′s. For me, spirituality has always been something I wanted to have more of in my life and witnessing this miracle gave me a renewed sense of hope and belief in a higher purpose.

3. Humor & Friendship – My friend Kelly and I started a comedy class this week! It’s deathly terrifying but also a lot of fun. I’m starting to learn how to put myself out there and tackle scary situations. The class has also been somewhat challenging because some comedy “games” can be easy for you and others can be much harder to tackle. The class is also bringing Kelly and I closer together!

4. My dog’s temper – I adopted a jack russell terrier mix 7 months ago. She was most likely abused in her former home and is somewhat terrified around other people. She is usually very needy and requires a lot of attention. Lately, however, she’s been acting like a real dog!! Sleeping in, playing on her own and even acting more confident around people. I’m so excited for her

5. Being myself – When I was 21, I think I thought the “growing up” ages were over. I couldn’t have been further from the truth. I’ve learned more about myself in the past 6 years than I ever thought possible. I’m so grateful for knowing who I truly am (the good and the bad!) and being able to accept feedback/criticism from a positive place. I feel so much more confident knowing that wanting to be better each day already makes me good enough.

*What are you grateful for in April?