Category Archives: friends

Facebook is great, but face-to-face is better

Tillamook CheeseLast night, my husband and I invited some friends over for a “wine-and-cheese party.”  We had Tillamook Cheese we wanted to share with our friends that we brought back from our recent trip to Oregon, and we figured what goes better with cheese than wine?

My husband and I happen to really love hosting get-togethers at our house, but we haven’t done it much in the last few years. We just felt like our house was too small to adequately host friends. The house we rented prior to the one we are in now was PERFECT for parties, but it was a little ways out of town and hard to get people to come out to visit. We moved into town, but downsized dramatically. We felt like our party hosting fun was still on hold until we moved again.

Boy were we wrong!

So what if we had to haul my desk chair from the office in and another chair up from basement?

So what if we didn’t have room on the table for plates, so we all just picked out our choice of finger foods with our fingers?

So what if there was a line to our one bathroom at one point?

323: Rhythm in WineIt didn’t diminish the wonderful evening that we had one bit. We put together a spread of cheese, veggies, fruit, bread, sausage, etc. We had Merlot, Moscato, Rosé, sparkling red, vodka, beer, Irish whisky, and water.

We had conversations.

In person.

Face-to-face conversations. We told stories, laughed (a lot), high fived over the table, and bounced ideas and thoughts off one another. No one was on Facebook. No one was on Twitter. We were all there, in that moment, together, enjoying each other’s company.

It was amazing.

When the party broke up, we all agreed that THIS was what it was all about. Friends getting together and catching up. And we vowed to do it again. We vowed to do it more often.

When our friends left, my husband and I looked at each other with big grins. I told my husband, “This just proved no house it too small when your heart is this full.”

 

Like I’ve known them 20 years…

Wine and a flowerLast night, we had our inaugural Road Widows meet-up in Nashville. There was only three of us this time (which I can understand given being the first one) but it was still simply amazing.

I left dinner feeling like I’d just hung out with women I’ve known for 20 years… when in reality I had only just met one of them and the other only once prior (outside of Twitter, that is.)

It was amazing to sit and talk with women living the same lifestyle you are. Women who GET missing your husband, but who also totally understand that speck of truth in the joke, “Isn’t it time for you to go back on the road yet?”

And yet… because all our husbands work for different artists, we also all have different experiences. I left with a deeper knowledge of things others go through. I hope that maybe (maybe) I gave a little insight on things we’ve been through as well.

In the same breath, both of the other women have children… something my husband and I don’t have yet. I listened with interest as they talked about things they’ve been through as, essentially, single mothers while their husbands are on the road.

I loved finding so many things in common and found myself wanting to high-five over the table when we’d hit on something so random and something anyone else would consider “silly” that we all agreed upon. I loved that no topic whatsoever was off-limits. The candid nature we could talk just filled my soul with something I didn’t even know I needed.

I can’t wait until the next meet-up. Perhaps more will come and maybe they too will leave with a new confidence and comfort… whether they know they needed it or not.