Twenty Five Random Things About Susan... According to Me.

1. She was raised with a younger brother, at least one big dog, several cats and a couple hundred stuffed animals as the only daughter in a military family living most of her formative years in San Diego.

2. Since her mother was more glamorous than all of the navy wives in San Diego combined and had a cosmetic kit the size of an aircraft carrier, we were the recipients of drop dead blow you away make up applications for almost every school dance.

3. I would spend the night at her house only after she promised to keep her big dog from sniffing me and after I promised not to touch her feet with my feet. She was the only one of my friends that had her own gigantic bed in her own room.

4. I always touched her feet with my feet anyway -- never understanding why she didn’t like it -- while simultaneously enjoying the reaction I got.

5. Her dad made up nicknames for everyone in her family and for me and talked in a very funny sort of cross between baby and southern accent voice. She likewise has made up multiple nicknames for everyone in her family.

6. She would regularly go to the beauty salon on base to have her hair cut and styled. One time she arrived home with a circular shaped burn on her forehead caused by the stylist’s curling iron. I told her it looked like a hickey.

7. Her taste in men significantly improved after high school graduation.

8. She’d rather fight a rabid mountain lion with one bare hand tied behind her back than carry a pan of liquid Jello to the refrigerator for setting.

9. She told me positively she would not stop having children until there were the five she knew she was supposed to have -- ultimately having to positively revise that plan twice more.

10. Her husband did not jump off the Coronado Bridge after the aforementioned revisions.

11. Her kid’s dentist doesn’t know she takes them to Krispy Kremes after their annual teeth cleaning appointments.

12. He mother doesn’t know she buys mascara from the clearance bin at Wal-Mart.

13. She’s not flashy, but she has been known to.

14. In her old house the microwave was in the laundry room.

15. She cooks on an antique stove everyday.

16. Her brother makes her laugh the hardest.

17. She hates it when someone thinks they know something about her family she doesn’t.

18. Kidding about #12 – REALLY!

19. She had one really bad lapse in judgment in the men department when she dated Tom Cruise’s bodyguard.

20. If she had actually been pregnant every time she thought she might be pregnant she’d have at least a dozen more kids.

21. She is one of those rare people that actually learn from their mistakes.

22. She married a fantastic guy whose only fault is that he can never decide which video to rent.

23. Her kids actually ate the candy she hid in the toilet tank for them.

24. She and I kissed the same guy on the same day on the same couch within the same hour.

25. Her kids don’t know near the stuff about her that I know.

Something you should know about Brenda.

There is something you should know about Brenda. I remember when I first mentioned that I had a blog. I knew before I brought the subject up there was a real good chance that, in no time, she would become an expert at blogging. She would study, research and perfect the art of the blog and anything that had to do with it. I was OK with that. I had kept it to myself long enough to where I was ready to be "wowed" one more time by my friend. You've got to understand, my friend Brenda has this knack of going from clueless to expert in anything she takes on. It is an amazing process to watch unfold really. She talks to people about the subject and then does research just to wet her appetite. Then before you know it she is taking classes and not too long after, teaching the classes and somehow eventually she has someone paying her good money to share with them what she knows. She is not really particular about what it is either. Anything from human psychology,organizing, genealogy, scrapbooking, gospel doctrine teaching,"I'll get the best deal in town, on anything in town" product consumer, medical decoding, food storage, emergency preparation, computer software adviser, computer wiz, community action force initiator,"in your face unsatisfied customer" letter writer (results guaranteed),Christmas ornaments "why didn't I think of that" creator, interior decorating, "make it yourself- make it amazing" gift designer, "wield your own power tools", demolition & construction contractor,gardener,floor and tile layer,digital design goddess,financial planning expert, make you own photography studio and (build your own equipment for the studio)..and be the photographer person.and how could I forget! Super Shehero seamstress! Amazing... really amazing. I honestly could go on and on. But you've got to know I love these wonderful things about her. IT makes her so interesting to talk to, be around and learn from. But the best thing I love about her is the gift she has to make me feel important, loved and needed. I know I'm, by far, not the only friend she makes feel this way. So go ahead and add dedicated, loyal, sweet, cherished friend to the list. That will have to do for now, don't worry there will be more to add soon -like tomorrow when she comes up with something new she's interested in...

Happy Birthday BFF!

For Good

I changed the words a bit to better fit my feelings.

I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I do know that I believe that's true
And I know I'm who I am today
Because I know you...

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
I can say I've been changed for the better
because I know you
I have been changed for good


It well may be
That we will never meet again (because who knows when we'll get together)
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend...

Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
I can say I've been changed for the better
because I know you


Because I know you


I have been changed for good


And just to clear the air
I ask forgiveness
For the things I've done you blame me for


But then, I guess we know
There's blame to share


And none of it seems to matter anymore


Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood


Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a bird in the wood


I can say I've been
Changed for the better
I do believe I have been
Changed for the better


And because I know you...


Because I know you...


Because I know you...
I have been changed for good...

Keeping in touch over the years...

Susan gave me a quilt she made from two twin sheets with batting in the center, tied with green yarn right before I left for college in 1980. We were supposed to be leaving together as roommates, but for some reason she wasn't going. I can't quite remember if she was going to work for a year or if she'd already fallen in love with Berry. We kept in touch that year with an occasional phone call which was expensive and some letters.

After one year at Ricks College I returned to San Diego to a BFF making plans to wed. I stayed with her family for part of that fall semester since my parents had moved to Illinois and then enrolled at BYU. Although I was happy for her wedded bliss, I knew I had to move over and let her husband have more of her time and attention. A note she gave me assured that I would always be very important to her.

Several years later in 1983 while living in Provo, Utah I received my mission call to Italy. She was very happy for me and promised to write often. A month before leaving I returned to my parents home and received a telephone call that she had given birth to a daughter, Kamden McKay. It was hard for me to imagine having a child, I was certainly not mature enough.

During my eighteen months away we corresponded through letters and postcards. She was a faithful and consistent writer. There were times I wished to trade her life for mine when the mission experience was hard and her life seemed so much more fulfilling and fun. I telephoned her when I returned to the states.

Shortly after returning home I went back to San Diego and once again reunited with my long lost friend. A year later I married Tim and moved into a house one block away from her. By this time she was pregnant with her second child. That summer if we didn't see each other everyday we spoke on the phone.

In December 1987 Tim and I moved to Rexburg, Idaho leaving my only bestest friend back in San Diego. That was a painful move. I tear up now thinking about it. Our summer of gardening and laughing had come to an end and I was leaving San Diego... again. We continued to write letters and call, although phone calls were still not affordable in the quantity we would have liked.

Sometime over the next ten years keeping in touch with Susan got exponentially easier. We started to earn more money, making trips back to San Diego as often as we could. In 1991 we met in Utah for a Womens Conference and the next year after moving to Washington, she came for a visit with her baby #4. On my 40th birthday, Tim sent her a plane ticket for a surprise visit to Washington. We laughed and painted walls and visited IKEA. Her crackly painted cupboard doors remind me everyday that friendship doesn't care how far apart you actually live.

Email and Instant messaging is a fabulous invention helping us keep in touch. So are cell phones and unlimited long distance minutes. Yesterday after downloading Google Video Chat we sat and looked at each other across the miles laughing while our kids -- mostly my kids -- made funny faces into the web cam. I showed her my Christmas projects and looked at her closet without a door.

She always makes me laugh and technology has allowed me to get my friend fix so much quicker and easier. Yeah for progress. It has been literally years since I wrote her an actual letter.

The Garden.

You need to know Britt and I had a garden together.

It was on my father in laws property kind of in the back yard, actually in a side yard that used to have a bunch of junk in it. I remember cleaning it out I don't remember exactly, but I bet Brenda and I did it together so we could have a garden. It took some doing, but it looked good when it was finished. Her area was on the left and mine was on the right. I think Tim made Britt a couple large wooden planters to grow her plants in and I just used the ground. If I could go back in time, I would like to relive this time with Brenda again. We loved our garden. We planted it together, watered it together and visited it everyday. In the early days after we had first planted the seeds, when there wasn't anything but dirt to see, - we'd visit our dirt. Our husbands would wonder what in the world we were looking at out there? Truth be told, there wasn't anything to see but we loved thinking about what we had done together and anticipating what was coming. Besides, the garden gave us an excuse to hang out together for a little while everyday. Our garden was pretty successful we grew tomatoes, beans, lettuce, broccoli , cucumbers, corn, onions, carrots, zucchini and strawberries. Oh and our friendship. In fact, to this day we still love thinking about what we've done together and anticipate what's ahead.

Thanks for growing a garden with me friend. ILY4it.

My BFF let me pretend her baby was mine...

Within a month of my marriage my BFF had her second baby named Westonhead -- Weston for short. He was the most adorable roly-poly happy baby I'd ever seen. He was either smiling or drooling.

My BFF let me take him places like Costco or Ralphs. People would always ohh and ahh at him and true confession I never corrected them when they asked me how old MY baby was. I'd just smile and take all the credit for such a well mannered child. Weston always played along because he liked going places with me.

Once we took him out to dinner at Carlos Murphy's. (It was a free dinner courtesy of the restaurant management because on a prior night while dining with our friends Tom and Cris, there was a bachelorette party complete with a sleazy take off all your clothes down to a marble bag stripper. ) I wrote a letter to the manager and complained about the adult entertainment at a family restaurant and we got a free dinner.

Weston came with us that night and he made the most humongous mess with saltine crackers I'd ever seen. We had to leave a very large tip to cover the clean up.

Sometimes he just came down to our house which was a block away from his house so that we could watch him play with his feet and coo. Cheap entertainment.

No-one ever told Weston he was claimed by two moms (which he might have needed therapy for) and we enjoyed the best of both worlds with that baby -- All the fun and none of the work. Thanks BFF!