This One's For the Girls!

Here they are! Meet them and love them -- the amazing women in my life!

There's Mary, my auntie, my Godmother, my friend, with whom I chat and laugh and scrap. And Jeanne, my younger auntie, who I stayed with in San Francisco so many high school weekends, who gave me freedom and trust to run all around the city.

I wouldn't be the same without my sisters: Amy, smart and beautiful; Erika, ambitious and resourceful; Brigit, big-hearted.

Mo's been my bestie since kindergarten. I still remember her peeking out at me from behind her mom's legs on the first day of school. Mo and me, we've played socccer and survived Catholic school, and when we get together like we did last month at the American River to catch minnows and tadpoles with our babies, it's like no time has passed at all.

Andrea made it through St. Joseph's with us. She had the whole collection of Strawberry Shortcake dolls, and she didn't get mad when I took them swimming the summer of second grade and they lost all their smells.

Lisa W. had a knack for making papier mache. She zipped Kristen, our deep and wise gal pal, and me all over in her brown Toyota. And Lisa A. had an infectious giggle and superhuman algebra ability.

Wendi was Dave's friend first. They lived in the same neighborhood, and Wendi got her first speeding ticket with him in the passenger seat. Twenty years after long, lazy summers of lifeguarding, Wendi and I have kids 10 days apart, and we live 12 minutes from each other.

In college, Stephanie lived on the other side of my wall. We both ended up teaching middle school.

Karlee, from the college days, is a part of my every day. She is one of the kindest, hardest-working people I know.

Then there are the writers: Christy, Julie, and Anjie: insightful and bright, and right more often than not.

And Daney, who I haven't known a long, long time, but who I've known the very best: my daughter, who I'll have a rich, deep love with forever and ever.

And many, many more sharp and talented women: Maddy and Miah, my nieces; my cousin, Heidi; Genny; Aunt Nancy; Polly, Linda, and Leslie. Kim and Amy. Daney's bestie, Gracia, and Gracia's mom, Becky. Dominic and Rees' friends' mamas. Holly Root, agent extraordinaire! And all you super cyber-women.

I'm a lucky, lucky, lucky girl.

Getting Published in Elkton

If paper scraps (or M&Ms) are flying, and fingers are sticky with glue (or Jelly Bellies), it has to be Stamp Camp.

For my second scrap-booking adventure in three (quick) years, I packed up my pictures, albums, and two of my best girls--ten year-old, Daney, and Auntie Jeannie--and we headed north on I-5 to a tiny agricultural town called Elkton.

Elkton has some of the mossiest pines, the cleanest air, and the most talented scrap-bookers in the west. My aunt, Mary, is one of the best of the best. And let me tell you, she can race a person across a gym like nobody's business.

Mary and her friends gather where the best punch-outs and dye-cuts are: in Elkton, in Portland, or even in Japan. They have sleek scrap-booking luggage with complicated tools inside, and some serious paper magic happens when these girls snip and slice and emboss and bling.

So it took me three hours to put together a page of Lego Land that turned out to be maybe a C-. These girls aren't there to judge.

They're there to talk about past conference and future conferences, and whether it will be a bumper-crop year for blueberries. They come to get in a good giggle, and to oogle over each other's door prizes, and to stuff themselves silly with Red Ropes. Oh, and they come to preserve a family memory or two.

Who wouldn't want an invitation to all that?