Lady's Night!

I love how a different side of a mother's personality comes out when her children aren't around. It isn't a better side but it's a different side. When a mom can talk freely without worrying that little ears will repeat whatever it is she just said to the wrong person at the wrong time (and I don't mean gossip...I mean, the girly talk that is meant to be share with...well, girls, don't ya know). Or how goofy a mom can get in front of other ladies because she knows the mom sitting next to her isn't going to build off of her goofiness and become out-of-control in the goofiness dept. (like kiddos are so good at doing).

For about 6 weeks now we've been having a lady's night on Monday nights organized by Gina.

Everybody say hi to Gina…

Gina (as well as her husband) are really laid back kind of folk. The kind that anybody can hang out with at any time (I love this about them!). I think I owe them like 13 suppers or something since they've had us over numerous times during our "moving" phase (hey, maybe we'll get a few more suppers out of them with our new move scheduled next week!) The first time we finally invited them over for supper at our house was last minutes so that she already had pizza in the oven. And being the nice/laid-back people that they are they invited us over to their house for supper (Note to self: If in dire need of a great supper cooked by someone else invite Gina & fam over around supper time).

I did steal that "note to self" idea from someone's blog...don't remember who's.

So anyway, Gina has been wonderful to put the time and effort into organizing this Monday night event. Although she does get help from Jenny.

Everybody say hi to Jenny…

I don't know about you but it makes me quite sick how photogenic these ladies are. I wondered how the whole "hey Gina, smile!" or "hey Jenny, smile!" thing was going to go. But what do you know, they both looked at me and smiled (I never do this if someone points a camera in my direction. If I ever change my mind and try it you'll soon figure out why I don't. Pure vanity.) So these two girls organize something for us each week so that we ladies can have a few hours "away from it all". It's a wonderful way to end a Monday evening. This week we made Chai tea mixture stuff (that goes in tea, although I don't know what flavor of tea...today I put the Chai mixture into Chai tea and it was good so I may just stick with that!). We also decorated our Chai mixture cans with Jenny and Gina's gazilion creative memories supplies. It sure does pay having friends with cool stuff (and making them feel extra special about their cool stuff so that they'll continue to share their cool stuff). Here's a picture of the gang from last night contentedly working on their chai cans....

Since many of us women just moved over here there are a lot of us ladies who don't know each other well. This is a great opportunity for all of us to get to know one another (and leave the munchkins with the men. ha!).

Last night was my night to bring snacks. I over did myself by making two types of pop-corn. Garlic and Clumpy-Peanut-Butter were the flavors. I, of course, didn't each much of the clumpy-peanut-butter because it has processed sugar and I'm doing pretty well on my whole diet change. I mean, I'm onto day 2 already and feelin' great... I was feeling a little insecure about my clumpy-peanut-butter pop-corn 'til Gina sensed my insecurity, I'm sure, and spent half of the night reassuring me by eating my clumpy-peanut-butter popcorn. Thanks, Gina!

And yes, she did know I was about to take her picture. She had no problem stuffing her mouth while I stood there with a camera in her face. What a woman. Although, I guess she was already aware of her ability to stuff her face with grace while getting her picture taken, otherwise she may not have done so (that's my assumption, anyway).

So we spent a lot of last night talking, joking, praying and decorating our cans. Gina was feeling especially creative last night when she decorated her tub....

Did you happen to notice the huge clump of peanut-butter popcorn in the bowl next to the incredibly creative tub of chai mix? Yep, they both belong to Gina. Hey, you'd be even more impressed with her decorative tub if you saw her first attempt. She let Jenny get a little too close and Jenny is the kind of friend who has real depth to her...the kind of friend who is not going to let you take home a halfway pitiful looking chai-mixture-tub from our lady's night...and so Jenny ever so quickly stripped Gina's tub, leaving it bare once again. But we all see that practicing tough love pays off as Gina's tub (decorated with a flower ribbon and dragon-fly stickers) ended up being a one of a kind tub. Way to go Jenny.

I was having a hard time being creative myself. It just wasn't coming. I have to say the end result for me was just fine, though. The ribbon up top is still annoying me as it is crooked and doesn't really match the rest of the can but maybe I'll fix it the next time Jenny and Gina bring out all of their cool creative memories stuff to share with us.

This is turning into quite a lengthy post! I guess I better wrap it up. Oh yeah, the whole reason I began this post about the mom-goofiness thing was because the ladies (starting with Gina) were calling me Cogumelo all night (mushroom). I have to admit I tried really hard to find the humor in this and wondered if these ladies need more ladies nights to "get away from it all". Poor, sheltered ladies. Then at the end (or was it when I looked at the pictures on my camera?) I noticed that this is was what Gina was taking a picture of (yes, that is my back. Is it just me or does it look a bit thinner after two days of hardly any sugar?)

If you aren't finding the humor in this then perhaps you need to spend a majority of your time with little children and then "get away from it all" by spending a Monday night with us! I found this rather hilarious (and I have a feeling many of the children who weren't there would have enjoyed it as well).

I love goofy ladies....

PS. And we do have a serious time as well on Monday nights where somebody shares and we can pray. Last night it was Jenny who challenged us in the contentment department!

PPS. I have no idea why the text is all messed up in this post. I can't figure out how to fix it without writing it all over again...