How We Know Each Other: Ashley, Jennifer, and Angela

Inspired by Meghan, I've decided to share how I am friends with Angela and Jennifer.  First of all, I love the fact that because of Meghan, not ALL of my friends are current or previous co-workers.  It makes me feel a little more social even though the people in high school, much like work, are those that you have to be around.  I'm glad I was able to find friends in both places that made it a little more tolerable.

I became friends with Jennifer first.  She started working with me soon after I had my first son, so I'd say it's been over 6 years that we've been friends.  In between providing stellar customer service, we've been through buying houses, Jennifer's engagement and wedding, and three more babies between us since then. We get along so well because we balance each other out (my best example is that I'm kind of loud and she's kind of not loud).  She is fantastic to be around, which is one of the main reasons why we are still friends even though I'm STILL at the same job and she's since moved on (twice!) to different positions.   People at my job come and go all the time but there are precious few that I choose to make an effort to keep in contact with.

My friendship with Angela also started at work.  We've technically worked together for 7 years but didn't make a mark on each other's radar until about two years ago.  Then, it was like "Where have you been forever?"  I think of Angela as my Mommy Mentor because she knows everything about everything.  She helps everyone with everything and doesn't know how to sit down and relax.  She can handle a ridiculous amount of children at one time and she is a bit of a baby whisperer.  She has the patience of a saint and I marvel at everything she does in a day.   We now plan our children's birthday parties around each other and are comfortable with each other's children and houses that it's almost like dealing with our own children at our own house.  Our families get along so all of us (11 in total) can get together and have fun. When one of us throws a party, both of us throw a party.  She's a great sounding board especially since the solutions to my problems are typically "Duh, Ashley" answers.  She's my voice of reason and I'm the devil on her shoulder FORCING her to do things for herself every now and then.  I even yell at her husband for her and she does the same for me.

I'm so thankful not only that I have the best friends a girl could ask for, but that they all get along with each other too.  I can't wait for our friendships to strengthen and grow through craftiness.

-Ashley

How We Know Each Other: Ashley & Meghan

I thought it'd be fun for us to do some posts about how everyone in our little group knows each other, and since I have known Ashley the longest I figured I would start with her:

Ashley and I met in junior high when I was in 7th grade and she was in 8th grade.  We were both in the orchestra together (violins all the way, baby!) so we spent the rest of our junior high/high school careers having our 4th/5th hour schedule being the same, as that was always the orchestra/lunch block.  While my memories of this time are fuzzy, I do remember that we always got along, but we never really hung out together outside of orchestra functions.  (She WAS a whole grade older than me though!)

We reconnected through Facebook on July 9, 2009 (at 9:27 pm.....thank you, FB timeline).  We were both still living in the Blo-No area.  I was a newlywed, whereas Ashley had been married and was already the mother of 2 little boys.  2010 was really the year we bonded, as we both were pregnant, and due within days of each other (although Ashley had to show me up by birthing Lucia early!)  As luck would have it, we both had little girls, and our friendship was officially sealed.  Carley and Lucia have been having playdates since they were about 2 weeks old, and Ashley and I have been texting/emailing/calling each other relentlessly ever since! 

-Meghan

Yes, I Said Craft Night

I would like to start out by saying that it's nice to have friends that get it.  Who don't give you the "Have you lost your mind?" look when you say you want to have a craft night but get excited with you.  We are Hobby Lobby-loving, Pinterest-obsessed Craft Nerds.  And we are proud of it.  

With all of the crafting done around the holidays and all of the craft supplies we received as gifts, it seem only natural that we would get together for a craft night. The stars (and schedules) aligned for the night of January 14 and every one was so excited.  We had never really done anything like this before.  What do you do at a craft night?  That question was posed by all four of us involved in the craft night and by every person who found out we were having a craft night.  I don't know about the other girls, but my answer was always "I have no clue but I can't wait to find out!"  My level of excitement usually got me strange glances because, really, what could be so exciting about a craft night?

After countless trips to Hobby Lobby, countless hours on Pinterest, and two books purchased from Amazon, craft night finally arrived.  Everyone got to my house, the pizza ordered, went downstairs, and looked at each other.  Now what?  I do feel like the next time we do a craft night, we should have some sort of theme music to kick things off.  It would make it much more festive.  

It was kind of a catchall kind of night.  We started with heat embossing (lots of ooohs and aaahs), moved on to a very frustrating try at using the Cricut machine to make embossing folders for the Cuttlebug (it eventually worked but I'm not sure it's worth the effort), and tried to cut glass with fire (one shattered, but other than that, there was little success).  After that, we went back to my crafting area (it's a cart inside of what is actually my husband's theater room) and tried the markers on the Cricut machine.   We were all impressed with how that worked and finally got a project completed.  The 1st graders in Meghan's class will all get super cool craft night Valentines.  

After working on projects, we looked at all of our papers, punches, and brainstormed some ideas for future craft nights.  We decided it would go much smoother if we had a specific thing we wanted to focus on.   At the beginning of the night, we thought it would be an every other month endeavor but we had so much fun, we decided to make it monthly.   The February date was set up and we will be doing glass etching and making personalized stamps using the Cricut.   More pictures and projects to come!!

-Ashley