Sandy's Quilt and lifelong friends...

This is what I made during my "Sewing Extravaganza" with Sommer in January. I finally took pictures of it at my mom's house right before I ran to the shower on Saturday. I got to give it to Sandy, it was so fun! I love making things for people, and I hate waiting for the giving part.

Sandy has been my friend for almost 20 years. I don't talk to her everyday, we don't usually even spend any time one-on-one with each other. I don't know if very many people have the experience I do of having friends who you think of as sisters, but you don't really even see each other more than like once a month. It's just that we have been through so many stages of life together, or even apart...but always with an awareness of each other.

When we were sewing, Sommer was asking me essentially, why I was doing what I was doing. She's my closest friend, and she knows what I do with my time and it's not like I am spending every day with Sandy. She wasn't asking in a confrontational way, but just kind of surprised maybe because she doesn't necessarily classify my friendship with Sandy as presently significant. I know she understood then, but it caused me to think about it more...so here is a pondering of my friendship with "the girls", we go almost 20 years back (okay, 22 years, EDEN!) , here's a little history that makes my friendship with Sandy, Kelly, Leisha, Jenn and Eden as significant today as ever.

It did make me think though. I think that many people graduate high school and move off somewhere new and though they may (many don't) keep in touch with a few people through Christmas cards, the old friendships fade into the background. I definitely have close friends that I talk to everyday, who have kids my kids' ages, who I intend to be friends with forever, but I'm blessed with that and more.Eden, me, Sandy, Kelly, and Jenn the night before Senior Ball...manicuring it up! I tweaked with the original and can't find the "untweaked" version.
What about those friends who took swimming lessons with me, who broke up with a "boyfriend" for me, who cried with me when I skinned my knee and when I had my heart broken. They knew my husband when he was the nerdy class clown and was crowned Mr. CHS our freshman year. Heck...Leisha was his first love in elementary school and he took Jenn to Jr. Prom (much to my dismay)! The friends who went through the humiliating cheer initiation process (now known as hazing) with me, who snuck (I intentionally use snuck, not sneaked, okay? It sounds better, and I like it better) out with me at night and shared a twin bed with me at a sleepover. They got all dressed up with me in high school, older friend's IDs in hand and went (should I say took, like I was captive?) to an 18 years and older club in the U-District to dance the night away (shame on Marissa's mom). We've peed our pants, crushed on older guys, had our hearts broken, solved the world's problems, betrayed each other, forgiven each other--these friendships didn't graduate when we all tossed our hats in the air in June of 1995.

Me, Jenn, Kelly, Leisha, Sandy and Eden all together the summer after either freshman or sophomore year of college.

These are women who sent me store bought sugar cookies that they frosted themselves at Christmas when before I came home from my first semester of college. They wrote me while I was far away from home serving a mission for my church and were the only people besides my immediate family that came to see me at the airport when I came home. Chris was a groomsmen at Kelly and Danny's wedding...Danny was in my KINDERGARTEN class! They visited me in Salt Lake for skiing weekends TWICE when we were all dirt poor in college. They backed me when I had made up a pretend boyfriend to get back at Chris for breaking my heart our freshman year of college. They were there at my wedding, even if I was already married (in the Seattle LDS temple) and they weren't even able to be there...if they complained and talked about it (and I hope they did and assume they did, I know I would have, and that's another aspect of being this kind of friends...when you disagree with one, you can talk about it to another, and get over it...we are all very different and sometimes venting occurs) they didn't let me know. I had plans to be with them the day Ruby was born...because they were throwing a baby shower for me...but Ruby came early.

They are friends who don't get offended if you only call when you need something! I almost hit them all up for potential donations when I was working on the auction, and that might have been the only call Leisha received from me in a year! Recently, we needed some legal advice and Sandy's husband Adam (who we've known 10 years) was someone Chris felt comfortable calling...and Chris doesn't ask freebies of anyone...he and Adam have likely never interacted except to be thrown (happily) together when us girls plan a gathering. Sandy's my famous friend, who is more than willing to host my Webelo boys at the station in the fall when we work on the communication badge. It's just that kind of ALWAYS there for you feel. I hope they feel the same way.

These are people who were my friends when I decided who I really was. They were my friends before I knew, and after I knew, while I changed my mind again and again. These are friends who I don't always have time to share my every detail with, but it doesn't matter, because they know me. There is that whole package kind of knowledge. They know what my house was like growing up, what a saint my mom is and how loud my brothers were. They know what "The Pond" means, what evil cheer captain spells I went through and what it was like to come to school and find out that a classmate had died.

I hope that summarizes why it is a small and happy thing for me to make a quilt for my girl Sandy's first little baby, who will be gorgeous and who is going to be named Addison and who I got to feel move around in utero on Saturday.