I just arrived home from North Branch Girls' Weekend 2009! In case you are not sure what I am talking about, North Branch is my hometown and these are my girls that I grew up with. Some of them I played in the sandbox with, others on the tennis court or in the halls of the Middle School, and a couple I have only really gotten to know after graduation. But we are all the North Branch girls (or married to a NB boy) and this weekend was so much fun.
Pictured above: myself, Emily, and Shannon
Krista, Jen J, and Julia
Keri, Rossi, and Katie
(Lisa, were you downstairs when I took these pictures? Somehow you escaped them . . .)
And of course, we missed two very important guests, Sarah and Jenn Z.
We spent from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon at the Schmelings' lake home near Hayward, WI. If only I could describe to you what it felt like to me . . . let me try. I went from home/work, where I was running around trying to pack two kids for their trip to Grandma Gloria's (where they stayed this weekend) and doing all of the usual continuous cooking, cleaning, lovin' on my kids, laundry, lesson plans, correcting, putting out of fires, dishes, etc. to this place . . . where the first thing I did was hug a few friends who have known me since I was 3, then sat down and had a nice relaxing drink to some 90's music. Ahhhhh.
My only real responsibility was to bring fruit. I slowly drank in every moment, listening to my friends tell me stories about their children doing the same types of things my kids do, which is always good for mommies to hear. I listened to tales of college roommates gone bad, close calls in high school that I had never realized had happened, and awkward first dates. Who else can you sit with and talk about EVERY period of your life, and they are interested? This is something unique that we share, because we have always known each other.
We talked about husbands and boyfriends, babies and toddlers, and even our own mothers and fathers. We noted that with one of us pregnant, three nursing (there was almost always the sound of a breast pump running somewhere in the house), and many more of us simply exhausted working moms . . . a lot less alcohol was consumed this year, and more water bottles. Having always been more of a water-bottle consumer myself, I didn't mind. But yes, we did have to shake our heads a bit and realize that "now that we are 30, we're not quite as wild as we used to be." And that's okay. However, we did surmise that at about age 40 or 45, when our kids are older, we might have our midlife crises and bring it back around.
My favorite part is that even though I see most of these people once a year or less, I feel so completely comfortable when we get together. Who could know me better than these ones? In fact, in some ways I feel like they know the "real me" better than any of the friends I have now. They knew me when I was the "me" before kids. Before the mortgage and the van and the full time job. Do you know what I am talking about? The "me" that most moms leave behind and wonder where it went. Once in a while, I see glimpses of "me" sometimes when I am alone or maybe back visiting my hometown (both of which are fairly rare occurrences) and it has even brought me to tears! Like a person I haven't seen for a while but have dearly missed . . . and I think when I get together with these girls, I get the clearest window back into "me" that I can. They know it all, the good the bad and the ugly, and I know it about them too. (Especially after we get Rossi going telling a few stories! I haven't laughed so hard in a long time - thanks Ross!)
I love my girls. Thanks for the great time!
This next picture was taken when we were in about 6th, 7th, or 8th grade.
This is Keri, myself, and Emily proudly displaying some magazines that we wrote, called "NNBNN's". This stood for Nightly North Branch News Network. We patterned it after Weekly World News (the ones at the WalMart checkouts that talk about things like Bat Boy and alien sightings). We basically used to cut out interesting looking magazine pictures and make up news stories to go with them. We would slightly change the names of classmates (people we liked . . . and people we didn't like) and write articles about them. We had recurring features such as advice columns, comics, recipes, and fiction stories about certain favorite characters.
We would literally stay up all night (who says you have to wait till college to pull all-nighters?) and divide up the articles to be written, and write them. I believe between Middle School and graduation we created 18 issues, including 3 Super Issues. In addition, we made three mini-issues and even an activity book. For some reason, we found it inspirational to watch Barney videos while doing this. Yes, we were at least 13 years old when we started. Yes, we still watched the Barney videos when we worked on them in high school (although I like to think not as much). These magazines were always created at Emily's house on a pull-out couch down in her basement.
Another thing that was kind of funny back then - we didn't have a lot of money to buy all the supplies we needed in order to make these magazines. You know, rubber cement, magazines for cutting from, construction paper . . . it was mostly just the rubber cement our parents stopped buying for us because we used so stinkin' much. So we made up a song, something about "NNBNN Funding! NNBNN Funding! Donate today, you can help in every way!" and walked around the halls of our Middle School singing this, with a cute-sy decorated coffee can in our hands. Kids gave us lots of money. And we bought our rubber cement.
Emily brought the magazines to the lake this weekend, and we agreed to have Keri scan them all this week and then split up the originals equally. I laughed so hard when I read them that I got tears in my eyes. I can't believe the things we thought of back then.
Coincidentally, I happen to teach Writing class right now to 64 3rd graders at Maple Lake Elementary. I found this kind of inspirational - I mean look how much a person can enjoy writing and the fun things you can do with it! Unfortunately, I could never show these magazines to them. Due to our content and sometimes outright meanness . . . I think I would be getting a few parents phone calls the next day if I did that. But I plan to tell them about it. Maybe we will even create a class magazine?
Well, it's time to go to bed and wake up back to the grind tomorrow.
But thanks, girls! I love you lots!
