Mary Lois, my friend of twenty-five years, came to visit me this weekend and it was like having a vacation! I am speechless at what an absolute and complete balm to my spirit her visit bestowed upon me. I don't have close friends where we now live and my spirit has absolutely hungered for female companionship. What a *gift* from God that Mary Lois was able to visit.

MAN OH MAN do I feel really great!

Thistle, I'm glad to hear you've been refreshed by a friendship. In life, relationships are what really matter.

Where does she live? Sounds like you need to plan a trip to see her next.

I think we too often don't take the time to do something like this ... especially when it comes to visiting other friends. There's always something that gets in the way.

While I'm here in Germany, the one thing I do is that my daughter and my two sisters and I do a yahoo IM with each other every Sunday evening (my time). It's great. I'll be chatting with each of them and sometimes they chat with each other at the same time (even though they all live in the same town -- lol). We tried a conference thingy but it got way too crazy. Anyway, these are the women I'm closest too and it's nice that we can at least do that. And sometimes we do the web cams, especially on holidays. It's really helped me through some rough times.

Still, there ain't nothin' like the real thing.

Blessings, Francine

We need to take the time to tell the people we love that we love them and go out of our way to see them if at all possible, you never know when it might be too late...I am finding this out lately much to my dismay....

I know the feeling Chatty.