Suggest-a-Blog Thursday!

Okay, I made that up*, but I do have a blog I'd like to suggest you peruse:

MWF Seeking BFF

That stands for "Married White Female Seeking Best Friend Forever," and it's by a lovely young woman named Rachel, who moved to Chicago with her husband, leaving best girlfriends behind:

"I have two lifelong BFFs, Sara and Callie, who I met when I was 10 and 14, at camp and high school respectively. I have seven super-close friends from college. I have dear pals from high school whose weddings I’d never miss and babies I’m dying to meet. There is no shortage of shoulders to cry on. Here’s the catch: I live in Chicago. Sara and Callie live in New York City. My Northwestern roommates live in Boston, San Francisco, New York, and St. Louis. The high schoolers are in D.C. and Manhattan. My closest friends are everywhere but here. "

Her blog is about the active effort to find "Miss Right" -- a real, true girlfriend. Not a coworker with whom you might do Happy Hour every once and a while, not the perfectly nice wife of your husband's friend, but a real girlfriend. Someone you could call up on Saturday morning and say, "Let's get a pedi!" Rachel not only shares research on friendship, but also her adventures in finding potential friends - through readings at book stores, casual conversations in line at the bank, and other funny (and sometimes awkward) experiences.

After dating Kyle "long distance" for three years, spending every spare social moment here in Gainesville, and then finally moving here two years ago, I finally feel like I have my own friends. Yes, I met them as girlfriends of Kyle's friends OR via a girlfriend of one of Kyle's friends, but I finally feel like I can meet up with them without Kyle or their boyfriend/husbands; I even (sometimes) have plans of my own that have nothing to do with Kyle.

Not that I don't love spending time with my husband, or spending time with him and "our" friends, but I think it's important, nay, crucial to a marriage that a sense of individuality be maintained. I don't think it's fair to expect Kyle to be everything to me: husband, lover, friend, sole freaking source of entertainment. I think that's quite a burden. And if you lose your individual personality, you lose some of that person that your spouse fell in love with in the first place.

So I know how Rachel feels, moving away from your girlfriends and feeling that void. And she's a hell of a lot more proactive about finding friends than I was; I'm enjoying her adventures and her writing. Even if you feel like you've got all the friends you'll ever need, I think you might enjoy her blog as well -- it's really about that very important thing: adult female friendships.

(*If I thought I could do anything on a weekly basis, I would suggest a blog on Thursday, though...)

Photo time! Our first gerbera daisies of the year:

I've been tagged - I feel like a black bear or something

Bloggers are great at creating a virtual community and one way they do that is through tagging. Another blogger tags you and you're supposed to list ten random facts about yourself. Kim, my coworker and a great garden writer, sort of tagged me recently through e-mail, but I thought I'd post and link.

1. Two long trips: Both were transatlantic flights. In 2004, I went to London for a week with a group of people, including my best friend Janet. That was a seven-hour flight and the high point of that trip was seeing the Roman baths in nearby Bath. Last August I went with my boyfriend to Rio de Janiero for a wedding. Our summer is their "winter," so it wasn't as crazy and crowded as the Rio in our imaginations. That flight was roughly nine hours, and that's after driving from Gainesville to Miami - another five hours. Ugh. The highlights on that trip were the Christ statue on Corcovado mountain - awesome in the truest sense of the word - and hang-gliding, which I almost didn't do.

It's me! And the guy actually doing the work.







2. Two things I really enjoy doing: cooking and reading. I'm a results-oriented person; making something, having something to show for my efforts is incredibly fulfilling to me. To be able to create a meal and share with others is a fantastic feeling. I love it when people enjoy my cooking. Reading, on the other hand, is more of an obsession. I just can't stop myself. I'll read anything - other people's textbooks, random magazines laying around, etc. The web is a dangerous place for me. Cook's Illustrated feeds both passions.



3. Two things you want very badly at the moment: a house, and more time with my friends. My fiance and I (he went from b-f to fiance after Brazil) are currently house-shopping. We're looking for something affordable, with some space. That appears to mean, at least in Gainesville's ridiculously-priced market, something older. Which is fine by me - I prefer homes built no later than the 70s. They're built better, period. We're looking at two tomorrow!



I moved to Gainesville in July. In Jacksonville, I left behind four really wonderful friends. Because they all have children, time is a precious thing - we don't get to see each other that much. And my best friend is in Palatka, of all places. I miss her quite a bit. Most of the people I've met in Gainesville are a lot younger than me and already have a strong circle of friends. Thank goodness Kyle and I actually enjoy each other's company so much.



4. Three animals you have or have had: Two memorable pets are my parents' dog Benson, who is 14 years old. He has been my parents' security system for years, so I worry about what they'll do without 'ol Benson. The second is Blackie, a black Corgi mix that came to my parents and had a few memorable years in our household. But MY dog, my baby, that's Angus.



He lives with his "grandparents," that is, my ex's parents. That dog was my world.


5. Two favorite beverages: beer and Coke Zero. Those who know me have already been subjected to my ravings about beer. I like all sorts of beer: Guinness, Miller Lite, anything Sam Adams, Tucher, Old Chub, Red Hook Blonde . . . I could go on and on. And Coke Zero is my true guilty pleasure. A calorie-free liquid full of chemicals. Yum!

Because I write too much, I'm stopping at five. If anyone's made it this far, I'm sure they're exhausted. Enough!

Now I'm supposed to tag other blogs that I read and enjoy. Tagging etiquette says I should leave a comment on their blog, so that they know they've been tagged. Here are few of my favorites blogs:

• A List Apart - design, development, web content, focused on web standards and best practices.


• Alertbox - Web usability authority Jakob Nielsen's column


• Garden Living: Adventures with Children & Kids


• Cannas and Bananas: Creating a Bold Garden


• Florida Ecomania

(Since ALA and Alertbox are "professional" blogs, I won't be "tagging" them.)