Ladies and Gentlemen ... 23 DAYS!!

I'm grateful for my Facebook friends.
There.
I said it.
Thing is, those names and faces over there on my Facebook profile aren't just mere acquaintances. They aren't a collection. And they aren't some sort of social experiment.
They are my people.
From all circles of my life.
Past and present.
And some! SOME!! Have been around a long, long time. Some I didn't realize were missing. Some I've thought about so often during the years. I've told my boys about them. My husband. One day they were just a memory of my younger years and then NOW!! Here they are.
In "Gras-ti-tude."
For my Facebook friends.
Who are so much more than that.
Really.

Kristi and I were first friends in the days of Luv-It jeans. Shaun Cassidy. Permed hair. Wild Musk perfume. Sleepovers. Church lock-ins. Newly shaved legs! First crushes. First boyfriends. First break-ups hours later. Pen pals. Passing notes in class.
We were the team who deep fried egg rolls for a 6th grade project on China. She wasn't around by the time I had to boil a frog carcass and reassemble its bones in 9th grade.
Ahh, but, we'll always have the memory of the egg rolls.
And now she's back. Just like that.

Chad has a full page in my elementary school scrapbook. He was around for the egg rolls. He was the "new guy from the big city" who moved to our smallish town. He knew about the J. Geils Band. And Tempest. He knew how to roller skate backwards. He sent me my first-ever flower. From a boy! From a florist! A pink rose for Valentine's Day. He let me wear his green sweatsuit jacket. The sign of TRUE commitment in the days before letter jackets and senior rings. We shared a seat on the school bus. We smooched. And we got caught by a teacher. He now lives in one of my very favorite Texas towns. He's successful and funny and has a beautiful family.

I have another dear Facebook friend who was gone for way too many years.
And now he's threatened to pace me thru the last few miles of the Houston Marathon in January.
That would be cool.
I'll take a picture.

There are more.
My 4th grade pen pal from Tennessee who I met in person in 6th grade, corresponded w/ til high school, lost track of until FACEBOOK led her to me ...
Others.
More.
Can't count all the tales.
I'm grateful for my Facebook friends.
Just wanted you to know.