Girlfriends

My sweet sister Lauren (to avoid confusion, my sister-in-law, but that is only a technicality) sent this email to me on Saturday:

 
 They Teach It at Stanford
 
"I just finished taking an evening class at Stanford. The last lecture was on the mind-body connection - the relationship between stress and disease. The speaker (head of psychiatry at Stanford) said, among other things, that one of the best things that a man could do for his health is to be married to a woman, whereas for a woman, one of the best things she could do for her health was to nurture her relationships with her girlfriends.
 
At first everyone laughed, but he was serious.
 
Women connect with each other differently and provide support systems that help each other to deal with stress and difficult life experiences. Physically this quality “girlfriend time" helps us to create more serotonin - a neurotransmitter that helps combat depression and can create a general feeling of well being. Women share feelings whereas men often form relationships around activities. They rarely sit down with a buddy and talk about how they feel about certain things or how their personal lives are going. Jobs? Yes. Sports? Yes. Cars? Yes. Fishing, hunting, golf? Yes. But their feelings? Rarely.
 
Women do it all of the time. We share from our souls with our sisters/mothers, and evidently that is very good for our health. He said that spending time with a friend is just as important to our general health as jogging or working out at a gym.
 
There's a tendency to think that when we are "exercising" we are doing something good for our bodies, but when we are hanging out with friends, we are wasting our time and should be more productively engaged—not true. In fact, he said that failure to create and maintain quality personal relationships with other humans is as dangerous to our physical health as smoking!
 
So every time you hang out to schmooze with a gal pal, just pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself for doing something good for your health! We are indeed very, very lucky. Sooooo let's toast to our friendship with our girlfriends. Evidently it's very good for our health."

How true is that? This email totally hit home to me as my girlfriends (you will note in my previous post) are my favorite people in the world! Lauren sent it to me attached with a note saying she would be visiting me in San Diego as often as possible, and I hope she means it. Just think of the health effects of pinot + girl time! And speaking of wine + girl time, did you know that Applebee's actually sells wine by the bottle for $9.99!? I'll start at the beginning...

I had a little bit of Girl Time last night with some of my favorite ladies in Nashville to celebrate Valentines Day. I ever-so-thoughtfully invited everyone over for dinner at my place, and then we all drank margaritas and wine while Jessica slaved over the stove to whip us up a fine meal. Hosting can be so hard...Did I mention she did all of this in a prom dress? 

With this group of girls, we can't seem to do anything normal. From Meat Parties to Fur Parties and Are You Afraid of the Dark Marathons to Macarena Live Tapings, this group is far from boring. Naturally, we couldn't just have a formal, nice Valentines Dinner with filet mignons (bc Ashley and Forrest did that the night before and we'd be copying), but we could DRESS formal, and then eat tacos...I mean hey, why not? So Julie, Camille, and Ashley get dressed at home in their formal gear, which I must note takes quite a bit of confidence in their girlfriends to not be playing a trick. Lucky for them, we weren't. Jessica brings over all of her old prom dresses for me, her, and Kelly to fight over, and I quickly pick the one covered in sequins. Then I hold my breath the rest of the night. 

After tacos, chips, salsa, rice, and guac (do we sound fat?), we decide it's time for dessert. AND for the rest of the world to see us. We pile in the cars to the closest Applebee's and request a table for 6. After a solid 5 minute wait while people stared, we were finally seated at a nice table surrounded by Beer Flyers, what I believe is referred to as "flair" in office space, and Valentines memorabilia everywhere. We decided we needed at least four desserts and a bottle of wine. Want to know what the total check was? $22.00. No, I'm not lying. 4 desserts. One bottle of wine. Applebee's is not paying me for this promo, but seriously, you should probably go there. 

The conversations we had should probably be kept proprietary, but the time we had, I thought should be shared. After all, it better've been fun for the boyfriend/significant other feathers we ruffled by throwing this Vday curveball. We ended the night with some "Kardashian" moments (Jessica and Kelly attempting to molest me for a camera shot) and some sad, but happy goodbyes, as I may not see some of these girls for a while. Without further ado, here are some (but not all) of our pics - RB, you were missed:

Love you girls. Happy Valentine's Day.

While I can't wait to find more girlfriends in Cali, you could not ever be replaced!