Book quotes - "The Peach Keeper" by Sarah Addison Allen

** Sarah Addison Allen is one of my all time favorite authors. I love every single book!!!! I cannot help but read them multiple times - and fall in love with them all over again. I HIGHLY recommend these books. **

"...Because we are connected as women. It's like a spiderweb. If one part of the web vibrates, if there's trouble, we all know it. But most of the time we're just too scare of selfish or insecure to help. But if we don't help each other, who will?" (audiobook track 4-09)

This is so very true! I don't know if there is anything better in life (other than a happy marriage and happy, healthy kids...but as a single gal, I have the benefit of different priorities) than an amazing female friendship?

I say female because I have been lucky enough to have some AMAZING male friends over the years. Male friends that were always and only male friends. That in and of itself is a huge blessing. But it is categorically different than female friendships. There are times when that is the best element in the world and there are other times when you absolutely need someone else with a high level of estrogen to listen, help, cry, understand, eat ice cream with, etc..

Friends come in all shapes and size; all ages from kiddos to wise octogenarians; various educational and socio-economic backgrounds; differing religions and possibly thousands of miles apart. But the true friendships that last over time can withstand the trials and tribulations of life.

Take a moment to think of some amazing, long-lasting girlfriends and send off a happy email, Facebook post, or even better, an actual snail mail card to brighten her day. Tell her how much you love her and how you appreciate every second of her friendship.

Book quotes: 'The Year of Pleasures' by Elizabeth Berg

Jacket cover: "...a resilient woman embarks upon an unforgettable journey of adventure, self-discovery, and renewal....it's about acknowledging the solace found in ordinary things: a warm bath, good food, the beauty of nature, music, friends, and art."

"I had an odd but familiar feeling inside, a kind of surety without grounding. It was something I often felt as a child, and if I should say, Yes, here, this is the place, just like that, and then go in search of somewhere to live. Why not? What I to lose, really?....I remember a story I once heard about a couple from a farm in Iowa looking for a place to live in Washington, D.C. They weren't having any success; everything was incredibly expensive, and to make matters worse, they had three dogs. They became greatly discouraged, and the one day the woman threw up her hands and said, "All right. Let's just drive ten minutes one way and then turn left. And then drive ten minutes more and turn right. And then ten minute straight, and if we don't find something, we'll give up." What they drove to was a huge farmhouse just outside the city, and a man was standing outside of it. Feeling more than a little foolish, the couple asked if the man happened to know of anything around for rent. Turned out he had a little house on his property he used for hired hands that was newly evacuated. Freshly painted. They have it for next to nothing if they'd help a bit with chores. And three dogs? No problem!...."Sometimes serendipity is just intention, unmasked." - pages 8 - 9

"There is a story about a Navajo grandfather who once told his grandson, 'Two wolves live inside me. One is the bad wolf, full of greed and lzaziness, full of anger and jealousy and regret. The other is the good wolf, full of joy and compassion and willingness and a great love for the world. All the time, these wolves are fighting inside me.' 'But grandfather,' the boy said. 'Which wolf will win?' The grandfather answered, 'The one I fee.'" - page 165

"My mother always used to take a long bath on Christmas Eve, and I would always lie in the hall outside the bathroom in anguished anticipation, wondering how she could possibly take so long when there were presents waiting to be opened. But I saw now that she was savoring the moment before, and that was what I was doing now, too. My mother must have imagined my father and me opening our cuff links and doll clothes; I was thinking of the people who might find pleasure in what my store offered - not only in the things but in the ideas they might inspire." - page 204

Words of love.....

"Words of love, so soft and tender don't win a girls heart anymore....If you love her then you must send her, somewhere where she's never been before..." - Mama Cass

I have never been that girl that had boyfriends. I spent the majority of my life as a single woman. Thankfully I have always found comfort in that and not heartache. Over the past few years I have had more experience learning about relationships and how to deal with the male species.

A lot of that experience would curl your toes and make you see a side of me you never expected. While most wouldn't understand, that time was a time of empowerment and discovery for me. I learned a lot about myself: how I react to situations when it involves a partner, areas of my life and my personality that I need to reshape and mold to create a healthier dialogue and safe space, the desires that I want from a partner, the faults that I see in myself that others see as amazing strengths, etc..

I reached out to break every single one of my comfort zones when I met this man. He was 100% different than what I was used to in every way, shape and form. It took courage to step out of that circle and embrace something new and fresh and to have the perspective that I would do anything to make that relationship happy, healthy and long lasting.

I have hit a wall where my communication skills, while vast, are not being received or translated in the manner that they should. The red flag that popped up on day 3 is the same red flag that is popping up on day 100 something. I refuse to be THAT girl who ignores all the advice, counsel, guidance, encouragement that I give other people and remain in a place of mire and muck.

For a tiny second I had that nagging fear that I will never, ever find another man who matches me on 97% of my being, who finds me as beautiful and sexy as he does, who appreciates my intelligence and world view (while also being scared of it too), who can make me laugh in the silliest of situations, who has encouraged me to break some of those social fears and barriers that have been built up over the last 4 1/2 years, who has taught me to be a tad more spontaneous rather than rigidly planning everything and most importantly, who comes from the same religious household structure that I had - there wasn't the need to make him understand the hurt and pain caused by that lifestyle, he gets it!

But I say NO. I say NO to accepting a huge speed bump that is tearing the shit out of my undercarriage and throwing my alignment WAY off. I say NO. I say I am MORE important and I am WORTHY of respect.

If you love me, you will do everything in your power to help me. If you love me, you will listen to my words and see they are as honest and open as they can possibly be (come on now, anyone who knows me knows I have a very thin filter and I will say exactly what is on my mind - and I am a skilled public speaker and writer, so I know how to use my words effectively) and NOT translate them to the most negative experience from your background when I am not your past. If you love me, you will overcome your trust issues and recognize all that I have done to work with you on that and to be patient even when that is not my strong suit.

If you love me, you would move heaven and earth to ease my pain. And if you are the cause of that pain and you have the ability to fix it, and you chose not to or you chose to ignore it and tell me to 'get over it', then there's the door and don't let it slap you on the way out.

I am sad. It hurts. But I am still in charge of my own destiny and I love MYSELF enough to know that I have no time for someone that doesn't respect me in that way in return.

But, I have learned SO much! So much about myself, so much about the man I want to be with, so much about what I need to fulfill my big hole lacking love, so much about the love I can give and provide and learned that I actually CAN be patient with folks even if they aren't on the same page with me.

But I have also learned that my go-to response of leaving is not necessarily a bad thing. I have to trust my gut and I have to listen to that voice inside. I did not give up. I did not throw in the towel for no reason or out of fear or out of trying to sink the ship.

I will prevail. There is nothing I can't do. And I know that I am loved and I do love. And that's what matters. This is all you need.

Book quotes...."What We Keep" by Elizabeth Berg

"People always told me I was perceptive....But I didn't want to learn any more about human nature than I knew already....it occurs to me that I did not pursue any profession having to do with psychology because if I understood more about how people work, how they are, I might understand my mother. If I understood her, I might have to forgive her. And at some critical time, I became very much invested in not forgiving her - we all did.

It became an underpinning in our reduced family, a need, even; just as there seems to be a terrible need for family feuds to continue. In a way, it is as if your refusal to forgive is too much a part of you for you to lost it. Who would you be without it? Not yourself. Lost, somehow. Think of how people tend to pick the same chair to sit in over and over again. We are always trying to make sure we know where we are. Though we may long for adventure, we also cherish the familiar. We just do." (page 56 - 57)
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"When my mother returned home from trying on Jasmine's hat, she was flushed and happy. Through the open kitchen window I heard her humming with the radio. "Catch a Falling Star" was playing. I like that song, too, liked the notion of having a pocketful of starlight. I hoped for such a thing, in fact. I believed at the time that starts were five-pointed objects you could hold in your hand, a sort of fancier version of tinfoil variety. I was ignorant to the heat and size and the most astounding fact of all, that some stars I saw were not really there at all." (page 81)
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"I was downstairs, reading."
" Now?" I strained to see her face. She was smiling, it appeared.
"Yes, now," she said. "It's nice, sometimes, to read in the middle of the night. The sky is so dark and soft-looking outside the window, all the stars out. You have just on light on, you know, and it seems to pour onto the page. Makes the book seem better. You are this little island, just up alone with a book. And you heard the night sounds of the house...It's so interesting to me, that sound. Time. The measure of it." (page 103 - 104)
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Book quotes....'The Department of Lost & Found' by Allison Winn Scotch

"So. This girlfriend. What happened to her?" I leaned back against the kitchen island.

"She wasn't the one...Well, I guess the people who we were when we met - which was just out of college - and who we ended up being the time we split - we just weren't the same. She wanted me to be something I wasn't, and I wanted the same of her." He shrugged. "Sometimes the math just doesn't work out, even if you think it will." (pg. 118 - 119)

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"It's amazing how life works," I said aloud at some point. "How fate and how faith and how destiny just all come together. How if you hadn't sat down next to me of if I'd decided to go to Princeton, how we probably wouldn't be here right now."

"You know, I almost didn't ask you for the gum that day. I remember thinking that I looked so lame trying to make conversation. Funny looking back on it now, right?....What a tragedy that would have been. But I guess that's how it works. Life dishes it out, brings you together, pulls you apart, whatever. It's up to you to figure out the intended course."

I smiled at myself in the mirror. Good fortune, I though. I'm pretty sure that I already have it. (pg. 297)

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Butterfly memories....

"She had lived 34 years keeping everything inside & now she was letting everything go like butterflies released from a box. They didn't burst forth, glad to be free. They simply flew away....softly....gradually. So she simply watched them go.

Good memories of her mother and grandmother were still there. Butterflies that stayed. A little too old to go anywhere. That was ok. She would keep those."

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

** One of my all time favorites book ever! **