Name the Ways

"Best friends are the siblings God forgot to give us." - Unknown Author

Do you have someone who is "closer than a friend" in your life? Maybe or maybe not. Maybe you are lucky and have many brothers and sisters. I don't have a sister. I was always in awe of the amazing and often volatile relationship that sisters share. Secretly, I always longed for a bigger family with more brothers and sisters. Don't get me wrong. My family is WONDERFUL but I would spend time with friends in high school that came from very, very large families and I enjoyed their closeness and interactions. I would imagine having more family to share life with.

I am blessed to have several close and long term girlfriends that I cherish everyday. Friends I have known for **gulp** 18+ years! One of those dear, long term friends introduced me to Jacqueline (you know who you are!!). Pretty quickly she and I became nearly inseparable. We had a saying, "I am you and you are me." That pretty much sums up our friendship. It has become something else over the years. Despite our lack of "blood" connection we are most definitely sisters.

Our friendship is strangely and wonderfully parallel. I won't bore you with all the years of similarities but I thought it would be fitting to share just a few from the last week. An insight into our friendship as well as the personalities behind this blog.

Do you remember the February 22 posts? Jackie and I both posted that day and we both posted our garden vegetable list. (Jackie's post and my post.) We had to call each other immediately laughing because we hadn't discussed that or planned that. It just happened. Not convinced? We often have the same thoughts; on the same day. Jackie just made a great post about the Test of a Fresh Egg. She and I hadn't talked about it but I was planning on posting an article about chicken coops on the same day. Thankfully she wrote and published before I did and I will save my planned chicken coop post for another days enjoyment.

It just makes me smile knowing someone is thinking as I am. Sharing thoughts, finishing sentences. Isn't that what sisters do? I will leave you with one final example. Several years ago I had come across the wonders of "whitewash". The kind that Tom Sawyer used to paint Aunt Polly's fence. OK well he had others whitewash Aunt Polly's fence but that isn't the point. I had wanted Gary to whitewash our chicken coop when it was first built for its affordability and anti-bacterial qualities. He kinda ignored me but that didn't change my mind that it was a good idea. Milk based paints are making a come back as people are becoming more environmentally aware.

Anyway, I had never mentioned that to Jackie and when we talked this last weekend she mentioned how she wanted to use a milk based paint in her kitchen! Of course I was thinking of whitewashing our fence this summer. I know that seems like no big deal, right? Countless number of other people are probably thinking about milk based paints right now. However, I was planning on telling her that I wanted to whitewash my fence in that very same conversation but she beat me to it! Strangely enough our blue houses are just one small similarity that we share.

Best friends are the siblings God forgot to give us. Or maybe best friends really are siblings after all and God didn't forget a thing...