Mel got ready to live-Tweet the drive as soon as I picked her up. We even assigned the group a hashtag for the weekend: #meetthestalkers.
Miss Amelia was ready to ride, too.
Mel did a great job Tweeting our trip up to Nashville ... this was my favorite of the day:
Our drive up was uneventful and simple. I love traveling with someone who requires nothing ... someone for whom either easy conversation or comfortable silence is fine.
When we arrived, we found a place to eat, then texted the girls our location. We didn't know they'd come find us, but they did!
Despite the fact that I was coming off a work day and then a drive -- and hadn't touched up my hair or makeup in 16 hours -- they were so gracious and complimentary.
They didn't want to take up much of our time on Friday night, since we'd just driven in, so they left us to enjoy our meal and let us get to our hotel to check in.
The next morning, we got up, enjoyed our Continental breakfast at the hotel, fed Amelia and then drove across the street to Opry Mills, a huge shopping mall where we were meeting the girls.
After shopping for just a little while, we met for lunch at Aquarium, a restaurant at one end of the mall at which every table has a view of a large aquarium.
It was really a beautiful place to eat! I can't tell you how sweet, likeable and genuine these women were. It really was an honor to get to meet them.
It blows my mind that anyone would want to meet me just based on what they read here, and for them to be so cute and kind was just icing on the cake! Literal "cake," because Gretchen (a November birthday) had picked up cupcakes for everyone ... because the other five of us have May birthdays!
Having gleaned from Twitter conversations that these girls are all Diet Coke devotees, I'd ordered prints off of etsy for each of them:
I'm happy to say that they seemed to love them! (And I'll write more about these prints and the shop from which they came later this week.)
After lunch we roamed the mall ... I saw a shop that looked like it was built for me: "It's Sugar." And it's just a candy shop. JUST. CANDY. Only candy. That's all they sell. It was amazing.
Tracey, who I found out is sort of a purse fiend, got a great deal at Coach. (She only bought one of those bags, not both.)
I saw Man Spanx in a store window and had to take a picture, because ... well, do I need to EXPLAIN myself? I mean, they're Spanx with a cutout for men's genitalia, for crying out loud. Quite frankly, I don't understand why MORE people weren't standing there taking pictures of that.
Mel amused herself by accessorizing my baby.
I'm sorry. I can't argue with that. It's too cute.
Far too soon, our day together was over. We took one last picture outside the mall before they took off. (Rocket scientists that we are, we stood under an arbor to be sure we were striped like zebras by the sun's rays.)
It really was an absolute pleasure to meet such a great group of women who enjoy following along on this strange blogging journey of mine.
And as it turns out, they weren't strangers, after all. They were just friends I hadn't met yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment