My Bestie

This beautiful lady has been my best friend since 3rd grade, so about 27 something years! We grew up practically as sisters: we were constantly at each others' houses, and oftentimes at each others' throats. :) As kids we used to play, and fight about, Barbies--non-stop. It was all Barbies, all the time.

Looking back as an adult I am kinda surprised at some of the adult themes we used with our Barbies...I think this is because we both used to watch soap operas with our grandmothers at an early age. One of our favorite Barbie games was for one Barbie to be in a coma, and the other Barbie would be having an affair with Coma-Barbie's husband. Neither one of us had any idea what an "affair" was, and were only vaguely aware of what a "coma" was....the point of the game was just the drama that would ensue! Lots of screaming and gnashing of Barbie teeth in the Barbie Hospital...just like on the soap operas. Heh.

Speaking of drama more often than not our spats were about who got to name their Barbie the Favorite Name du Jour...as if there weren't enough lovely names in the universe, we always found one to argue about! I remember a particularly long stretch where we both loved the name Samantha, and fought hard over whose Barbie got to be Samantha. I'm pretty sure Kristina won most of those battles...

Beyond Barbies we had a lot of fun torturing my sister by keeping her up laaaaaaaaate at night with our screaming over the game Topple, and anything else we could think to scream about in the middle of the night just to drive my sister crazy. Man, she could be MEAN when she was mad and sleep-deprived! :)

But back to my bestie: how fortunate I am to call such a lovely woman "best friend". I watched her grow from a cute little strawberry blonde girl to a beautiful woman, inside and out. She is the most loyal person I know. People always say that about their friends, "oh, she's so loyal", but what does that really mean? What it means to me is that I know even when Kristina is mad enough to spit at me, if I needed her the anger would be gone in a heartbeat. I know that if I called her at 3 in the morning with a problem, any kind of problem big or small, she'd drop everything to be there. I know that no matter how much we have fought in the past or had misunderstandings or just flat out hurt each others' feelings, she's also the most forgiving person I know. Once it's done, it's truly done: there are no holding grudges with her. I am much more of a stew-on-my-grudge kind of person and she inspires me to be better.

God has blessed me with many wonderful people in my life, and she is one of my greatest blessings! Love you K, MWA!!! Oh, and CONGRATULATIONS MRS. M!!!!!!!