My Secret Rooms...: When girlfriends get together....

The other day I had a much longed for After Work with a girlfriend, one of the two women I count as friends, here in the south where we live since three years.
I found the girlfriend thing intriguing since we moved, when I got the opportunity to make brand new friends and start over like I was in pre school or something like that..! I didn't "have to" just continue booking dates with the ones I always see but I had to approach the ones I found interesting and kind and actively start building.

Having grown different ways from other friends, back where we used to live, the time really had come for new friends, friends who share my values and who are interested in getting to know ME, the me that I am now. Not the ME I was as a single mom or a student or a librarian - or what have you - but the me I am right now.
So I made two friends (some are bubbling out there in the outer parts of my mind: may become, may not) who I really care for and like. I like to inhale them and exhale to them, if you catch my drift?
I love being able to be myself and speak my mind.

Working as a leader keeps you on your toes all day long concering what to say, when to say it and what not to say. Not to mention how to say it...!

I thought about this during our After Work - how we would swing between the topics, my friend and I. She'd start talking about her upcoming trip to Florida (yeah, envy that!!) and all their plans and bookings. We'd then laugh at the fact that we are very different in that perspective: she plans and books, I go al fresco or something - simply can't stand planning and booking... And we already know each other that well!
Then I might swing to mentioning my two Florida trips that I made in my life and at the same time touch some harder topics maybe, like how it was back then with my parents and my father calling me fat and private stuff like that.
With her I feel I can and more to the point: I feel she cares.

Then we'll talk of my app that I put my exercise into and of my exercise and she'll tell me about her diet and her exercise.

We swing like that!

I remember when my husband was out of a job and just at home, feeling a bit blue, I found that this woman was the only person around me that I could open up to about this. To everyone else I said that "he'll come around, he'll start engaging in politics now" (which he did) or "it'll work out, he can always go back to school" (which he did).
When she and I went to After Work I could also add: "I don't know how to be with him, I don't quite know how to answer him when he fears he's too old for the work market any longer" or "it's hard being the breadwinner of the family, I don't know how to light his spark and he seems ashamed of it all". I mean, my husband is my best friend and there's truly nothing we can't talk about but these particular topics I needed to vent and I needed to get someone else's point of view.
I was so thankful for this friend at this time, because she listened and she gave sincere advice.
And then we could talk fashion, interior decorating and have another glass of wine!

That's what friends are for, right?!

******

Well, now our visiting friends have gone back home and we had a very fun week together!
I didn't fetch my camera once and I think that's because I talked, laughed, ate and drank or went to the car or taxi - or what have you - all the time and never even thought about it?!!

Here are some pics from the one day we had in Copenhagen and then the other activities' pics will come right up in another post.

Disorderly and all, here goes: