Connecting

My weekend in Statesboro was the big goodbye for me and my girlie, but also an opportunity to say hello to some wonderful new friends!

First of all, Jackie over at Empty Nest Full Life emailed me after seeing the Georgia Southern sticker on the suitcase at Harleigh's graduation open house. She has ties to Georgia Southern and lives about 45 minutes away. Needless to say, we wound up having lunch, meeting for the first time. This is the first blog friend I've met (aside from readers in the co-worker, family and just-around-the-corner-friends categories), and it was such an easy friendship to go from blog posts to face-to-face conversation. It's amazing to me how well we get to know each other through our postings. Thanks, Jackie, for being a friend, and for offering up your home when I visit and to Harleigh if she needs to get away. Generosity and heartfelt prayers define you.

The second connection was through a friend at my church. Clarice's family lives in Statesboro and so she hooked us up. Her parents Barbara and Paul met us on Saturday morning for breakfast at local digs Snooky's. A wood paneled restaurant steeped in the '70s with Georgia Southern paraphernalia on the walls, cash-only, one meat and two veggies kind of place. At the center of the restaurant was a large round table of only men, drinking coffee, talking politics and stocks . . . so old boy Southern. Needless to say a handful of the men stopped at our table to say hello to Barbara and Paul and meet us. Harleigh left with a list of phone numbers for the best dentist, doctor and auto mechanic in town, invitations to church on Sunday and to sing in the choir, a promise that she'd call any one of them if she needs anything, and . . . well, a family in Statesboro. She also got to meet Clarice's sister and her family, and is babysitting the three girls of Clarice's brother and sister-in-law this evening.
God is good.