Hangin' With The Goddess

Last night my friend Melanie, aka The Coupon Goddess, had a little get-together at her house. As a blogger and a couponer, she gets lots of merchandise for free, or close to it. After donating a lot of it, she decided to share some with friends. She invited some of us over for a night of snacks, sangria and goodies.

Melanie filled several bags with candles, cleaning products and other goodies. We each picked a bag, yankee swap style, opened it, and if we didn't like the bag we chose, we swapped with one of the other girls.

It was a great night with friends, old and new.

Some of my favorite people were there...

Melanie, of course

I think she was covering her face at something I said (or did)

Kelly, Kelly & Cindy

I was thrilled with my goody bag filled with (among other things) candles.

I was so excited with all of the great stuff that I got that I decided to roll around in tissue paper.

I'm not sure I'll ever be invited back to Melanie's house.

The Vault

The Vault is a group of friends that worked together once upon a time. People always ask us where the name came from. Well, I'll tell you; when we worked together, we would acquire lots of office gossip and we'd usually be the first to know all of the office goings-on. When we would share this news with one of us we would say "Vault it." That meant that we were only to tell the other members of the Vault and no one else. It was a very effective system.

Here's a recent photo of The Vault:

The Vault started out as six women but we had to phase one of the gals out. She was just a negative person with a rather large chip on her shoulder and she really brought the group down. We're a pretty upbeat, happy bunch. We don't have any room for negativity. So, "Operation Phase Out" began. Of course, the person who was being phased out reached out to the nicest one in our group (or as we called her during "OPO" The Weakest Link). She felt bad for the phased out girl and invited her to her wedding. Well, she went to the wedding with her dud of a boyfriend, sat in a corner all night, didn't talk to anyone, and here's the kicker: she didn't bring a gift! Not even a card! That pretty much completed Operation Phase Out.

I love hanging out with these women. They're all incredibly smart and beautiful, inside and out. They are all moms who work full-time. I'm in awe of each and every one of them.

They also make me laugh. They have some great one-liners. Here are a few that I've heard recently from this group:

On going to a buffet, "A buffet is a friend to no one."

On being hungover, "There was a little hitch in my giddy-up"

When someone is unattractive, "They're homely as a bag of cats"

When you want someone to leave, "Don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya"

We also have some unique, Vault dance moves. And nicknames for most of the people that we once worked with.

I love these women. I feel so blessed that I've had them in my life for the past 10 years.