I Finally Did It!

We have been here in Arizona a little over 2 months and I have yet to make the giant leap to put myself "out there" and make some friends.  If you are not church goin' type of folk and you move to a new town it can be difficult to make friends.  Sometimes, you only need to go as far as your neighbors, but sometimes, that doesn't work out so well.  If you need to, please read my recent post "Brownies, Lemonade and Dog Poop" for evidence of this!  Every time I step outside my front door, I am armed with an excuse of where I have to run off to, and when I return, why I have to quickly run inside.

Enter Meetup.com..........Meetup.com has been my friend on several occasions.  It got me involved in a playgroup when I lived in California and my kids were small.  When I moved to Las Vegas, I started my own Meetup group which didn't amount to much, but I did get one good friend out of it before the group fell apart.  In the end, I made a few friends through the school too and managed to host and attend several coffee dates.  Not bad, considering I only lived there for 9 months.

Earlier this week, I finally did it, I got on Meetup.com and searched for groups that interested me.  There were lots of Mommy groups but I decided that I didn't want to be "defined" that way anymore.  After all, both my kids are making their own friends at school now; they don't need me to make friends with other people with kids (not necessarily a bad thing, but not my motivation).  I finally came across "The Chandler Women's Social Meetup Group".  It appears that they are a group of women of all ages.  I looked through their past and upcoming events and it seems like the events will fit me perfectly.  Let's not forget, that we are on a tight budget around here and I can't be meeting for dinners, lunches and movies.  This group does meet for movies and dinners but they also have simple meetups at bakeries and coffee shops.  I can eat before I go and simply order a cup of coffee.......that won't break the bank!  They also have a monthly book club meeting at the Starbucks inside Barnes and Noble.

My first meetup is tomorrow and it is at a bakery.  The point of the meetup is to get together and bring a donation for a local women's shelter (right up my alley).  In my couponing adventures, I often overstock on things like toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, lotion etc.  Sometimes, I will purchase other random things and put them in my stockpile.  I usually get these things free or nearly free and I always end up having too much.  I have been donating these items to homeless shelters in the last year.  For this event we are collecting things that Mother's and their kids can give each other for Christmas.  I just happen to have an extra bottle of perfume and a My Little Pony toy saved up in my stockpile!  Woo hoo!  I am so excited to participate in this event!  I can meet some new people and do some good for those in need!

I am also quite excited about the book club because I have recently started reading again.  Until Thanksgiving weekend it had been years since I had actually read a book.  I haven't had the ability to slow my brain down enough to stay with a novel.  I have read lots of magazines, cookbooks,  "how to" books and let's not forget......never ending amounts of research about "stuff" on the Internet.  If I have a question about something or an interest in something new, I look it up on the Internet or head down to the library and get a book about it.

For some reason, last weekend, I went to our bookcase and started looking through the Stephen King books.  He is my favorite author and I have read a lot of his books.  We have quite a few in our personal library that I have not read.  I picked out "Gerald's Game" which is a book that I tried to read a few years ago but just couldn't slow down enough to do it.  This time, I finished it in four days.  Pretty fast considering all the other housewifey things I accomplished at the same time.

When I saw that The Chandler Women's Social Meetup Group had a monthly book club, I looked at the upcoming book selections then went to our local library's website to see if they had the books available.  I hit the jackpot; they are available!  I have already checked out the first book and I started it yesterday.  I am a third of the way through the book and the book club doesn't meet until January!  In case you are interested, the book is "The Romanov Bride" by Robert Alexander.  It is a pretty easy read and very interesting.  When I am finished, I think I am going to check out the other books by Robert Alexander.

BTW, I got another one of those Kohl's $10 gift cards this week and got 3 pairs of pink patterned knee highs and two pairs of underwear for Madison.........grand total: $1.18!