The Single Girl...

Growing up and through high school, I never really felt like I had any TRUE friends. People that knew who I was deep down, and who opened their lives up to me. When I went to college I was so blessed to discover true friends. One of whom is my dear friend Catherine Tolbert. I absolutely love this girl. She is free as the wind and just has the must exciting life. But she also makes time to come see me or do things I'm doing. For instance, she was in New York this past month, working on an election, and I told her I was going to Merlefest. She said, "Awesome! I'll come too!" Now most people wouldn't really think she was serious coming all the way from New York. But I know Catherine and I know she is always serious about an adventure!
So Catherine came to Merlefest and we had a wonderful time catching up, dancing, and listening to bluegrass.


One of the funniest parts of the trip was sitting together to listen to one of my favorite bluegrass bands from Alaska, Bearfoot. As I'm sitting there with Barclay in my lap and spit up literally from my head to my toe, Catherine is sitting to my left in a beautiful sun dress with just a little spit up on her;-) They start playing this song called Single Girl.

Some of the lyrics go like this:

The single girl...the single girl...
dresses nice and neat
but the married girl...the married girl...
no shoes apon her feet

The single girl...the single girl...
lays in bed till one
but the married girl...the married girl...
is up before the sun

I'd rather be a single girl
sailing on the sea...
than to be a married girl
with a baby on my knee

You can see a performance of it on you tube at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi90dSV0SE8

Now I beg to differ. I'd rather be a married girl with a baby on my knee, personally:-)
It was just so funny because out of all our closest friends from college, Catherine is the only single girl, and I'm the only married girl with a baby. We laughed through the whole song.



Our band pose:-)

One of my favorite parts of the weekend was Sunday, I decided I could NOT brave the heat another day with a baby, so I decided to stay at the hotel (who had a pool) and have a first swim with Barclay. Ummm...I can't even tell you how funny it was, So I'm going to have to post a video of the ordeal:-) I think it's hilarious.




After not swimming, we went to an outlet mall and had a blast shopping for deals. Now I am the deal QUEEN! But Catherine is actually right there with me. So we have a great time together. We are also both very honest about what looks good/is worth the price. We had an awesome time and got the best deals ever at Banana Republic. The only bad thing about shopping with Catherine is EVERYTHING looks good on her, so in order for her to be able to eat and live, I have to help her weed through all the good looking clothes and only buy the knock out ones:-)

After shopping, we went to a restaurant called Pppsgettis (an Italian restaurant). I have seen this restaurant several time when I was in the area, and always dreamed of going there. I thought it was really expensive and ritzy since it is on the side of hill and just looked completely small and pretentious. I told Catherine of my "fantasy" to eat there one day. I even said I wish I had a nicer outfit to go there. She quickly shattered my dreams of a nice, romantic restaurant by pointing out that on there sign was a little boy covered in spaghetti. An exact quote, "Helen Joy, I don't think any restaurant with a spaghetti covered little boy could be that nice." So we went. I wouldn't say it was the best Italian I've ever had but it was a really fun eating experience! First, Barclay was hungry too so he was crying when we went in, so they put us in a separate room than the other few customers. Good thing too. I fed Barclay, then he puked ALL over both of us several times. We were giggling the whole time as I held Barclay on my knee and bounced him while eating my salad with my HANDS! I am just not that talented to bounce a baby and use a fork in my left hand. So I had puke, salad, and some of Cat's spaghetti all over me! The waitress shook her head at me and just laughed. It was the perfect date with my sweet friend.

And to top off the wonderful day, we spotted a Goodwill on the way back and had to stop. Goodwill is our tradition together. We have found the best things ever at Goodwills all over the country. I think by this time we were too tired to really look for deals, but Catherine did manage to snag a BRAND NEW, with tags, genuine Nike, thong workout leotard from the 80's! That's my Catherine!

Barclay and I were so sad to see her go, but I know we'll see her soon, probably after she going hiking in Nepal, or swims the English channel:-)

We love you Crazy Aunt Cack!