First of all, you may notice that things look a different around here today. Yes, we are attempting to redecorate our home away from home, and yes, like with our actual homes we are pretty bad at it. If you notice for the next few days/weeks/months (please God, not months!) that things look strange, stick with us please!

Secondly, as I read back over this post in preparation for surprising Lisa with it today (Happy Birthday Lisa!), it hit me all over again how true the words are. Good girlfriends are hard to find, y’all, and so I consider myself incredibly lucky to have found an amazing friend and now blogging partner in Lisa.

Lisa got a little more of a birthday present than she was bargaining for this weekend when she was struck down by the Dreaded Stomach Bug 2013, so it seems even more fitting that I can take today to tell her how much her friendship means to me…and maybe drop off some Saltines and Ginger Ale on her doorstep! 😉

One thing I will say about tax day that I actually do like, is unlike another April holiday that bounces around from year to year, springing up wherever it wants (I am looking at you Easter), tax day is always April 15th.

Lots of time to prepare and plan and be organized with your forms and your money, or if you are like my husband, you can wait year after year until just about the last possible second and squeak in at the deadline. Whatever, it isn’t like your wife will stress about it or anything.

My real favorite thing about April 15th is that it happens to be the birthday of one of my besties. You know the friends who come along in your lifetime, and you think to yourself, well, even if it means hanging on to the bumper of their minivan while they attempt to drive away, I am NEVER letting this person go. The true friend, nothing fair weather about them at all, pure, honest, good girlfriend through and through.

Now, I am super lucky because I actually have a handful of these kinds of women in my life, some going all the way back to high school and some who came along during the baby mommy phase and then my friend Lisa, who happens to be the subject of this post.

Our girls bonded in Junior Kindergarten, thanks to our clicking and have been besties themselves ever since. I think I have told her this before, but Lisa was the chair of the Lower School Parent’s Association when Emma started school, so I first really noticed her at back-to-school night when she introduced herself. I remember leaning over to Robert that night and saying how totally fantastic she seemed and that I hoped I could get to know her. Lucky for me, I stalked managed to run into her enough places that we struck up a friendship.

She and I talk every single day, sometimes multiple times a day, about everything under the sun. We email so much it is a wonder that we even have anything left to talk about over the phone—but we do! Thank God for unlimited text messaging or my kids could never go to college!

I greatly admire the way she mothers her children and since becoming her friend, I look to her for advice at pretty much every turn because I know that she will tell me the truth, but never in a way that would be hurtful or unkind. She is the validating kind of girlfriend, and I cannot say this enough, if you don’t have those kinds of girlfriends, this marriage and motherhood gig is going to break you.

She makes me laugh to the point that if I was not a regular Kegel practicing mom, I would probably need to hit up Lisa Rinna for some of those Depends. Her emails alone can have me sitting at my computer laughing out loud by myself. Someday, when she is not expecting it and I am not actually trying to give her a non-embarrassing birthday gift, I will totally share some of them here. Ssshhh, don’t tell her, let’s let it be a surprise!

More than all of the good times, though, what makes a true friend, well, true, is how they fare when the weather gets rough in life. How when you can be sitting in an emergency room waiting room on a Sunday night, having just been called by your mother’s nursing home because she was found unresponsive and look up and there is that friend to wait with you. How she can know the deep dark reality of exactly how you feel about your mother, so complicated and overwhelming in the complexity of feelings and emotions, and still a year later take you to lunch on the anniversary of her death armed with cards and candy. Because she knows, she knows, that is exactly what you need.

One of my 2012 goals is to tell the people in my life more often how much I care about them, because, you just never know, right? And because honestly, people should hear that they matter, that what they are doing does not go unnoticed, that their presence in your life is essential. So, today, I choose to say to Lisa…Happy Birthday to one of my favorite people on the planet! I hope you know that you are loved.

P.S. In addition to all the other fabulous things about “Miss Weesa”, as Abby calls her, she proofreads all my blog posts to make sure I don’t do something stupid like leave out a comma or forget a word. Since I obviously couldn’t show her this one, I am having to throw caution to the wind and hope for the best!

Obviously, we all know she still does that and more now that I have threatened her enough with revealing all of her hilarious emails and made her officially join the blog!