Appreciating how women make the best connections

I have a nearly complete blog post full of inspiration, illumination, amazing insights, but gosh darn it, it needs a little more work! I want to say the dog ate my homework and leave it at that, but no, I actually want to tell you things that make me appreciate women and how cool they are.

About that missing homework..!

I had an office day and Russ said, “What are you up to today? Homework?”

What a great definition of how this blog works. I loved school and I loved the homework. I think I’m remembering that correctly. But another reason I loved school is that girlfriends were there. I grew up on a farm in North Dakota with my three brothers. We lived too far from town for play dates so I’d have to wait for the school year to come around to have fun with girlfriends.

When Russ said “homework” I saw a correlation in current time. If I look at my life and squint a little, I’m still in school and I’m still doing homework. During “school hours” I am with my clients learning all about them, how their bodies are put together, what their life is like, how they think, and then using the language and science of fashion, I’m helping them dress for their activities. There’s that place where fashion, style, art, and women come together that is constantly fascinating to me. I learn new things every single day.

Doing my homework

That fascination is where the blog comes in. It’s where I get to share what I’m learning, like the anatomy of outfits, connections clothes have to style and style to fashion. Either before or after work or on the weekends, I do my homework: I write posts about fashion and style and modern women.

Ways women connect

I don’t see the faces of many of you who are reading my blog, but I sure feel like I know you from your comments. There’s such a loving community here. Sometimes I get letters, like one this month from Phyllis. Phyllis, I sure love what you shared with me. I’ve read your letter a few times already. I even xeroxed it in case I lost the original. You offered me great advice and I’m taking it!

Once in a while, I get to meet readers in person.

There was the story of Alice I shared with you. Remember Alice from Minnesota? She was the woman who was introduced to fashion and style during the worst time in her life. With her sister, Ellen, encouraging her, Alice turned these new ideas into a project she could focus on during her healing. People have come up to me since I wrote about her and told me how inspiring Alice was to them. Do you see how we’re all connecting?

And then there are these delicious random moments…

It was the week I’d written the post about using totes and how to organize them. I was in San Anselmo and when I was leaving to head home to Sonoma, I crossed the street to my car and opened the trunk. I was shifting things around when I heard my name being called.

I stood up to see this lovely woman leaving the patio of an outdoor restaurant and coming toward me. Her name is Stephanie. She has the most sparkly eyes I’ve ever seen! She’s a fan of the blog and wanted to tell me. I felt like I knew her. I’m beginning to think in some way, we all know each other. Is that what they mean by a tribe? We giggled over the pouch she was carrying. It was a lovely connection.

The Sol Sisters trunk show brought women together in-person

The story about how I met Kathy and Ginny—also known as the Sol Sisters—was told a few times at the jewelry trunk show hosted at Sheila-Merle’s house. You can read it here. As I remember, I was scared to death to approach them and ask them about their style, but I was sure glad I did! I knew I wanted Sheila-Merle to meet the Sol Sisters so the idea came up to do a trunk show together.

Here’s who came: old friends, new friends, clients, daughters of clients, friends of mine from Facebook, colleagues, people who knew each other and plenty who did not. Besides trying on jewelry people connected in fun ways.

Sallie came, remember her?

Here’s Sallie who you’ve read about as well. I wrote about going on a Beauty Bundle shopping trip with her. She was wearing her freshly frayed white jeans! I introduced her to Janet who lived in the same general area–the fire zone. They had chilling stories to share about the October 2017 fire in Sonoma County.

Debra’s French teacher turns out to be Sheila-Merle’s best friend. My Facebook friend, Janet, was born in Fargo, North Dakota. At one point I’d said goodbye to one of the women who needed to take off and then 30 or 40 minutes later I saw her deep in conversation with someone. I was delighted.

There was lingering, and sharing, connecting and swapping resources. It was amazing!

One-of-a-kind jewels may have been what enticed us to be together on that Saturday afternoon, but it’s the beautiful way women connected to each other that I remember most vividly.

Of course, it made me want to create more venues where women could convene. Field trips? I don’t know what it is but I do know I’d love more of that feeling.

Maybe I should stop with the idea generation and just enjoy the moment. I shall.

And that really well-thought-out blog post I was working on? It’ll be posted soon unless the dog eats my homework again. But that’ll most likely mean I’m with women like you having adventures somewhere and getting ready to share it with all of you.

What ways do you connect with other women, either women you know or strangers? We all want to know!

XO