Day Sixteen

Driving a golf cart. Like a boss.

Today I'm going to talk about a very special friend of mine. You may know her by any of several names: Juleighette Von Sneedle; Eunice the Great; Eunie; Amy Farrah Fowler; Toadette; Spicy Muffin, lead tambourine artist for the Finxter Muffles; or just plain Juleigh.

As you can see, she's a woman of character. Or, rather, characters.

She's totally weird. Which is perfect, because I'm every bit as weird, if not weirder, so we go together like peas and toast.

We so pretty!

Juleigh and her family moved here to Abilene about two weeks before we did. We sat next to each other at church, and both of us went home and told our respective husbands that we were going to befriend each other. We hadn't discussed it beforehand, it was just something we both felt instinctively.

Still, it took a couple of months before our friendship really got started. It began when we became Facebook friends, and started having long conversations, during which we would both scare our families with the loud laughter, crazy smiles, and rapid typing of the keyboard from our respective computers.

We talked about all sorts of bizarre stuff. Here are a few examples:

Real-Life Mario Kart. We made it happen.

Do elephants have boogers?

Creative things kids can do with poop.

Jason Mraz, and why he's awesome.

Husbands who fly - hot or not? (the answer - definitely hot. But not necessarily because of the pilot thing)

Real-life Mario Kart, and making it happen.

Playing real-life "Where's Waldo?" but with our alter-egos, Eunie and Gerdie.

Flying with our oh-so-sexy pilot husbands

The list goes on and on. As anyone who read through those long, insane conversations knows, we talked about a whole lot of stuff. And through the course of it, we became very good friends.

She's pretty, too!

Juleigh is my bff. Not my BFF, because that's Ben (Benjamin F Fifield), but in lower case letters. I'm not sure I would be enjoying Abilene anywhere near as much without Juleigh. In fact, I know I wouldn't be. She's the kind of friend who comes along once in a lifetime.

Ben and I have had more fun with Juleigh and Bryce (her hubby) than we've ever had with another couple. It's awesome that we have friends to do crazy stuff with, like our real-life Mario Kart adventure, our pie-eating contest, or our annual Christmas Day nerf war. I don't know if we would have done any of those things on our own.

More importantly, though, is the fact that Juleigh is also a genuine, kind, thoughtful person behind all the crazy. When I'm depressed, she's there to lift me up. If I get bad news, she cries with me. When I'm excited, I know I can tell her all about it and she'll be just as excited. She helps me be a better person. Juleigh is there for me, no matter what. And I hope she knows that I'm there for her, too, whatever she may need.

I think this picture needs no caption.

I know I'll have to move away eventually, and our madness will have to come to an end (or at least, slow down a little). But in the meantime, we'll keep planning our nerf wars, dressing like characters from Big Bang Theory, and pretending we're going to make Finxter Muffles into a real band.

It may just be that, looking back, my time in Abilene will be one of the best times of my life. And if that's the case, I know it will be because of Juleigh. Because she's literally the best.

I love you, Eunie!

Nothing wrong with a little free advertising while we're at it!