#2013alive: Looking ahead: Celebrate By Throwing a Party!

As the first week of October’s 12 Months of Wellness draws to a close, I hope you’ve had the opportunity to connect with an old friend.  I sent a link to Wednesday’s blog to my friend Sue, who responded via email, “It's so true. I don't think many people have the friendship we do, especially never living in the same town.”

Of course, today people are connecting all over the world thanks to the internet and social media, making global friendships a commonplace reality. Social media also makes it a snap to organize social events and parties.

Throw a party!

Next week we’re going to celebrate—for absolutely no reason at all. And what better way to celebrate than by throwing a party?

When we were kids, Sue visited me for a week each summer. The fifth straight summer she visited, we decided to hold a fifth anniversary celebration. We wore party hats to the dinner table each night and had a cake at the end of the week. We also made each other scrapbooks filled with photos, drawings, poems, and in-jokes. (Yes, I still have mine!)

Flush quietly!

On one page, Sue glued on a photo of an Eaton’s catalog model in a raincoat, and pasted a toilet photo behind a construction paper door and a photo of brownies behind a refrigerator door. This work of art represented me sneaking to the bathroom after my parents went to bed, where my job was to flush the toilet, then quickly open the refrigerator door to sneak us some rocky road brownies. (I lived in a tiny house where the fridge was located mere steps from the toilet.)

Our old Kelvinator refrigerator had quite a secure door closing mechanism/handle that made a fair bit of noise when opened, hence the masking noise of the toilet. (Being unable to open those fridges could have been one reason why obesity rates were much lower in those days.) If my parents weren’t woken up by the flushing toilet and the fridge door, our giggles probably clued them in that some skullduggery was afoot. Ah yes, those are good memories to celebrate!

You’re never too old—or too young—to celebrate the special people in our lives. So put your thinking cap on this weekend, and plan a party for the Thanksgiving weekend!

In the meantime, let us know what you and your old friends like/liked to do. You can reach us on Facebook or Twitter, using the hashtag #2013alive. And don’t forget to download our October goal sheet.