Day 42- My Swap Party

Don't get excited... it isn't what you think.
A swap party is when a group of girls (and/or boys) get together and brings things they don't use or need anymore and everyone swaps items.
I host a swap party at my house every few months. I get a lot of free product and promotional stuff and I also have things from ebay or etsy that don't sell. Sometimes these items just don't work with my skin/hair type or they just aren't my style so they go into a bag in my back room until the next swap night.
This is a great way to get rid of things that you don't need/use and trade them in for things that you might need and will use! It is especially good for you UK girls that can't return beauty products like we can here! I know you all have drawers full of wasted products. I have hosted 3 swap nights now and I have honed it down to a science! So here is how I run my swap nights:

1) I make a limit of 10 girls. In my space, any more than this is just too many! You want a number of girls that is manageable and also space enough to lay out all of the things everyone brings!
2) I also limit the amount of stuff girls can bring to one large laundry basket. If you don't set limits, you can have girls bringing bags and bags... and while that sounds good in theory-- it is actually really overwhelming. You want enough space to put things out so that everything can be seen.
3) I set up areas for like things. I do lots of different tables and arrange them in groups. I have cosmetics, skin care, hair care, jewelry/hair accessories, misc (kitchen stuff, books, arts/crafts, etc.), and then in the bedroom there is a wall to line shoes up and the clothes go wherever they can. My room tends to get a little hectic... I have one bar to hang clothing on and it is never enough so I make sure only dresses and fancy things get hung and everything else is laid or folded on the bed. I would definitely recommend having at least one hanging rack as girls generally bring more clothing than anything else.
4) I like to stagger arrival times of girls so not everyone is setting their things out at the same time. I always have my stuff laid out before anyone gets there.
5) I also have everyone bring a snack/sweet and a bottle of wine or booze. This is to prevent anyone from being hangry and/or too sober.
6) We all sit in a circle and 3 girls at a time are excused to choose 3 items. We run clockwise so as soon as one girl is done, the one sitting next to her gets up and makes her choices. You can definitely do a free for all-- but the order prevents girls from fighting over the same items and also prevents one girl getting 57 things while another only get 5. We go for as many rounds as things are still being picked and once the picking starts to slow, then we open it up as a free for all for last picks. By this time, there is no fighting since everyone has gotten their first pick treasures.
7) At the end of the night, everyone is free to take home their own things that didn't get picked. If they choose to leave anything, I do one of two things. If it is something I feel is valuable but just needs the right person to pick it, I will put it back in the box for the next swap night. If not, I put everything in garbage bags and I donate to a local charity that comes and picks everything up.

Swap nights are a super fun way to clean out your closet and also to meet new people and be social. We always have a blast and my girls are always asking me about the next one. I would definitely recommend them to anyone that just has too much "stuff"! If any of you have been to or hosted a swap night that ran differently than mine, definitely leave your comments and let me know what you loved/hated... I am always curious how to make mine run smoothly!

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Day 33- Being a Difficult Friend

I know I am not an easy person to be friends with. My schedule is crazy hectic. I work for myself, so when things come up, I have to move plans around to accommodate work. I tour a big chunk out of the year too, so I am gone a lot and not an "around everyday" kind of friend.
Mostly though, I sometimes think I am just a difficult human to be friends with. I am not a touchy feely type of girl. By that, I mean, I am not the kind of girl that spills my guts out all of the time and I am not super sensitive to other girls. Sometimes I have to remind myself that a lot of girls are sensitive and need to be handled more softly. I am very type A. I speak my mind. I don't play games. I don't DO passive aggressive. If I am upset, I tell you. And I also don't deal with friend drama well. As I have talked about in previous blogs-- I am not afraid to break up with friends that are too much. I try to be forgiving, but I would rather just cut ties than be stressed out and emotionally drained.
I am also kind of aggressive. When a friend is doing something that seems harmful or bad-- I speak up. And I feel like sometimes this is to my detriment. It is a judgment call. And sometimes I speak before I really think about what I am putting out there. I never mean to offend my friends. And I never want my friends to think I am being bossy or meddling. But sometimes I am-- and I try not to, but I can't help it. I had a friend once that was in a terrible relationship. He would do terrible things, she would come to me crying and telling me it was over, and then a few weeks later, they would be back together. I was always compassionate and there to lean on-- I never judged or told her what to do... but at a certain point I had to tell her to either leave or stop coming to me. I can't watch my friends abuse themselves knowingly.
Sometimes I am a know-it-all. I am really bad at biting my tongue when I know someone is wrong even if it is something small that doesn't matter. I consider myself an intellectual and my brain is ALWAYS working. In a lot of these cases my intellectual brain speaks up before my logical brain can tell me to shut up and let it go. I never back down from an argument or a debate. My mom has called me the Debate Queen since I was little. She laughs when my relatives try to argue with me over dumb things on Facebook because she knows I won't stop until I win. And I won't. I can't. It's an illness.
I am not good with daily friend communication. Working for myself makes me live in a bubble of constant stress and high speed movement. I am always doing 5 or 6 things at once, and sometimes friends just don't fit into my day. That isn't saying that if a friend really needs me, I won't be there. I will. Always. But I don't think to check in with friends on a daily basis. I don't have time for it! I don't always even have time for my husband daily-- although that is easier since he lives with me and can sneak in kisses. I also don't make a habit of kissing my friends. I am not the type of friend that will sit and email you all day about my daily happenings. I don't care about what any of my friends had for breakfast. I really don't.
My best friend and I have talked on the phone maybe twice in the 15 years we have been friends. I am not a phone talker. Her and I can go weeks without texting and months without seeing each other and when we do, it is like no time has passed. I don't know what she is doing day to day. But I do know the big stuff. And I know that if I need her, she is there. And vice versa.
I am appreciative to my friends that have stuck around for so many years
. I don't take them for granted for a second. I know I am sometimes hard to be friends with. But I also know that I am loyal and honest and about as true blue as friends come. I hope that means something to my friends. To those of you reading this that ARE my friends... I love you guys. I know I don't always show it and I am not all mushy gushy... but you guys seriously save my life.
Sorry I missed a few days of blogging. I was up in Big Bear with my best friends for the weekend and I just didn't feel like taking a break from my real life to blog. But I love you internet friends too.
XOXO

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Day 28- Give Me All Of The Food

In about a half hour, my group of girlfriends are coming over to watch Sisters and veg out. We are ordering pizzas, drinking wine, and my girl Lauren is bringing a bag full of cookies and brownies she has stolen from her work. Why do stolen treats always taste better?? I dunno, but they do.
I think it is important for girls to have nights where you just forget about the calories and the processed foods and the sugars and just enjoy yourself and be a teenager again. It is important for me, at least. I work hard most days to try to eat right and work out. Call it a "cheat day"... call it being irresponsible... I don't care what you call it... because it is about to go down and I feel 0% remorse. Mostly I just want to hang with my girls and laugh and be ridiculous and not obsesses over everything I am putting in my mouth. My ass will survive.

In other news... my hand looks INSANELY huge in this picture. I swear I don't have Dave-Grohl-In-The-Everlong-Video-Hands. That is all. Thank you, and good night.

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Day 24- Flaky Friends

I like a lot of flaky things. Biscuits, chocolate, snow... But I can't stand flaky friends. I was having dinner with my best friend and his lady tonight and we started talking about flaky friends and how annoying they are.
There are many types of flaky friends, and you come across them all in LA.
There is the noncommittal flake. When you ask them to hang out, it is usually replied to with a "I might be down." Which is not the same as a friend that has a busy schedule and might have to work last minute or do something else important. This person literally has nothing better to do, but just doesn't want to commit to one solid plan.
There is also the exploring-my-options flake. When you ask this flake to hang out, they will always reply with "who else is going to be there?" This makes you feel shitty for two reasons. They ask who else will be there because 1) they want to know if anyone better than you will be attending because you alone aren't good enough to warrant a trip out of the house or 2) they dislike most of your other friends and want to avoid most of them. There is no winning with that question.
There is the always-late flake. They will show up... but they will NEVER be on time. I am a punctuality freak. I was raised to believe that being late shows the people waiting for you that you think you are more important than them-- that their time means nothing to you. The late flake will turn being late into a cute little joke, like they are a character on a sitcom and every time they say something about being late, a laugh track will play to cut the tension. There are no laugh tracks in life.
There is the no-show flake. This is probably my most hated flake. These are the flakes that DO commit but DON'T show up. Or they send you a text 10 minutes before you are supposed to meet to let you know they aren't coming. As if that makes it less rude. I host a lot of girls nights and parties and most times I ask for RSVP's to make sure there is enough food and space. When someone just no-shows or late-bails me, it really chaps my ass. (Emergencies are different. But usually it is just self entitlement.) I had a girls night once that 14 girls RSVP'd to, and 2 showed up. TWO.
There is the never-invites-you-out flake. This friend hangs out all of the time... when YOU make plans or ask them to hang. This friend will never actually invite you out to do anything ever. Friendships shouldn't be work. Friendships also shouldn't feel like weird relationships. If you don't want someone in your life... Just don't hang out with them anymore. Don't do fake hangs!
This leads into the never-pays-for-anything flake. This is pretty self explanatory. They get cheap when the dinner bill comes. They never uber split. They cut out on tabs. They never offer gas money when you drive everywhere. This flake is really just a scrub in a flakes clothing.
I am sure there are many more flake varieties, but these came to mind first today. And now I am tired and full from my dinner with my not-flaky friends so I am calling it a day. Feel free to offer other flake varieties below...
Happy Sunday.

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Day 16- Those We've Lost

Charlie. Charlie made everyone laugh. He always wore tie dyed shirts and hemp necklaces. Before I met him, I called him Buzz because he looked like Buzz from Home Alone. He had blonde hair in a bowl cut, he was super tall, and he had flat feet, so he kind of loafed around.
Today is the 14th anniversary of Charlie's passing.
I met Charlie my freshman year in high school. He was a year older than me and he was in my drama class and he had a sweet little school boy crush on me. My favorite game was making Charlie blush. It was SO easy. Sophomore year I started dating his best friend, Mike, and we continued dating until I was a senior. In these years, Charlie, Mike and I became really close. We were the 3 stooges. We had closed campus for lunch, so Charlie would sneak me out in the back of his Toyota wagon so we could go eat Taco Bell and he could smoke weed. We would listen to NOFX and sing at the top of our lungs and I would scold him when he would speed.
My parents went through a brutal divorce when I was a sophomore. At that time we were living in a house where I had an outside door to my room. I would sneak out and Charlie would pick me up and I would cry and we would listen to dueling banjos and we would air guitar until my tears turned into laughs. He would tell me about all of his insecurities with life and with girls. I would tell him about my own insecurities and fears. One night Charlie had a party when his parents were out of town and in the morning, I went to his room wrapped in a blanket and climbed in bed with him and we just laid there and talked about life. Until a bee stung him. That was a very random bee sting.
I remember his passing like it was yesterday. The phone in the kitchen rang. It was my ex boyfriend Mike, who I hadn't spoken with in years. He said "Charlie is dead." My first words were "Charlie who?" I only knew one, but surely it couldn't be OUR Charlie. I had just seen him at the mall the month before. I hadn't seen him in a while and I yelled his name and he turned around and we ran at each other in slow motion and he scooped me up and spun me around and we laughed and talked about how much we missed each other. He looked great. He was the same goofy Charlie.
Apparently about a few weeks after I saw Charlie, he started turning sort of yellow so he went to the doctor. The doctor told him that he was having problems with his liver and that he needed to stop drinking and smoking pot. They gave him antabuse to make sure he wouldn't drink, but he was spitting it out when he left the clinic. He was only 21. At 21, you still feel invincible. Surely they were mistaken. Within a week, he was in the ICU in late stages of liver failure. He was moved to the top of the donor list and was within a few hours of death when they found him a new liver. Surgery went well and the liver seemed to be taking. Everyone thought he would be fine. That night his liver rejected and he was declared brain dead.
I asked Mike why he hadn't told me sooner. Why he hadn't told me so I could have been there or said goodbye. But the truth was, it happened too fast. And no one really thought Charlie would die. I don't think anyone ever thinks that an otherwise healthy 21 year old can be gone that fast. But he was.
I feel like humans always have regrets when loved ones die. I should have been there. We should have talked more. I should have told him I loved him the last time I saw him (which luckily I did). It's weird to think that you didn't know the last time you saw a person was going to be the very last time ever. Years after he was gone, I called Mike and asked him to take me to Charlie's grave. It was the weirdest thing in the world to see his name on that plaque. It still doesn't feel real.
I have no regrets with Charlie. That guy saved me in so many ways and I feel lucky and honored to have been a small part of his short life.
I guess today I just wanted a piece of him to live on. I miss you Charlie. Maybe you're up there playing dueling banjos with Bowie and Lemmy now.
XOXO

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Day 12- Breaking up with a Friend

Breakups. We have all gone through them. And they always suck-- no matter what side of them you are on.
But how many of you have ever broken up with a friend?
I actually blew my friends mind a few months ago suggesting this very idea. She was having a hard time with a friend that was just, frankly, a shitty friend. I said "Why don't you just break up??" She didn't even know that was a thing. But let me tell you, it is.
As I have gotten older, my patience for toxic/needy friends has slimmed down to basically nothing. I am a busy lady. I barely have time for my husband. I am not going to waste my time on friends that suck the life out of me. And I shouldn't have to! The point of a friendship is to help make life suck less. My best friend makes my life awesome. She always makes me laugh. I can be me 100% with her. We can go months without talking and when we do, it is like no time has passed. We have both been there for each other through the worst times of our lives. I know I can trust her with my life. And I honestly love being there for her. Being her friend has never felt like a job. And I have never felt like she was a needy girlfriend. That, to me, is the true mark of a keeper friendship.
On the other hand, I have had friendships that were completely opposite. I have had friends that drained the life out of me with their constant drama. I have had friends that spilled my dark secrets. I have had friends that got weird and jealous about other friends. I have had friends that were horrible, sloppy embarrassing drunks. I have had friends that competed with my man for love and attention. I have had friends that were never there to hear my problems, but always expected me to be there for theirs.
At some point I stopped for a second and asked myself why. What was the point of these people being in my life. At some point, can you even call them a friend anymore? If a friend doesn't contribute in a largely positive way to your life-- YOU DONT NEED THEM!! It doesn't matter if you have known them since you were little. Or if they USED to be the best friend ever. Or if they are married to your brother. You have complete control over your life-- and your friends.
I have learned as I have grown up that quality over quantity is what I value in my friendships. I would rather have 3 close friends than 100 shitty ones. Don't be afraid to break up with the shitty ones. Or even to distance yourself from the subpar ones. Your life load will get much lighter.

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Day 7- Why I Hate Girls... AKA My Girl Posse

Girlfriends.
Growing up, I always had TONS of girlfriends. Me and my best 4 girlfriends in middle school even dubbed ourselves "The Buttmunches" and had club names (I was Cherokeebler). We had probably a million inside jokes and didn't make any important moves in life without consulting each other (i.e. haircuts, wardrobe changes, crushes).  (right)
When I got to high school, the school boundaries changed so my 4 best friends went to one school, and lonely old me went to another. Around this time, I was starting to get more into punk and being a weirdo... so I didn't relate to a lot of the girls at my new school. But I did relate to a lot of the guys... so they became my new besties. I stopped caring about being cute and shopping and flirting with boys. I was more focused on doing well in school, going to punk shows, and looking as weird as I could. The boys accepted me. They let me be who I wanted without judgment. So I became the "I don't really get along with girls" girl.
Let's be clear here-- I didn't WANT to be that girl. I just felt like I had something to prove since most of my friends were guys. I needed a reason. I needed an explanation. And eventually I started believing it. In my early 20's, this became more evident than ever. I was insecure. SO insecure. So instead of finding girls who I could relate to and building friendships-- I was just a total asshole (more on this in later blogs).
Around this time I met by best friend Caitlin. She was the chick that hung out with all dudes. She played sports. She had a crazy good punk record collection. She liked to go to psychobilly shows. She didn't give a shit about girl drama. One sleepover later and I was completely in love. I didn't know that girls like Caitlin existed! And here we are, almost 12 years later-- still best friends. (left)
In my mid 20s something started to shift. I actually WANTED to have more girlfriends. I wanted to go shopping and have a girl crew at shows and vent about my horrible ex. I watched Sex & the City religiously and yearned to have a group to drink cosmos and talk about dicks with. I could do this with my guy friends-- but it just wasn't the same!
Eventually as the years passed, I amassed a group of lady friends that was awesome (right). And then I moved to LA. Holy moses, let me tell you how hard it is to meet cool, down to earth chick friends in LA. SO HARD. For the first two years I was here, I thought it was hopeless. My best friend screwed me over, my next close friend turned into a drug addict, and after that it was just a chain of flake after flake.
But then something happened... I met one rad chick, and then another, and then another. I started hosting girls nights and encouraging the cool chicks I knew to bring other cool chicks. At one point my house was filed with nearly 30 super rad babes. Now I have a solid crew again. There are about 7 or 8 broads that I consider my closest pals. And it rules. I always have a gal to call when I want to watch a movie and drink wine. Or when I want to go shopping and need help. Or when I want to back over my husband with my car and need to vent (and/or need help).
My girl crew is amazing. It is full of very diverse, smart, driven, hilarious women. None of them take themselves too seriously. They are always down to get silly-- even if that includes a 2am photoshoot in a vineyard in Napa (left). I honestly feel that I couldn't have picked a better group of ladies. If any of you reading this are struggling with wanting/finding girlfriends... My advice is to DO IT!! There is nothing better than the love and support of other women.
Start organizing girls nights. Movie nights. Craft nights. Book clubs. Girls nights out. Just do it and invite whoever you can. You might get some duds. Ok, you WILL get some duds... but odds are you will find some keepers along the way too.
Every girl needs a girl posse.

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