You're the Top! You're an arrow collar....

So I don't know about the rest of you, but I have seriously enjoyed this All The Single Ladies blog party. I mean really--it's some of the most blogging fun I've had in a year! And today while I was sitting all by myself at Panera eating soup and salad and wishing someone was there to keep me company, I brought up Meghan's latest post on my Samsung Galaxy Tab and was brought to a state of  (if not tears) great sentimentality. She challenged us to write a post about the girlfriends we love and how we came to know them, why we love them, anything and everything that has to do with them. So I thought, what better way to show my love for some of my particularly close friends right now than to do a friendship celebration post? :D

First off, of course, is Abigail. She's pretty much my sister in law. (Well, give or take a ring.)

This could be us. (any guesses who I'd be? ;)

But this is actually her, as seen from my perch in bed on the frequent weekends she comes a'courtin' my big bro.

This is also her, as seen atop her brother's shoulders cleaning fly poop off our ceiling. 

What? We live in the country. It happens.

. 

Hee-hee-hee. Blackmail? ;)

Okay. I'll be nice now. Here are the lovey-doves themselves. (And tomorrow they celebrate their first Valentine's Day together! I am sure they are both very excited. :)

Abigail is absolutely one of the most genuine, adorable, countrified, rosy people I know. I loved from the moment I clamped eyes on her, and that's seriously not poetic exaggeration. It's the honest to goodness truth. I don't know if I've ever told y'all, but I saw Abigail at a friend's graduation and thought to myself, "Now she'd be a good friend." and then was too shy to introduce myself, and we eventually got to know each other on the blog-world and then through emails, and then finally met and then I played Emma Woodhouse and got her in love with my brother. And now they are going along merry as the morning at present. :) She's wiser than I am, older than I am, mysterious-er than I am, and altogether quite worthy to be someday-wife of The Gentleman. Marybelle, are you laughing and blushing yet? ;) She also has a penchant for making up nutsy nicknames for me. Throughout the course of our relationship I have been:

Frankie

Miss Waffle

Mr. Dorrit

and more.

Oh. I forgot that she looked on complacently while I let Grover kiss me.

I have many other friends that are near and dear to me, but they have featured on this blog before. Katie, Morgan, Maryanna, and Joanna, I love you lots and lots and if I had pictures of us together (JOANNA and MARE! WE'VE NEVER TAKEN A PHOTO TOGETHER!?) Julia and all my MOHL girls, I love you so much too!  But there are two friends that have become very very close to me this past year, and whom I don't believe I've mentioned at any length.

First off, Josie. 

Josie is the chick with swag who--while I might not always understand her entirely--makes me love her through and through.

 She's tenacious, and even when struggling with various and sometimes serious health-issues, always manages to laugh at herself or someone else and push through. She's sarcastic and funny and sincere and I have so enjoyed growing closer and closer and very close with her this past year. Working together on the SAT was awesome....even though every stinkin' photo on that trip could easily qualify as blackmail. 

She's the girl who will stay up till 3 watching the Hobbit Premier with me and still look gorgeous in the pictures. She's the one whose laugh I like to imitate. She's the one who's just as tiny as I am plump, but still manages to look a scary-lot like me on occasion. She came to the County Fair and played Lone Wolf. She is a a self-proclaimed Lonestar, but she's learning how to bring a few people into her constellation. She has awesome taste in music and knows how to dance. In short, I love her. 

And last but not least, Katie Frost.

I met Katie working on the campaigns down in Georgia, and we hit it off down there. I have no pictures of Katie. This is nuts. But seriously, the girl is such a huge ball of preppy, Southern, High-class spunk that there's no stopping her long enough to take a shot. :D We discuss everything under the sun. Pretty much literally everything. And she's plain and simple fun with a sweet heart. Over the months since leaving GA we've gotten closer and closer and closer. She's my hilarious Single Friend because we discuss this season with absolute candor. We have planned that we are going to travel to Europe together someday, and if we aren't married by 30, and are going to live in London where I will lurk about the streets collecting writing inspiration, and she will work at Burberry and bring me back a trench-coat. 

So all you girls, I love you. I love you a whole lot. You're a major part of why I love the season I'm in some days, and why I'm surviving it other days. I thank God for each and every one of you, and....well...thanks for putting up with me! 

                 Much much love,

                                  Rach