My friend James Baber has a new blog, I am QuasiJames’ Mind. A brilliant thinker who unabashedly says what he thinks. Rachel Ryle has a new blog with the best title ever, Once in a Ryle. Rachel spent an entire year rhyming every single one of her Tweets, so expect good stuff from her. Cali Harris has a new blog called Caligater with posts that will dance into your heart. Which is appropriate for an award-winning dancer. My former Schenkein colleague and friend Abbey O’Neal has a blog called Days Like These about living with purpose. Her writing is striking me right at the heart as it is a lot of things I am working on right now.

And…a belated shout friend to my friend Ryan Behner. Ryan committed to doing a photo a day in 2009, which he actually followed through on. And not only did he do a photo a day, they were absolutely brilliant. Before I left for my trip, Ryan was so kind as to do a photo walk with me to give me tips on photography. He is as kind as he is talented. And every time he looks at my photos, he must reflect upon how those two hours were wasted.  Fear not Ryan, when I get back I’m going to waste more of your time as I really want to get better at this.

Ryan Behner photo. (I miss home.)

I am driving you home. Ryan Behner photo.

Paula would say, “Here’s To The Dash.” Why?On a person’s tombstone, there is the year of their birth and the year of their death. What’s between those years is the “dash” aka what you did in your life. Successes, accomplishments, challenges… all memories and all things you did while LIVING.

Check it out if you have a second.

Despite all lack of originality in my signature, I do love the both of them. Our first weekend of college, Steph came and knocked on our door and asked, “Do you want to go to a party?” Ummm…yes. Please. Steph and Neal, who didn’t actually start dating for several more years, took us to our first official party off campus. From then on, their crew – Katie, Andi, Carmen, Alli, Joe, Ryan, Andy, Neville – were the sophomores, and we were the freshman. They became the juniors, we became the sophomores. They became the seniors, we became the juniors. And so we stand, six years post-grad, they remain to us as the seniors.

The seniors took us to many more parties, they bought beer for our St. Patrick’s Day party, they gave us their old furniture, they hosted tailgates, told us what classes to avoid and drove us to Target. They even threw my 21^st birthday party (and Beth’s) complete with cake, beer, balloons and hair holding. They were the older siblings we always wanted. With beer.

So a cheers to Neal and Steph. May their lives continue to be full of the love and warmth they brought into our lives.