The Power of Girlfriends

Rev up the power that your friendships provide! The support and value we get from our girlfriends is priceless. While we often shop, do lunch or gossip with our friends, here suggestions for new ways to spend time together that will not only be fun but will empower each other:

1.     Have a swap meet: invite 2-6 friends who share a similar build to bring clothes they no longer wear or fit into to swap.  Have everyone bring some finger foods, open a bottle of wine, put on some tunes and have fun! This is a great way to give your wardrobe a great makeover without spending a dime. Everyone has a different way of putting an outfit together. You may have just the skirt or jacket to go great with the top your friend never wears. This is also a great way to clean out and organize your closet, so plan a swap meet early fall and early spring. Whatever clothes are not used by the group at the end of the night should get donated to charity!

2.     Plan a Glamour Night: same as above, invite some friends over, and ask everyone to bring 2 sets of supplies

1.     Their favorite skin, makeup and hair supplies

2.     The skin, makeup and hair supplies that they have but don’t use

          We have jars and tubes of stuff in our bathrooms that we thought we would love when we bought them, but turned out not to be quite right for us, but we don’t want to just throw them away.

We also have products we love and would recommend to our friends, but are they right for them?

Set out some mirrors and spend the next few hours trying new products, giving and receiving makeup and hair tips and create a new glamorous look for one another!

3.     Teach each other a new skill. If your friend is good at organizing closets or an office, or planting a great vegetable garden, ask your friend to teach you and offer to either teach her something you are skilled at – or to repay her time by babysitting her kids, or preparing some dinners for her.

4.     Volunteer together – this is a good way to enjoy the time you spend giving back to the community.

5.     Have regular brainstorming get-togethers. It is important to only invite friends who are positive to these. You know the old saying is 2 heads are better than 1! If you are facing any kind of challenge, or wanting to start something new or make a change in your life, invite your friends to come and help you put a plan in place. They will have advice, suggestions, help and support that can be invaluable.

6.     Use the buddy system – we all feel stronger when we have someone helping us to stay focused. Find a friend who wants exercise or study with.

7.     Work on big projects together. If you want to paint or wall paper your living room and dining room, and your friend wants to plant a garden, working together on both projects will be much more fun and will motivate you to stay on track, than working on big projects alone. It will also get each project done in half the time, so you don’t have to block so much time for it.

8.      Plan your kid’s activities together. Plan to take your kids to the same swim or gymnastics class will either give you time to visit with each other while the kids are in class, or give you someone to car pool with.

9.     Learn something new together. Enroll in a French class or learn to knit, or start scrap booking together 1 night a month.

10.                         Cook together. Plan menus for a couple of weeks and either spend a couple of nights cooking together, or each of you can do half the cooking at your own home. Prepare enough of each item for both families, package all the meals for the freezer and you will love having dinners already prepared ahead of time! It as doesn’t take much more time to make twice as much of a recipe, and the cook time and clean up is the same for double the results. This is also a good way to have your family try new recipes. Just be sure to go over the recipes ahead of time to make sure the dish will not contain anything your family dislikes or is allergic to.