…introduce everyone to the family today and I still plan on doing it but today I’m doing something else. Today I believe I’m going to tell a story. A story about how several years ago I met a woman online and how since then she has become my best friend and one of the most important people in my life.

A few years ago I was playing the game Everquest. Remember I said a long time ago I was a geek. Well the group I played with had a message board and I wanted a ’signature’ picture for it. While trying to find what I wanted one of the people in our group pointed me in the direction of the hobby called Dolling. The basics of it was taking a base that either you drew or someone else drew on the computer and adding clothes, hair all the fun stuff. I ended up at another message board called The Realm. Well I started out slow there and kind of kept to myself and after awhile I met some really great people. They would have contests and challenges and even events. The dolling community is quite large and people typically had their own websites showing off their work. Part of that was if you had a site you typically had ’sister sites’. Other people would ask you if you were close enough, meaning you talked a lot, if you wanted to be sisters.

Well one of the events that was coming up was the prom (Again I point out I’m a geek and a dork) I was at the time just talking wit a group of women and we had drawn our dolls for the prom and we were at the “after party” which was a big chat room with a ton of people in it all laughing and having fun. A bunch of us had the same Internet radio station on and we were listening to that and having a good time. Well that night two women asked me to be their sister that night and they happened to be my dates. I’m even going to be dorky enough to show you my prom picture with them

(the base was done by a doller named Heaven who’s site is no longer up.

Well that was the beginning. From there we talked a lot. Talked on MSN, emailed, messaged back and forth on message boards. Soon that progessed to short phone calls here and there. Constant emails back and forth. Eventually it became more frequent phone calls. You could say we were inseperable.

She was there for me through my nasty divorce. Listening to me when I needed it. Smacking me when I needed it even more. From a simple friendship grew something even more. Through the ups and downs in both of our lives. Me waiting not so patiently for phone calls when something was wrong with Angel or Riley…or waiting for the latest test results. To her waiting for me to call her when i had something going on with the boys. Wanting to cry on my wedding day when hubby and I got married because I knew she couldn’t be here. Even though I know neither of us could afford to get her here. To wanting to beg borrow and steal the money to be there for things that were important.

What started as a simple ‘Hi’ on a message board became something much more. If you haven’t figured it out by now I’m talking about Sadie from Redefining Perfect. She is my best friend. My sister. My family. It doesn’t matter that we’ve never stood side by side the friendship we have goes beyond any conventional boundaries.

So Sadie I know you feel crappy right now. And I wish I could be there to drag you out of the house and run around doing girly things without the kids. Someday it will happen…I keep hoping for those winning lottery numbers.

But Happy Birthday to the best friend and sister anyone could ask for. I love you.

One of my favorite days of the year…Not quite sure why they decided Beltane weekend was a good weekend to do this. But I digress. Yeah I’m a geeky witch….what can I tell ya. Free Comics…a look at some upcoming titles. And comics are not necessarily what you might think anymore. There are a lot more comics geared towards adults then kids. Trust me…I would not let my son read the “current” Superhero comics. They have a section of those that are just for their ages. Today’s superhero comics deal with more adult things. Then again…some of them also teach. What they are calling a “graphic novel” is really a comic in a bigger book. We just ordered the history of Nat Turner for my oldest for Christmas because he just LOVES history and that’s what they are studying now. They have also transformed a lot of old classics into graphic novels to try and get kids to read them. Anyway…if you have a local comic shop I would check it out and see if they are holding free comic book day there