friends Archives - Tricia Meyer

When I was growing up, I had some of the same friends from elementary school clear through college. After college and law school, it all started to change. I was moving around a little bit more and starting to focus on my marriage and my family rather than my friends and extracurricular activities. I went through a span of quite a few years where I was working from home and tending to babies and didn’t really have a lot of close friends except the ones that I hardly ever got to see anymore.

A couple of years ago, that started changing. I was getting more involved in my kids’ school, the affiliate marketing community, and my own business. Facebook helped me reconnect with people I had been missing for a long time. I started remembering what it was like to surround myself with girlfriends and making more of an effort to connect. Now, I consider myself so fortunate to be “surrounded” by ladies of all ages and backgrounds and who span geographically from Canada to Florida. Here are some of the things that they have taught me that I hope you are learning from your girlfriends, too.

1) You don’t have to have a “best” friend to be happy. It’s okay to have a whole lot of “good friends” that you can go to for different things.

2) You won’t meet new people if you don’t put in a little effort and open yourself up to it. If you do, you will be surprised at how many you will meet.

3) It’s okay if you make your family eat cereal for dinner every now and again because you are too busy to cook and don’t want to spend money to eat out. And they can probably even get the cereal themselves.

4) Don’t feel guilty about spending time with your friends away from your family. Your kids spend all day developing relationships with their friends. You deserve a chance, too.

5) My husband deserves a little more action. I seriously wouldn’t have known it if my girlfriends hadn’t shared their “numbers” with me! I won’t go into details, but he probably owes some of you a drink.

6) Chunky necklaces make you look more put together and hip. And they don’t have to be expensive.

7) Every marriage has had (and may currently have) its difficulties. Even the ones that look perfect.

8 ) Friends may not be friends forever, but the good memories from the relationship CAN last forever no matter how it ended.

9) I’m not the only person who sometimes hides from the Schwan man. A lot of people actually do. (When you aren’t hiding, try the Summer Sausage. It’s the best there is)

10) Margaritas, a basket of chips, and an evening of giggling might not solve your problems, but they will relax you enough to give you the fresh perspective you need to tackle them.

I sincerely thank all of my girlfriends for the parts that they play in my life, big or small. And I look forward to all of the great things that we will share together in the future!

I was noticing last night that of my 400 Facebook friends, 5 of them have a birthday on Thursday. That’s not including the ones that are businesses with a “start date” of the end of the year or friends who do not allow access to their birthday. I mentioned to my husband that it was improbable. With 365 days in a year, I should only have one birthday friend per day–two tops. He started talking about the “birthday paradox” and how if you put only 23 people in a room, you would have 2 people with the same birthday. I thought he was nuts. I mean, 365 days? Out of 23 people 2 will have the same birthday?

So of course I did a search for it. I found the “Birthday Problem” Wikipedia page, which explains that if you have 23 people together, there is a 50% chance that 2 of them will have the same birthday. If you get 57 people, there is a 99% chance that 2 of them will have the same birthday. It still doesn’t seem possible. 366 possible birthdays. 57 people and you have a 99% chance of the same birthday popping up?

Here is where YOU come in. I need a little help from my social media friends because I can’t get 23 or 57 people into a room today. Can you leave a comment below with your name and your birthday? I don’t need the year. Leave your name so I can verify you’re real people when two birthdays pop up the same and it isn’t just someone messing with me. I’ll make a little chart and we’ll see how many people have to comment before we get the same birthday. Curiosity has gotten the best of me now!!

Edited: It took only 18 people posting to get our first repeat birthday. We defied the odds! And my husband proved, once again, that he is better at math than I am.