WWW 3

The third annual "Wild Women's Weekend" took place at Gulf Shores from July 14-19 this year. Yes, I realize that's longer than a "weekend"; can we help it if Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday got in the way?
There were 12 attendees this year from 8 different states: MI, OH, MO, IN, KY, TX, TN & MS. It's amazing that we all met online. Most people, when hearing we met online, don't wish to know the story. I think they're afraid to find out that we're all a bunch of crazed lesbo-lover mass murderers....or they're afraid that we're not! The imagination, most times, is SO much better than reality, isn't it?
In fact, what brought us women together is Dave Ramsey's website, The Total Money Makeover. The tie that binds is money; we all want more! Actually, we really just want to learn to be better stewards of the money we already have. But it was through this website that we found more than money advice; we found true friends. Women who, had we met on the street, probably never would've given one another a second glance (ok, some of us probably would've made catty remarks about the others!). The Internet's an amazing tool, though; it forces one to get to know a person's heart before seeing the person's body. I LOVE that, and I LOVE my TMMO girls!
I suppose the highlight of the week was The Sailboat Cruise with Captain BJ. Patrick and I had been on this boat when we went to the beach in June, but for some reason, it because a whole different place when I went on it with my 11 girls! There was another family with young children on the boat with us, and you could just hear the parents whispering (hissing!) to their children, "You stay away from the back of this boat! No! Don't you even LOOK back there!"
Most late afternoons were spent in the Gulf, relaxing, talking, and Tracie teaching us that it's ok to pee in the water. The days were spent either shopping, at the pool, on the beach....the beautiful thing about it was that everyone could do exactly what they wanted! There was no pressure from anyone to do anything; everyone was on their own vacation!
We spent one evening at the Hangout. If y'all haven't been there, it's such a FUN place to go! There were kids in strollers and 100 year old people...the Hangout's for everyone. Kids and adults were on the dance floor; heck, there was even an 8 year old playing the accordian in the band! I will warn you, though; if you go and dance, you might want to wear shoes. The "dance floor" is concrete, and though I'm from MS and used to being barefoot, I came home with bloody, peeling, blistered feet. In fact, it was over a week before I was able to wear shoes again (I was forced to wear flip flops to work; I hate it when that happens!).
Perhaps because we were at the beach, this year's WWW actually lived up to it's name. I won't go into detail (what happens at WWW stays at WWW!), but Lena summed it up well in her deep TN drawl, "I tell y'all, trying to keep up with y'all (at the Hangout) was like herding cats! I might as well've been trying to nail jello to a tree!"