I got an email last week from one of our local homeschool groups about upcoming activities. As I scanned the list to see where our scheduling conflicts were, and found that we were only free for one of them \u2013 Park Playday. I\u2019ve declared this to be New Friends November. I\u2019m looking for my people wherever they may be, and so I\u2019m saying \u2018Yes\u2019 to all invitations for which I don\u2019t have a scheduling conflict. That\u2019s how we ended up heading to the park last week on day when I\u2019d rather have stayed put.<\/p>\n
I loaded all the kids into my giant SUV, making sure to bring toys, water bottles, and sidewalk chalk. (I\u2019ve started to make a point of\u00a0 bringing chalk to the park. It gives Ella something to do in the case that the park is not accessible. It\u2019s a sure hit with all the kids. Note to self: always bring chalk to the park.)<\/p>\n
As I walked up the sidewalk towards the five moms who were there (three deep in conversation, two by the swings), I heard a gasp.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh my goodness, you\u2019re Rebecca Frech!\u201d<\/p>\n
I turned to see one of the swing moms do a little hoppy happy dance.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are, aren\u2019t you?\u201d She continued. \u201cWe love your book. It\u2019s like our homeschooling sanity check. I didn\u2019t know that you were part of this group.\u201d She turned to her friend and called out, \u201cElise*, do you know who this is? It\u2019s Rebecca Frech!\u201d<\/p>\n
Let me stop this to say that I don\u2019t get recognized very often. I\u2019m not that big of a deal in the real world, but among certain groups of homeschoolers\u2026I have a following, so it happens occasionally.<\/p>\n
This seemed hopeful and promising to me. They already knew who I was and liked what they knew, so I smiled in what I hoped was a non-creepy way and said, \u201cHi.\u201d (Because I\u2019m eloquent like that.)<\/p>\n
They twittered and giggled in their fan-girl way as I tried to start a conversation with them. Then one of them ran to her car to get the copy of my book she had in her bag. Would I autograph it, please?<\/p>\n
I was happy to do so because it\u2019s one of my favorite things to do\u2026evah<\/em>!<\/p>\n They then grabbed the book and walked excitedly across the playground,\u00a0 sat on a bench totally engrossed in their conversation, and discussed how exciting it was to have met me. They\u00a0 squealed over how cool it was to have a signed book\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026and I could hear their excitement from the place by the swings where they left me.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019m super glad that they had their fan-girl moment, and that they \u201ccouldn\u2019t stop smiling\u201d because they were so thrilled\u2026but the thing is\u2026it could have been so much better. They could have been my friends.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n *Not her real name<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I got an email last week from one of our local homeschool groups about upcoming activities. As I scanned the list to see where our scheduling conflicts were, and found that we were only free for one of them \u2013 Park Playday. I\u2019ve declared this to be New Friends November. I\u2019m looking for my people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,37,38,8,21],"class_list":["post-3330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-book","tag-friends","tag-homeschooling","tag-life-lessons","tag-truth"],"yoast_head":"\n