Do It Now: Open Your Own OAW Chapter

Editor's Note: This is an old post but I'm proud to say this OAW group of girlfriends still meets often. We don't meet at the same cadence as we did back in 2017 (more kids = more soccer practice), but seeing them is always a highlight on my calendar. We've even added an annual retreat. Last year was four days in Palm Springs. This year it was 16 hours in Delafield. Both were lovely if for different reasons. If you too are looking for a way to commit to your friend group, read on for how I did it.

One of my goals this year is “seek out adventures with my girls, Randy, by myself, and with friends.” February will be all about the girls (Eggroll specifically – she’s going to be three and she starts her first dance class at the end of the month), but January was about my lady friends.

I’m so fortunate to have a few different groups of women to call my confidantes. I have the high school group who I don’t see very often but would drop everything to help if they called. There’s the new MKEMoms blog contributor team who, through the relative anonymity of our Facebook group, has become a safe place to ask all sorts of silly questions that come up as a parent. (P.S. Want to join the team? Now’s your chance!) There’s my Chic Clique that formed out of a nonprofit association of my twenties. This group of women bends my mind in all sorts of directions with their varied but so, so, so educated positions on a great many topics.

Then there is my last group. The majority of this group of women all met each other when working on another professional networking project in the ‘00s. We come together from a range of professions and locations we grew up in, but for the most part, we are all settling into the same path. We are now all married to supportive men who are partners, have children that mean the world to us, and jobs that fulfill us in ways we never expected. Like everyone else, we also have houses to clean, family gatherings to attend, and soccer practices every Saturday. Needless to say, we don’t get to see each other very often.

This is the year I change that.

It took us a month to get there, but after three weeks of trying, the five of us have agreed to an every other month meet up for the rest of 2017. On the third Thursday of the even numbered months, we will get together. Whoever can be there, great. If you can’t, well, mark your calendars for the next one.

Just like a traditional membership organization, we are hoping these regularly scheduled dates of our Organization of Awesome Women will lend themselves to a better chance of us actually meeting up in person.

I don’t know about you, but I’m really craving live, in-person conversation these days. Maybe it’s because I work by myself. Maybe it’s because the internet can be so mean. Maybe it’s just because I want an excuse to put on eyeshadow every now and then. No matter what the reason, I’m excited for this to play out.

Moral of the story – if you have a group of friends that you keep saying “we really should get together”, stop talking about it. Throw out a date for sometime next month and see who can be there. Everyone put it on your calendar now. You don’t have to call it the OAW, but come up with something that anyone looking for a piece of your time will think is an official, can’t miss event.

Because ladies – time with your friends is priceless these days!