The Day Job Lounge and the birth of the Sister Circle)..

Two days after my birthday, I found myself at dinner with several other couples to celebrate my husband's business partner, Ozzie, birthday. Despite living in Chicago, all of my husband's closest friends are southern boys who have each have been "transplanted" in Chicago in the name of love (IE. their wives). So there we sat around the table talking about everything from taking out the trash to picking up strip clubs in Vegas - the normal "Venus vs. Mars" debates that happens when we all get together.

The men call themselves the "Four Guys" and they refer to the home of the only single guy as the "Day Job Lounge" or "DJL" for short. The "Day Job Lounge" is a bit of a neighborhood men's cave, or a "safe haven" for any of the guys when they need to get out of the house. When I once asked what goes on at the "Day Job Lounge," Pat only shook his head, got a distant look in his eye and said, "We just talk about life."

So there we were, having dinner and the "Four Guys" began to discuss the need for the DJL.

"Sometimes, we SERIOUSLY just don't understand where ya'll are coming from and we need the perspective of somebody else who's been there."

"Sometimes, we need to just vent...without anyone judging how you feel."

"Sometimes, a man just needs to go somewhere where he doesn't have to be anyone but himself."

As the wives sat around the table and listened to their husbands talk about the camaraderie that they have, we all felt a pang of jealousy -- not because we didn't want them to appreciate friendship with other people but because we recognized that it was something that we missing in our own lives.

So that night after dinner, we all coordinated our Blackberry Calendars and decided to form the "Sister Circle."

Sidenote: It's funny how sometimes you don't realize what you are missing in your life until you experience it. As women, I think it's easy for us to get into the routine of "making everything work" that we oftentimes negate that part of ourselves that needs pure, unadulterated, and uncompromising fellowship with other women. It wasn't until that night that I realized how badly I needed to "let my hair down".

When the "Sister Circle" gets together, it truly is a time where we all feel like we can say anything, ask anything, shout anything and no one will think anything of it the next day.

We've talked about everything from ways to get out of sex when you feel that poke in the middle of the night to how add spice to a sex life when it suffers due to work, a baby, and stress. We are simply friends due to shared and common experiences which is the exact reason why it works. We don't spare any words when it comes to advice but no one is invested in being "right" or someone being better than the other. We only come to together for the purpose of eating, drinking, and talking smack.

I am grateful for the introduction of these women into my life because as a soon-to- be-mother, there are so many things that I don't know and so many things that I can't begin to anticipate once a baby enters my life and marriage. I can always defer to a magazine or website on matters such as diaper rash or onesies, and I can always defer to my mom on matters such as easy dinners and life insurance, but until now, I had no one to turn to when I wanted to know whether my size E's would have ever shrink back to a manageable size or to ask whether Pat was horrible for not rubbing my feet after I made dinner.

So thank you Sister Circle for your honesty, your candor, and your unbridled coonery on all matters pertaining to marriage, motherhood, and womanhood :-)