Doing a Sally

At the party for my new book, Flowers by Day, Stars by Night: Finding Happiness after Loss and Change, the other night, my friend Alicia (who sits behind me every week at church) made a comment after someone noted my silver shoes. She said, "You got those out of Sally's closet."

Since reading my book The Green Dress, Alicia likes to tease me, "Did you get that dress from Sally's closet?" If you haven't read the book (and of course you should!), the main character, Audrey- finds herself cleaning out her Aunt Sally's house, one that's filled with incredible clothes and shoes. That's only part of the story but you can figure that there is a green dress involved somewhere.

While everyone tends to think that the book is based on my life and my own experiences– and there are things that really happened like the coffee and maple shake incident– most of it comes from my imagination. Or are loosely based on things that have happened to me.

When I saw my friend (my California Mom I call her) Lois in California when we stopped there on our honeymoon to pick up the surfboards, Lois was already reading book and laughed and said she knew the part about the bathrobe and being late to water aerobics was based on her. 

It's true– Lois wears a fuzzy bathrobe over her bathing suit to drive to water aerobics and she's usually late.

I'm still swimming 20 minutes a day in my pool (again, Alicia likes to say just like Sally) even though the water has dipped to 65 degrees. Unlike Sally though, I haven't turned the heater on. Greg has a big, thick bathrobe he doesn't use and I've been grabbing it to wrap myself in after my swims. As I did it the other day, I laughed to myself as I walked around in the robe warming myself up.

Just like Lois. And Sally.