When times get tough, you often ask yourself how you will get through it.  How will you survive when you feel tossed around by the seas, feeling threatened by the large swells around your boat, and fearing that at any moment your boat will take on water and sink?!

That is one thing about life; it will challenge you.

If you feel your life is dull, just wait a minute and something will happen to shake things up.  It’s almost as unpredictable as the weather at times!

How I dealt with it recently was with a long weekend getaway with my youngest daughter and my best friend in the entire world.   Greg, my friend of 20 years, offered an escape for us, and we took it!  Not only did this allow us to escape the storms in our lives, it allowed us to just … be.

He whisked us away on a plane from South Carolina to Illinois.  Our goal was to be stress free and enjoy spending time with Greg and his precious aunt.

Ah, the simple life.

And it felt SOOOO GOOD!

We arrived on a Thursday, to find Greg had provided us with a superb and spacious apartment style hotel room for our weekend getaway.  He stocked the refrigerator before our arrival, and even provided mints for our pillows (which gave us a chuckle).

Knowing me as well as he does, he had everything planned out on all of the adventures we would take while we were there.  And pampering was on the agenda that weekend, too – yes, Lord!

He wined us (okay, so it was actually Coke Zero, Mountain Dew, and water), dined us (I’m still stuffed and need to lose a few pounds from our trip!), and made us feel like a queen and a little princess (have I mentioned the deep tissue massage yet?)!

He provided entertainment in the car, with Sirius XM available for my listening pleasure, to full on carpool karaoke!

We laughed and had the best time!

And we had dinner with his sweet aunt and game night!  That is one of our favorites, when we gather around the table to play game, after game, after game.  We laughed … we harassed each other when we got the answers wrong, and even made a running joke (Ben Affleck, eh, Greg? – inside joke).

We had such good time with wonderful friends that are more like family.  We are forever indebted to Greg, and thank him for the hospitality he offered to us on this trip.

Oh, and we entertained his coworkers with our “Southern Accent,” which I still to this day do not even remotely think I even HAVE an accent at all!

So how will you get through hard times?  By surrounding yourself with friends who love you and help lighten your load!