Birthday Wishes

Did you know it's our birthday? Well, it is … kind of!

It was a year ago that I was having dinner with my dear friend Andrea when we were both complimented on our shoes. The same exact day that I took my "Terrible Fall." (Yes … the incident was so big, and so significant, that I think both capitalization and quotation marks are justified! In fact, I feel I showed remarkable restraint by deciding against italics and bold typeface as well!) If you've forgotten that particular story, here's a link. I, for one, don't wish to be reminded. Writing about it was enough, thank-you-very-much.

So much has happened in our first year, and so much continues to happen, that I live in a state of perpetual amazement.

Throughout my blog posts in this first year, I've thrown around words like "serendipity," "magic," and "fairy dust" …not for any sort of comic relief or writer's embellishment, but because I really feel I have experienced them. Sometimes I wonder that if on that day of the "Terrible Fall," natural clumsiness, 4 inch heels and a wet floor didn't have as much to do with it as I was perhaps struck by lightning that infused me with an unforeseen bolt of creativity, for that was the very beginning of it all.

Let me be honest, I have never been creative. Ever. The one creative endeavor I can even think of was back when I was first married, and made meatloaf in the shape of a heart for Valentine's Day.

Now, however, I have ideas literally erupting night and day...fruitful, magnificent, prolific ideas, all with honest to goodness potential, that leave me, and those who know me best, scratching our heads in wonder at where they're all coming from? And while it is not lost on me that a good idea is just that, and that it is the execution that matters most. The fact I am having them at all is nothing short of amazing. (I mean, really, meatloaf??)

When describing this fantastic journey I find myself on, I've often said that I don't feel that I'm on a path as much as I feel I'm being led down a path, and that the Universe somehow approves. Doors I never knew existed are suddenly being thrown open, and I am witnessing some of the very ideas that have leapt into my head actually come to fruition. When this happens I am often in awe, but always, always filled with a profound sense of gratitude.

People often ask me what they can do to help, and my answer is always the same: Come to a Fabulous Shoe Night event. Or, better yet, if our founding chapter in Media, PA is geographically undesirable, start a chapter of your own.

Several ambitious, self-starting, fabulous women have done just that, and I can't help but giggle in delight when they tell me that mere mention of the words "Fabulous Shoe Night" never fail to elicit the same response when they tell their friends about it; invariably, there is a widening of the eyes, followed by a gasp, and the words, "What is that?? Tell me more!"

Ironically enough, what we're really after is feet in the door…many feet, in all different types of shoes. For the more women who come to a Fabulous Shoe Night "Girl's Night Out," the more money goes to the local charity we're helping for a year, the , or the local charities our sister chapters are contributing to in their hometowns. Better yet, bring friends, lots of them. The equation is simple, more feet = more money for charity.

So, on this very special first birthday, this is our birthday wish as we blow out the single candle on our (imaginary) cake; We would be most honored if you would celebrate with us.

But please … no gifts. Your presence is present enough!

"So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth." ~Baha'u'llah