Please meet my lovely new friend, Malena Lott. Malena and I met this past summer via Twitter and have been blabbing back and forth ever since. How she does it I don’t know, but in addition to being a writer, wife, and mom, Malena also heads her own firm, the ATHENA Institute, which provides branding, marketing and creative consulting and workshops. And there’s more! Malena is a published author and the founder of Book End Babes. Below is her story on how Book End Babes came to be.

Thank you, Malena for sharing your story. Brava, darling!

Stories & Girlfriends: The Secret to Happiness

By Malena Lott

When I was a little girl, my best friend and I would stay up deep into the dark night sharing stories. I’m not sure which closed first: our eyelids or our mouths.

In high school, my new best friend and I would talk for hours on the phone, falling asleep with the phone cradled under my arm or jammed under my pillow like a gift for the tooth fairy.

That phone-a-friend and I were inseparable, and like all good friendships, we shared the joys and pain of growing up, moving out and making our way into the world. We went to different colleges, but still talked often and used our distance as a nice excuse for a road trip.

The only time Tina and I have been at a loss for words were when my grandmother who raised me died when I was 19. Tina picked me up from my house, took me to Sonic for a limeade, and said, “I don’t know what to do to help you.”

She wanted to take away my pain, but her tears proved she was doing all that needed to be done – sharing the burden of my grief and telling me she loved me.

Fifteen years later, I brought her offerings to her bedside when she miscarried – again – and I didn’t know what to say to help her through it. Cookies, and a hug, were all I could do. She didn’t need blithe optimism. She just needed a friend.

What I’ve learned is that girlfriends’ stories are just as much about what we do as about what we say. As time goes by – work, marriage, children, charity work – our friendships are pushed to the bottom of the to-do list because it doesn’t require a punch-clock or a deadline. Many friendships die this way, too.

In starting Book End Babes, a national book club celebrating girlfriends and great reads in a fun Girls Night Out, we are making friendship and reading so vital to our well-being that we’ve made a sacred appointment for it. My hope is that the “lit sisters” realize how important this night out is for tapping into the power of friendship to find the joy one experiences in the company of great friends, and not let other appointments or to-dos get in the way of it.

Book End Babes is always open for membership. The only requirement is a commitment to host six book parties per year, inviting friends to read any book of their choosing (or choose one book the whole group reads) and come together to talk about it, recommend other great books and break bread together. Martinis are always good, too. At Book End Babes, books rock, but girlfriends rule.

For more information, visit www.BookEndBabes.com.

Malena Lott founded BEB in September, 2009 and is the author of THE STORK REALITY and DATING DA VINCI. Her author web site is www.malenalott.com.

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Every day something new and exciting happens. With the approach of my novel’s release in January, I wake up each morning with a flutter in my belly.  I swear I hear that metallic chink, chink, chink of a roller-coaster making its way to the top of the first hill. My heart pounds and my mind races with that oh-my-holy-Christmas-what-am-I-doing-here kind of thrill that scares the bejeezus out of most authors. There’s nothing I can do but throw my hands in the air, squeeze my eyes shut, and get ready to scream.

And here’s the thing: as scary as it is, this is one of the finest moments in my life. In nine weeks I’ll arrive at the uppermost point of that first hill—my author tour kick-off begins on January 12th and will continue through May, perhaps longer. For all of you in the book-buying world—domestic and international publishers, book club publishers, librarians, booksellers, avid readers, book bloggers, fellow authors, aspiring authors, and friends—thank you for embracing CeeCee’s story so fully and supporting me with such roaring enthusiasm. All I can say, is WOW!

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I’d like to introduce you to Louise (Wease) Rhodenbaugh. I first met Louise and her husband, Joe, when they came into the interior design studio that I once co-owned. We hit it off immediately, and for many years I was their designer until I left the industry to write a novel. During the time I was writing, Louise and I stayed in contact, sharing occasional stories, jokes, and photographs of our lives. Just recently I learned something about Louise that touched me deeply—so much so that I wanted to feature her here.

Thank you, Wease, for agreeing to tell your story. And bless you for the wonderful work you’re doing and the many lives you touch.  As the heading for this post goes … Brava, darling!

Wease’s story in her own words …

It all started with a phone call from a longtime friend, Heather.  She knew that I enjoyed sewing the Halloween costumes for the kids when they were little and that I had made drapes for my house.  We had recently been lamenting the fact that we no longer saw as much of each other, now that our kids were in college.  “Would you be interested in joining a group I’m starting to make quilts for a charity?” she asked. I didn’t even inquire who the quilts were for—it was more about having the girl-time I was missing.

When I went to the first meeting, Heather shared with us (there are 9 women in our group) that the quilts would be given to women who were being rehabilitated out of prostitution. The program called “Off the Streets” was started by Cincinnati Bethel Union, the oldest social service agency west of the Alleghenies. Active since 1830, the program serves many women, including some who are referred by the very police who arrest them.  “Off the Streets” staff members try to find women who are stuck in an unhealthy lifestyle but are ready to take back their lives. The women are housed at the Anna Louise Inn in downtown Cincinnati. They receive counseling, get drug issues resolved and get healthy. They also receive job training that they can take out into the real world. There are many agencies that work together to help the women, and they try to provide a safety-net going forward that allows the women the very best chance for success.

I joined this group of friends who provide the quilts to the women at their “graduation” from the program—mostly as a comfort item as they emerge into a world that has not always been kind to them.  While working on a quilt, I spend a lot of the time being grateful for the blessings in my life, and I pray for the woman who will receive the quilt. When I was working on my first one, I started thinking that this might be the only thing this woman has ever received as a gift—perhaps the only thing she has ever owned that is brand new and just for her.  It’s very sad to contemplate that fact, but I’m so lucky to have the time and resources to be able to work with the quilting group.

We named ourselves the “Quilting Queens” and we even had tags made to sew onto each quilt (you know, like the “Handmade by Grandma” tags everyone’s grandmother seemed to have when we were growing up).  Before I made my first quilt, I helped out by cutting fabric and ironing seams flat on quilts in progress. We put a quilt together from start to finish, which included a lesson in how to balance the pattern. It was all the best of sharing a skill, a process that is lost to many women in this day and age.  We learned how to take individual blocks of fabric and build a quilt, step by step.  I left feeling confident that I could do a quilt on my own.

For my first quilt I went out and purchased all the fabric, basing it on my favorite colors, hot pink and kelly green. The one I just finished is, believe it or not, made out of two matching Waverly fabric sample books. I loved the plaids and it turned out very cheerful. It will certainly brighten up a bedroom! Many of the quilts have been constructed from used fabrics left over from clothing made for our children or even handed down from our mothers. About 30 hours of work go into each quilt. The hardest part, for me, is matching up the layers (top, bottom, and batting).  They always refuse to cooperate. Thank goodness my husband Joe and my son David are good sports about helping me block out the layers. Most of the work is done on the sewing machine, but each intersection of blocks is hand tacked to keep the layers from shifting. The tag is hand sewn, and the year is embroidered onto the back above the tag. Heather keeps a photo album of each quilt that is given away and we name them.

The Quilting Queens have also given quilts to other worthy causes, such as Good Samaritan Children’s ICU, Ronald McDonald House, Project Linus, First Step Home, and Meals on Wheels.

As I get older and see more of life, I realize that I personally don’t have much power to change the world. However, I’m convinced that each act of kindness, no matter how small, can positively impact someone else’s life. I find personal satisfaction in giving of myself.  My guiding quote is from the Bible, Matthew 25:40  “Whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.”

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