Soon after, I began researching and googling all I could about this Twilight. Why did I become so obsessed with this Bella and Edward story? When was the fourth book coming out? Who was this Stephenie Meyer person? Anyhow, after finding SM's website, I found a link to Twilight Moms and I joined almost immediately. I went through this feeling of utter relief and just a sense of being "home" amongst moms that loved Twilight as much as I did. After I made my introductory post, I was referred to a get together being planned for other Arizona Twilight Moms in March. Nervous and a little excited, I went and met some 15 women of all walks of life here in the Phoenix area that were Twilight Moms like me. And a friendship was born. It seemed like I couldn't get enough of spending time with these fabulous ladies! Two weeks later, I drove to east Mesa to watch a horrible movie, Prom Night, because Kellan Lutz was in it. It was by far one of the worst movies I have ever seen, but I had a great time all because I was w
ith my ladies!Two weeks later, we got together again and soon, we were meeting nearly monthly. Our group grew and grew and grew and we were on the horizon for Breaking Dawn release, complete with an all night slumber party. We had such a good time and I kept thinking, "Why is this happening when I'm in my 30's?" Was it strange that I felt such a connection to women that I had only met a few short months prior? Did they feel the same? Was I the only one? And as our group grew, the dynamics shifted and smaller groups began meeting separately and soon our smaller group was whittled down to about 12 people. November came, we saw a midnight release and stood in line at 12 noon. Yes, that's how obsessive we are.
As the new year came around, I realized that I had these lovely ladies in my life for nearly a year. While I wasn't posting on TM's very much anymore, these ladies became my rock, my solace, my "out" from every day life. But, more than that, we shared a love of books. I have found some of the best book recommendations through my ladies. I realized that while I connected so quickly, they still knew so little about me and my crazy life. See, I work FT. I am a manager at my place of employment and it just isn't easy most days to work in my job. I am also a mom to 2 daughters. And a wife to a husband for 10 years. PLUS, I am a FT graduate student trying to finish a degree in Public Administration. Still, I had to have time for my ladies. It is a must!
In June of this
year, Jennifer recommended a book to me. Wings, by Aprilynne Pike is a Young Adult novel about a 15-year old girl who discovers she's a faerie. So cute, whimsical, and very character-driven, I fell in love with the book instantly. Jen, being the awesome person that she is, found out that Aprilynne is a local author who recently moved to the Phoenix area and emailed her. We found out that Aprilynne was appearing at Fiesta Con in July and suddenly it was like fate was pointing a big huge arrow that we needed to go there to meet her. So, one Sunday, during 4th of July weekend, Jen and I ventured to Tempe to the convention for the sole reason of meeting Aprilynne. We watched her panel on Harry Potter and were fortunate enough to get our books signed. Aprilynne invited us to sit with her in the lobby of the hotel and chat for a while. She informally introduced us to Janni Lee Simner, author of Bones of Faerie. We chatted with her for about an hour and a half about her writing process, about kids, life in general, and she shared her chocolate with us :-)Who knew that this would have this impact on us? Jen and I left that hotel and took a side trip for lunch and a book store visit and soon a plan was formulating. During August of this year, Jen and I, as well as 3 other friends went to Creation Entertainment's Twi-Tour and we briefly discussed the creation of a fansite for Wings. In reality, I don't think either one of us thought the other was that serious, but when we returned from Twi-Tour, a plan started taking place. I realized that I wanted to do this. And, Jennifer was the best person to do it with. We got Aprilynne's input, researched other fansites, took a "best practices" approach to things, and launched our forums in early September. Soon after, we realized that our forums were being posted on several different blogs and sites. We figured one of the best ways we could promote ourselves was to start a book review blog. Jen has secured our first author chat for later this month. I can't believe that this is happening and so quickly! Six weeks in and we are on our way! Here is a link to our forums: http://latebloomeronline.forumotion.com and our blog: http://l8bloomeronline.blogspot.com
If anyone doesn't know me, books are my life. They really are my only indulgence and the fact that I've met Aprilynne, and her support has opened so many doors for us in connecting with other YA authors is like a dream come true. It's almost surreal.
So there are my ramblings about how fate intervened and brought me to Jennifer, allowed me to meet the best group of friends I could ever have, and how Twilight has changed my life.....literally.
