HMN SD Kickoff Open House

January 31, 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized

I wrote this e-mail to my group tonight about my experience with our San Diego Open
House last night…

I o wanted everything to go smoothly and everyone to feel welcome and
have fun. I was sleepless for days over this, both before and last
night – I wish I could switch my brain off on demand. =) It was such a
success, with about twenty six holistic families represented! I was so
excited I couldn’t eat any of the yummy treats we had. As I looked
around the room during the intros and saw so many faces of mommas I’d
met in the past few months at one of the fifteen the informal meetups
that I’d created leading up to that point I wanted to hug every one
and share each one with the others that I’d met. I feel an
unconditional love and acceptance for every one, and was so excited to
see new faces of people I hadn’t met yet. Isn’t that neat? I’m so
thrilled and looking forward to really getting to know everyone and
forge deep friendships. I feel so strongly that this is possible with
us going through such similar experiences with similar values and
feelings, and it made me emotional at one point last night when I felt
that realization of a dream coming true. The dream of creating a
community of women who feel empathy for each other, share our
knowledge freely, are passionate about making informed choices and
supportive in our holistic motherhood journey.

I told my husband when we first met that I’d always had this desire to
change the world for the better, but until this point I didn’t know
how I could do it. I realized last night that I was helping to do just
that. Being able to meet and connect and help other women meet and
connect with each other is just huge! Every day as time goes on I am
really seeing the power of the word “Network” and why that is in our
name. Jen was saying to me today that she really needed last night’s
meeting b/c she was able to talk to Tanya about preschool
frustrations. Melanie told us she’ll be working a few days at Stacie’s
Holistic Healing center. I could hear by the level and tone of the
conversation before and after the formal part of the meeting how
excited people were and that the connections were being made last
night. None of that would have happened if we didn’t get this group going!

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You to everyone who came and especially to
everyone who helped make this happen. Andrea and Michelle, you were
wonderful and I couldn’t have done all this without you! Stacie, the
raffle and lending library was a hit, the banners were gorgeous and
the room so cozy with toys for the little ones to play in the middle
of our circle.

To Mariel and Claudia, who couldn’t make it last night, know that I
missed you and was thinking of you and I am sure you are going to love
the group of mommas here when you meet them. I do! =)

Much Love, Andrea =)