There are book clubs and there are book clubs and then there is the Chatty Chicks Culture Club where books are books and women were born to chat!

Last night our club met to talk on The Butterfly Cabinet and we had an optional pre-meeting cookie exchange which was totally worth the time I spent trying to shake sticky marshmallow no-bake cornflake wreath cookies off my finger that I picked to do cause I thought they would be way easier than baking. HA! Hideous! The laugh was totally on me in the end because I ended up making three kinds of fudge (a big hit by the way) and a batch of gingerbread cookies (also quite popular) in lieu of the aforementioned still-gummed-up-in-my-hair-and-other-private-places-wreath-cookies.

We had so many wonderful cookies!  I’ve never done a cookie exchange before, in fact, I don’t think anyone had.  But Lori investigated options on how to do it, put together a recipe book of everyone’s cookies(!) for each of us, and we all took home a huge stack of a variety of cookies instead of just one kind.  I loved that there were no repeats on what people brought and that they were all delish!  We even got to vote for best looking, most sinful and better than it looked.  Amy’s darling and really tasty reindeer cookies stole the show and won best looking.  Michelle’s decadent cream wafer cookies ran away with the most sinful and Kinga’s super yummy chocolate peppermint masterpieces took the last category.  Honestly though, everyone’s cookies rocked the house on the delish barometer.

So we mixed and mingled and stuffed ourselves on homemade cookies, yummy appetizers like homemade salmon spread, sage popcorn and cheesy bread and sipped cheery glasses of dubonnet and champagne to start the evening.

Now you’ve seen my Christmas decor pics earlier and in case you were wondering on all the butterflies, well, book club explains it.  Since I was hosting and the book was on butterflies and I like a theme for my decor every year, butterflies seemed a natural. And since I really love love love when you can carry through a theme and put a little surprise into the evening for your guests, then looking for ways to add butterflies into every little thing became my quest.

So, we had butterfly suckers, butterfly gummies, butterflies you could paint from scratch, butterfly crackers, butterfly temporary tattoos and even butterfly masks!  Do you love the pics of everyone?  They were fabulous masks that helped everyone look quite “buttery!” I loved having every one styling their pretty masks.  Warmed my heart and made me want to bust out in an operatic song straight out of “Madame Butterfly” of course!

As for the book, well, frankly it was mostly panned by the majority of those who read it. It’s dark and features one of the worst mothers ever. However, those of us who did like it enjoyed the prosaic writing by Bernie Magill and found it left haunting kinds of “heavy” questions about life in general.  I might not recommend this book but I would definitely read another book by this author.

We are tossing off the heavy stuff though for our next round and going straight for some “smut!” Yep, this is not going to be your literary book club. No oh no.  Give us something light and slutty and we are here to talk about it! : )  We selected “Good in Bed” by Jennifer Weiner as our next read.  (Glen promptly claimed it was his “biography.” oh brother. : ) )

I do have to come back to how special our group is.  We held a canned food drive and I have three good size containers to deliver from 16 women!  Plus we got a big box of coats put together for one of the members coat drives at her work.  And our name fits us really well!  We are not a quiet group! I like best that we are all pretty much, really different but somehow at the same time all the same.  And I like the very best that everyone makes time for this special activity that is about the importance of connection really at its core. We may ebb and flow, we may morph over time, we may even end sooner than I like if too many things pull too many away, it is what it is, but every chance I get, and while we got it, I am relishing these special times with this special group. So fun!

The whole darn thing leaves me warm and fuzzy and I just know that good feeling is going to last for weeks.  Thanks my chatty chicks!