Dear Kid,

I have the great fortune to be friends with the awesome Girlfriendology who invited me to attend the annual YWCA Women of Achievement #YWCAWomenAchieve luncheon yesterday. (Well, annual for them—they’ve been hosting the program for 35 years. This was my first time attending.)

There were over 2,100 people at the event (think lots of and lots of people at over 200 tables—aren’t you glad you weren’t cooking lunch?). I was sitting at a table of bloggers (it was like old home week) and they announced that we were the blogging table and hit us with the spotlight at the beginning of the event. Perhaps it was to excuse our “rude” behavior of being on our phones—it was our job to tweet during the luncheon.

I took a photo of my lunch because I thought you’d be interested.

I took a picture of my shoes because someone else might be interested.

The first part of the program was introducing the work of the YWCA. The work that they do to help and protect abused women and kids is unbelievable. As in, it is hard to believe how many people need their help and even harder to believe the amount and quality of help they are able to provide.

Then each of the women being honored were introduced. There were some pretty spectacular stories of some extremely impressive women. As Girlfriendology whispered at one point, “It kind of makes you feel like you haven’t accomplished anything, doesn’t it?” Word.

Viola Davis was the keynote speaker. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, pretend it does. She was Abilene in the movie The Help. She has been in movies (obviously), on tv, and on Broadway. And she was A-May-Zing.

And by amazing, I mean not a sound from the 2,100 people in the audience, standing ovation, bigger claps than any of the honorees got, amazing.

What a great way to spend the middle of the day.

Hope your day is inspiring.

Love, Mom