Everything I Need to Know, I Learned From Articles Club

Except how to jump in a lake like a normal person

Articles club is one of those things I can’t believe happened to me.

I replied to a call on Emily’s blog in 2016 to join this nascent book club but better¹. Me, an avowed introvert, cold emailing a stranger for the privilege of going to her house to talk to a bunch of other strangers for two hours?

It took a few years, but it turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made.

Something magical happened with this group of women, something I had never experienced before in friendship until this point in my life. We went from not knowing each other at all to texting every day to showing up for each other’s best and hardest moments. (And I mean that literally. When one of us is going through something, you can bet there will be food on your doorstep to help you deal.)

Emily has written more (and more eloquently) about this here. One day, I may write more myself, because I need to put into words how articles club has taught me the true meaning of John 15:13.

But today, we’re going to talk about jumping in a lake.

Of course we had a theme. Of course it was “The Parent Trap.” Of course we dressed up like characters from the movie. (Photo from Stephanie!)

No, really: We jumped in a lake

We went on our inaugural articles club getaway weekend last year, to Oak Island in January. And by “we,” I mean “they” — Foster spiked a fever (his first) the night before I was supposed to drive down, so I ended up not going. Silver lining: That gave me my first-ever case of FOMO!

So this year, I was hell-bent on making it to our weekend on Lake Gaston. One of my Christmas presents from Tanner last year was a trip to Mexico City to celebrate our five-year wedding anniversary. When he told me we were going in March, I very casually screamed, “WHEN IN MARCH?!” Thankfully, the two did not overlap.

Highlights of the weekend for me included:

The fact that, even though we talked essentially nonstop the whole time we were there, we managed to keep coming back to a conversation about each other’s color analysis (you know, soft spring, deep winter, that kind of thing). It felt like the 30-something equivalent of discussing which boys we thought had crushes on each girl. We also talked quite a bit about our blood types, prompted by an encounter a few of us had on the drive up with a man affectionately known as CBD Mark, but that whole sentence is a story for another day.

The “polar” (it was in the mid 70s on Saturday, so this is a misnomer) plunge we planned. The seven of us who decided to jump into the lake had donned our suits and were standing on the dock, nervously chattering away. I kept hearing my dad in my head: “Just GO! QUIT TALKING! JUMP!” (But, like, in a fun way!) So I screamed and jumped! … and went out much further than I’d planned and kept going down and down and down and oh my word how deep is this dadgum lake?! and then I popped back up and realized everyone else had jumped, too and all my adrenaline hit me and my hair was glued to my forehead and I forgot how to swim and so I did a weird doggy paddle/water tread combo and made it back to the stairs on the dock. It was so fun! I did not do it again!

All photo evidence of me jumping in said lake has been burned, so you’ll have to settle for this. (Photo from Stephanie!)

A surprise midday Saturday arrival from Stacy, who had just gotten back from an epic trip to Paris and, thus, had told us all she wouldn’t be able to come. I squealed like a giddy schoolgirl when I saw her. The only thing better would have been an additional surprise visit from Emily, who had to miss for her beloved grandmother’s funeral service. (We love you, Em!)

Kelly’s Minute to Win It-esque games and the hilarious NSFW (or this newsletter) joke she managed to work in to the description of one. Our collective friendship is such that we would intensely trash talk during each game and then immediately hug each other when they ended.

The tiny surprises throughout the weekend related to our Parent Trap theme — peanut butter and Oreos, lizards hot glued to water bottles, a hand-embroidered (!!) Camp Clurb banner with all of our names. The dedication to surprise and delight in this club is unmatched.

Knowing we could just keep talking and didn’t have to go home until Sunday, where, upon arrival, almost all of our children proceeded to have a meltdown that they must have planned together while the moms were gone.

Want to start your own articles club? We wrote an entire guide on how to do that — including a list of every article we’ve ever read and all of the themed meal ideas we’ve used for our monthly dinners. (We are extra, and we like it.)

1. Yes, we “only” read articles, but we read multiple, and they’re long. And we actually talk about them. How many book clubs have you been to where you don’t talk about the book for even a minute of the meeting? Judge not lest you be judged.