SDCEA Sisters: Months Apart and Steps Away

National Siblings Day was April 10, yet SDCE resident and Ramona Realtor, Doreen Smith, gets to celebrate it every day with her sister Michelle Stanley. Doreen moved to the Green Haven condominiums six years ago after living in the Ryland community since 2000. And last year, Michelle moved in next door. “I was never going to leave my house in Julian,” Michelle explains. “Doreen showed me every condo that came up for sale here, and I kept saying no.” When the condo next door went up for sale, Doreen listed it, and Michelle, who happened to know the people moving out, decided to come look at it. “And as I was walking back down the stairs, I started crying. I knew this was where I was supposed to be.” Now, these two sisters, who are only 11 months apart in age, live only 11 steps apart. “We love living here and we love the estates,” Doreen says.

These days, instead of Michelle stocking up her pantry in anticipation of being snowed in and Doreen worrying about her driving the windy roads home, they spend their free time listening to live music at the Par Lounge, going on walks, grabbing coffee, and attending events like the Chamber Mixers and Ladies Who Lunch. Michelle is especially excited about the change of pace. “I have a social life now! I didn’t have one in Julian because there was nothing up there. But now I get to do things like play Bingo at Pamo Winery. I also joined the Soroptimist Bunco group (in SDCE).”

Sisters are bound to have their similarities and differences. It's evident Doreen and Michelle are more alike than not. “We used to joke that we couldn’t go shopping together because we would end up with the same clothes. Now we just go shopping together, buy the same things, wear it at the same time and call it good,” Doreen says. They also love their dogs, whom they adopted from Frosted Faces, make frequent trips to Oregon to visit their father, and enjoy going on cruises together. “We’ve gone to Tahiti, Alaska, the Caribbean and Mexico,” Doreen adds. As for their differences? Well, there aren’t many these days. But when they were younger, the ones they had were more apparent. “We had to share a bedroom when we were young, and Doreen was ‘miss clean and perfect,’ and my side of the room was like the blow-up side. Once, she put duct tape down the middle of the room and told me to keep all my stuff on my side.” Michelle says that was probably the worst thing they ever argued over and that she’s a much tidier person these days.

Though they get along easily, they’ve been through hard times, especially when Michelle’s husband passed away four years ago, just before the pandemic. “If Doreen wasn’t there, I wouldn’t have been able to get through it.” As they pause to hug each other, they agree they couldn’t imagine their lives without one another. Happy National Siblings Day to all siblings, and to Doreen and Michelle: Sisters. Neighbors. Friends.