Another anniversary

Woke up yesterday morning and was 37. Getting dangerously close to 40. Since the best cake maker ever – well, second to his mother - was not present to make me something good to eat, I celebrated by making a trip with my favorite three year old to the bookstore for some road trip reads and a cup of coffee.  After dinner, I passed out whoopee pies - grazie, Gram. Also went swimming at the neighbors’ house since the thermometer hit 96 yesterday, but didn’t stay long because the kids were so rambunctious I was afraid our open invite would be rescinded.

a favorite birthday book

 My gifts, aside from lots of hugs and bday greetings, were an olive wood decoration from the Holy Land vendor at the exchange from the two older boys and a Precious Moments cross with a garnet and “January” across the top from my middle son, who shopped at the AR store at school today. I was touched they thought of me.

  

At bedtime the kids apologized for fighting on my birthday. My older daughter asked if this were my worst birthday ever and proceeded to fake cry about missing Daddy to add some drama to the day. (Oh, she really misses you, Daddy, but she was not truly tearful.)

They were duly impressed, though, by the story of the time that everybody, including my parents, forgot to wish me a happy 17th birthday. The day happened to coincide with my older brother’s graduation from high school, and Memorial Day weekend with a lot going on, and I think I had received presents the weekend before. (We usually just had dinner with the grandparents and maybe some cousins to celebrate birthdays when I was growing up. After the time I had a temper tantrum at my own 5th or 6th birthday when I lost the party game – was it pin the tail on the donkey or the costume parade? - my mother wasn't in any hurry to have birthday parties. The moment is captured on Super 8 film that should probably be transferred to dvd…)

A list of things I would like to do before I turn 40:

• Organize and get rid of more stuff
• Read outloud to the kids more before they get too big.  We've actually done better at this since my husband has been gone, since I don't have anyone to talk to after the kids go to sleep.  Just about ready to finish off Just So Stories.
• Read more of the Harvard classics that my grandmother gave me a few years ago – they are decorative books bound in blue leather, a few of which were damaged when a bottle of wine they were travelling with exploded from the heat in the car. They have the kind of binding that doesn't exactly encourage reading, but might loosen up if I handled them a little.  
• Teach again - either my kids or someone elses.  Subbing kind of fulfills this.
• Write something worth keeping.
• Sew quilts for the two youngest – I have the material for one; it's just a matter of getting started. I am not a good seamstress, but I admire people who are.
• Do more drawing with the kids or without and improve my camera skills, probably a lost cause.
• Run another marathon – the first and only one I’ve run was in 1996 in Dallas. I ran a 3:13, just a few minutes shy of Lance Armstrong’s time when he ran one a few years ago with the help of trainers like Joan Benoit Samuelson. That time qualified for the granddaddy of marathons, Boston, but by the time that race rolled around the following April I was nursing a new baby. The challenge – finding 2 or 3 hours on weekends to train.  Not really sure that running and recovering is the way I want to spend my weekends.
• Become more disciplined about praying evening prayer.
• Become more disciplined about celebrating the liturgical year with the kids even when I’m not homeschooling.
• Become more disciplined about Bible study – even when I’m not in a group.
• Sometime I’d like to articulate the creed in my own words.
• I thought about adding travel somewhere, but there are so many places I’d like to go, and we usually use our vacation time visiting family and friends. I would like to get the kids out to the Rocky Mountains or the Pacific Northwest, maybe stay with the nuns on Shaw Island where we honeymooned.
• Stop biting my nails

 I'm sure I'll think of more after I hit publish . . .