It’s my birthday!

Today I turned 46. Someone asked me this morning how my day was going, and I said, “Well I'm happy to be turning 46... and I'll be happy to turn 47 and 48 and 49..." Yeah, it's different now. It used to be getting older was something to laughingly pretend wasn't happening, you know the "29 again?" jokes. Now I think it is a cause for celebration. I plan to live to be an old lady and proud of it.

When I was little, before my mom got sick, she used to throw huge birthday parties and invite the entire neighborhood. Then there would be a family party later that night where you would get another cake and more presents. Here are a couple of pictures from my 4th birthday.

I'm the one in the front row in the cute blue skirt with the knee socks. I don't remember any of the other kids except I can tell the girl in the front row in the pink is Becky, Kay's daughter. Which means one of those brown haired girls is Brenda but I can't tell which. And I'm pretty certain that the tall good looking guy in the back in the red and white stripes is my brother Lee.

This is the cake and family party later that day... I'm not sure why I am so dressed up; except maybe that cute dress was a present.

A year later, when I was 5, my sister Joan and Lee took a package of suckers, opened it and wrapped each one individually in boxes of all different sizes. Then they lead me into a room filled with about 30 wrapped presents and said, "look at all the birthday presents that just came for you, don't you want to open them..." After about the 4th or 5th sucker I was pissed off. I think this was mostly orchestrated by Joan, with Lee as merely an accomplice, but I could be wrong. You never know with Lee... and nope... I still haven't forgotten it. I'm still slightly wary whenever I receive a gift from either of them.

Here is a photo from my 10th birthday. Notice how stylishly I am showing off my new bracelet? The short blonde girl in the front row decided she was in love with Lee that day and literally chased him around the yard several times trying to catch him and kiss him. I later heard that she ended up joining the air force and became a lesbian.