birthday season!

We're entering birthday season!

For most of my life, I've dreamed of changing my birthday from January 3 to July 3. Swimming parties! No school! My family does a good job celebrating, but face it: it's an effort. Following Christmas and New Year's, most of us are ready for a break from celebrating. We're partied out, spent out and worn out.

As a kid, if I wasn't headed back to school on my birthday, I was helping take down Christmas decorations. And there was the year I was a freshman in college and we were moving on my birthday. My mom forgot my birthday! Wow, cool.

Yesterday, my children called me, my hubby bought a cake, and we went out to dinner with Mark and Jill. It was nice. It's just that we're all heaving a sigh of relief after the holidays. And by the way, it's not just my birthday. My husband, granddaughter and one son are also January babies. And two more children plus our soon-to-arrive granddaughter are in February. That's a lot of cake.

Our granddaughter Ari is a New Year's baby, so she and I can comiserate. I'll try to be upbeat about our first-of-the-year birthdays; I'm sure Ari will have a better attitude than me!

When's your birthday? Do you like when it is? (Pardon the lousy grammar.) Why or why not?

September ramblings

Back in January, I wrote a post of random thoughts. I think mid-September seems about right to write randomly again.

The big event of today was .... losing my cell phone. I didn't lose it; I just couldn't find it after it slid out of my purse and pinballed around the van. I walked from one side of the van to the other a couple of times, peering under and around seats. I almost asked a complete stranger in the parking lot to call my phone, but finally found it: way, WAY under a seat. Utterly ridiculous.

The photos around here continue to have a life of their own, or at least take over mine. Problem is, I'd rather LOOK at them by hanging them on walls than STORE them. Today the guest room got a little photo display:

A couple of houseguests are arriving Saturday. I love company, but our house is typically not company-ready, if you get my drift. And college kids don't typically leave their rooms company-ready, either.

Just started Believing God by Beth Moore at church on Tuesday mornings. She's a spiritual giant in the world of Bible studies. Lots of homework, but it's good. And I am getting to know some new women. That's awesome.

I'm smelling fall. Little rain has fallen, so things are getting crunchy.

The Tampa Bay Rays are neck-in-neck with the (boo, hiss) New York Yankees in the their American League division. Our oldest son works for the Rays, so we are ultra-excited when they do well. Bill and I watch lots of baseball and eat buckets of popcorn. Go Rays!

When the nest empties, laundry goes way, WAY down. So far down that I feel like I'm skipping a chore or something. Crazy! At the height of kids at home, I did probably 10 or 12 loads a week.

We live in a dog-saturated neighborhood. The two (or is it three?) behind us sound like warthogs when they play. Creepy.

I made extra dinner last night, so it's all ready for the oven. That's such a comfortable feeling.

Have you ever found a book that speaks deeply to where you are in life? So deeply that you're exhausted after reading a chapter? I'm reading such a book now.

Have a nice evening, everyone!

a sabbatical of sorts

Do you ever feel that you need a sort of sabbatical, when you must pull away and get your thoughts and your life in order? Webster's points out that the term "sabbatical leave" originally meant a period of absence given every seven years.

That's where I am this beginning of September. Looking back over our summer calendar,  I was startled to discover I'd made eight out-of-state trips since late May. Well, no wonder things are in disarray around here. Since my work schedule has slowed down, I've decided to change my focus a bit. Reading, writing, reflecting, Bible study. Closets and kitchen cabinets. Organizing the bajillion books around here.

Wednesday the pantry got an overhaul. I threw away no fewer than three old boxes of graham crackers. And other things I just can't mention admit. Know what I mean?

Yesterday I jumped into my cookbook cabinet, pictured here. Katie caught me searching for a recipe. TIME WASTER! I found the lost recipe for delicious Chewy Raisin Bars and - no joke - a recipe for Flubber! One of the children's science projects, no doubt. It made me laugh.

Today I'll do another kitchen cabinet. No telling what I'll find.

I think we women sometimes don't allow ourselves to pull away. For me, raising children made it easy to slip into a lifestyle of doing for others, with little balance of giving to myself, whether physical exercise, reading, spiritual growth, or just doing something I really want to do. Like organizing my home. (That's even hard to say: me, myself, my.)

How do you find balance? Have you ever taken a sabbatical?

the night I was born

Just past midnight on January 3, 1955, my mother had settled into bed after a long day of laundry and chores. She and my dad were in the middle of a move, and she was staying at her parents house. She prayed, "Lord, let me sleep before this baby comes." I was two weeks overdue already.

Wump! First labor pains began. Since my dad was settling things into the new house, my grandpa, Poppy, drove mom to the hospital. Literally, that's ALL he did. Mom remembered that a nervous Poppy pulled up to the hospital entrance and told my in-labor mother to "go on in while I park the car."

So in she walked, doubled-over, to bring me into the world. I think everyone's birth story is a special memory. Make sure you share your child's story with him or her!

dreaming of the White House

The White House Christmas tree arrived from North Carolina over the weekend. The towering Fraser fir now stands in the blue room, fabulously adorned in this year's red, white and blue theme.

This week, First Lady Laura Bush gave the media a tour of the White House all decorated for Christmas. sigh. Do you know how much I've wanted to visit the White House for most of my life? Oh, I've seen the outside a few times. But I may as well be looking at a photograph. I really, really want to get inside and wander those amazing bedrooms, ballrooms, offices and halls...where Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan walked.

I don't know what it is. Maybe a psychologist could explain, but - I'm not making this up - I've dreamed about being in the White House and talking with the President. While in college, I dreamed that Jimmy Carter and I chatted over coffee in the White House kitchen. I certainly have no political or presidential aspirations, but I sure would like to spend a few hours in the "people's house."

Someday.

confession

You might find this trivial and ridiculous. But it’s on my mind today and silly memories have a way being forgotten. A writer can't afford that. My kids reading this will be, I'm pretty sure, mildly horrified. Or revolted. Is that a word? Not that I would DO this thing, but that I'd share it publicly.

One of the pluses of an empty nest is the freedom to run around in my underwear. Inside the house. I promise, I have never run outside for the newspaper in my underwear. I wouldn't do that to my neighbors.

The laundry “room” (it’s really a closet) is in the upstairs hallway, just steps from our bedroom door. Before showering, I sometimes need an item from the dryer or perhaps have to turn on the dryer. (I sometimes wonder if I was an undiagnosed attention-deficit child.)

It’s a liberating dash, performing these tasks in such a state, or simply leaving the bedroom door open with no worry of a nearly-grown son lumbering through. My daughter's home now, but even she admonishes, "gosh, mom!" if we meet unexpectedly in the hall.

No photos today. You understand.