Today marks the birthday of one of my oldest and dearest friends, Dawn. You know her as “Anonymous.” (Helleeew? I may get her a Blogger account for her b-day!) I became acquainted with Dawn way back in the olden days when I was in high school. We were pen pals for more than a year before we ever met in person. Her boyfriend Scott was going through Navy Boot Camp with Jim, and the two guys thought it’d be nice for us to connect. (Great idea!) Dawn and I were able to bond over being the girlfriends of Navy guys. When I was a Senior in high school, she was…
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I Was Surprised To Be Surprised
Thank God I actually journalled in the scrapbook I made to commemorate my 30th birthday, almost–choke–ten long years ago. I have not yet finished the journalling in my kids’ scrapbooks (the ones I’ve started anyway, through toddlerhood…I’ll NEVER catch up until I’m too old to remember absolutely none of the details), but I can tell you everything about my 30th birthday party! Here we go… The Conspirators: Kate, Jim, JulesieThe Plan: Jim and Julesie had an idea: “Let’s throw a surprise party!” They started making plans around Labor Day, and brought Kate into the mix. Kate became the decoy: she called me on the morning of November 6 (my actual…
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Roxie May Let Him Have One of Her Milkbones, Since It’s His Day.
It’s my (and Julesie‘s) Dad’s Birthday today! So, my Dad having a birthday on Yom Kippur isn’t the most fun kind of celebration, but luckily this doesn’t happen very often, the Gregorian Calendar Birthday colliding with the Hebrew Calendar Yom Kippur. I’m sure once sundown hits, Dad will make the most of the birthday…and if he doesn’t, that’s okay: the four of us are headed down to Tennessee early tomorrow morning so we’ll have a late celebration with him, in person. What follows this next photo is my Dad’s birthday post from my other blog, from last year (again, since back then Kat and Katie were my only readers); the…
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My Monday Will Definitely Be Better Than My Saturday, So It’s All Good.
Thanks so much to all of you who commented over the weekend. I appreciate your support! I am hoping that the dealership will take my 2 1/2 year old car and suddenly find the exact thing wrong with it; otherwise I’m doomed to have it all repeat like “Groundhog Day”, and frankly I don’t think I have any tears left. I will be calling the dealership after I finish this post, to secure my rental car which I will pick up this afternoon. On the bright side, I have a Tina Turner concert to attend tonight with Julesie, providing her airplane from Key West arrives on time. As usual, she’s…
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My Baby’s No Baby
It’s amazing how, as a parent, sometimes you (okay, ME) tend to not expect your youngest child to be able to do certain things at certain ages and stages. I think in my case, it’s not as much that I feel like the thirteen-year-old will “always be the baby” or anything like that; rather, I really think that it’s just my brain. Sometimes I get frustrated because he isn’t doing something or acting in a certain way…and then I remember that–DUH–maybe it’s just beyond his level and I should cut him a break. He’s growing up, though. Sometimes I get an amazing glimpse at Maturation in Action; I got one…
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Worth So Many Words
My new favorite photo? This one, of my three guys. The other Scout parent who went on the Sea Kayak Georgia trip just gave us a CD containing his fabulous photos. I love when you find photographic evidence of a bonding experience, don’t you?
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He Says the Funniest Things…But Won’t Make A Career of It
The boys arrived home from camp on Saturday and our quiet week of alone time came to a crashing halt. We had a few minutes of melancholy and then got happy about the noisy boys being home again. They got unpacked, we started some laundry, and then we had a nice Family Naptime Hour. Naps are #1!!! Yesterday, we had some business to take care of. When Jim and I drove up to camp (4 hours each way) on Friday just to have dinner and enjoy the evening’s festivities with the boys before turning around to get home so I could teach my Saturday morning spin class, the 13-year-old was,…
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Birthday Fun: It’s Not Just For Breakfast Anymore.
The kid’s birthday this weekend was low-key, which is just how we like it. We mainly just went out to dinner and gave him his gifts. That’s partly because we had the “big celebration” LAST WEEKEND. The reason we had to celebrate one week early is because he wanted to see Blue Man Group (again) for his sixteenth birthday, and I bought tix for the 14th of June. It was the four of us plus Aunt Julie, and the Birthday Boy was allowed to bring one friend. Of course he chose this one, because they’re pretty tight. We went to dinner before the show, at Ed Debevic’s, which is a…
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Sixteen! Whaaat? But I Was Just Sixteen!
Yikes. Jim and I are now old enough to have a sixteen-year-old son. I can’t believe how quickly the years have flown by. It seems like yesterday he was only a baby! We used to tell the kids on every birthday (TEASING! TEASING! But not really), “You have X years left before you’re outta here!” (subtracting new age from the number 18) This boy started telling people that when he was a youngster: “Well, I’m nine now. Only nine more years before I have to get out of the house.” When he became a teen, the reality set in that this time was going to fly by, and maybe it…
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Fourth Out of How Many?
In high school, I met one of my most favorite people in the world, Kate. Actually, we met in eighth grade when she came to my Sunday School class with one of my classmates, whose house she had stayed at the night before. Kate remembers meeting me that day, and I have no recollection of this life-changing event. (What else is new? My memory…eh, she’s not so goooood.) We re-met in high school and became pretty good friends in Junior year. We double-dated to Junior Prom, had sleepovers, the works. In Senior year, Kate–being one of the smartest people I’ve ever met (Still!)–finished her high school requirements a semester early…