Good time to turn 44!

Thanks everyone for all the calls, emails, txt messages, and in person hugs kisses and best wishes! A good day! Started off a little overcast outside, then got better, but then, I never went all the way outside! Spent the entire day in my house clothes, playing and doing what I wanted. We want to decorate, so I managed to get a few more boxes in our dining room moved out, will finish that project today so we can put up our pictures on the walls, move the piggies out of the living room temporarily so we can put up the Christmas tree, and also start putting up all the other decorations. We already have our first ornament to put on the tree, which I just love!

My first txt message came from WV, followed by a repeat picture of the statue David taken in person in Italy last year. Thanks, Dean! :) Not the usual bday pic, but fun to get one in a bday suit for the occasion!

Then, next from my youngest sister, Della. I remember my 9th birthday party, because we had to move it to Grandma's house as my Mom was in labor with Della that night. Me and my 7 siblings, ranging in ages from 9, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 11 months, went for a sleep over for a couple days on the farm, what fun! I don't remember all the particulars, but we were most interested in whether the baby would be born on my birthday or not. Mom started on that day, would she end on that day? NOPE...Della came to us 2:26 PM on Dec. 7th! Happy Birthday, Della!

And that is why we also have a younger brother, Darryl, because it didn't work out for the timing and Della came her on her own day...okay, well, that's one of the stories we tell Darryl, child #10 of 10.

Also heard from most of my other brothers and sisters and Dad, and some other close relatives and friends...a great day!

But yesterday, we loaded up the music playlist on the laptop, where we've copied all our music from our CDs, and attached the speakers and listened to Christmas music all day. I especially love the songs by Harry Connick, Jr., but they were all good.

Mike grilled dinner outside on charcoal, london broil but very tasty when grilled. Tried a new dish called blend of grains from Trader Joes, which I liked but the rest didn't seem to care for too much. The frozen veggies from Trader Joe's are really good, by the way. Price-wise, they may be a few pennies more, but they are tasty, healthy and imagine this: they don't contain grit, like we recently found in the store-brand of frozen veggies from Food Lion. Guess who's not buying certain things from Food Lion anymore...

Christopher helped me a little to make a cake, and of course, he enjoyed eating it even more! Poor boy, he hardly ever gets cake. Being from a large family, we got cake overload growing up, or so it seems. Really we didn't, but I just don't like cake anymore, not regular cake. It has to be moist, have fruit, pudding, toppings, nuts, or liqueur mixed in or on top. So, we made a box sheet cake, poked it with holes, filled the holes with vanilla pudding, and topped with fresh whipping cream. Mmmmm, tasty, not healthy for ya, but a good birthday cake. Topped with 4 candles on one side and 4 on the other, had a little help blowing them out -- one of the perks of having a 5-yr old in the house! Then watched him shovel it in. He couldn't think of anything else around dinner time, even finished eating dinner in record time, so he'd be ready for cake.

One of Mike's cousins lives down the street, so Pearl also came over to share dinner and cake, and that was nice to have her here, she's funny also! Probably the most amusing, for me, is when the little guinea pigs started calling out for snacks, which they do just about every time someone opens the fridge door or rattles plastic bags. Even the little one, Lisa, is starting to get very vocal in her "Wheep, wheep, wheep, wheeeeeeeep!" sounds, so it's like hearing it in stereo now. Next thing I knew, I saw Pearl squeezing a plastic bag, trying to get them stirred up, and she didn't skip a beat when I told her she could give them some kale from the fridge. One wouldn't think that piggies could be so much fun, but once they get used to you, they really do play (in their own way, of course) with you.

We played and laughed and had a good day all around, I can't complain. We talked about going to do a Christmas light drive, there's one near Williamsburg that is a drive-thru display where you pay by the carload, but it turned out to be one of those "pajama days" after all.

And, to beat everyone to the punch...it's only SIX more years until the big FIVE-OH. Which translates in one year closer to retirement! Besides, I figure at 50, Chris will be 11 yrs old, so he'll be still keeping us quite busy AND young! And since you're only as old as you feel, I must still be in my late teens, at least as young as I feel in my head and heart. What's in the mirror, that's another story, another day, another subject. LOL!

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