It's birthday week

A little history and yuck to start this post. Birthdays have always been a very mixed bag for me. Growing up, birthdays did not exist in my family. Since my birthday was right around the start of school, the family focus was more on getting me in school than celebrating me. Over the years, a number of family tragedies occurred on or next to my birthday. Heavy stuff. So, I tried to ignore my birthday for many years and would not celebrate it. Of course, my daughter and son would not let that happen and have always had a celebration. But I don't count the great birthday evening my son and I spent in the ER getting his eyelid stitched up and repaired after his encounter with a barbed wire fence - we postponed celebrating til the next day. Add to this, a general heaviness and even depression that have always surfaced in August -- I attribute this to body memory of my early years - stuff I wish would totally go away.

Now, on to the good stuff.

A number of years ago, I started celebrating me on my birthday. One year, I celebrated for an entire month, doing little things every day. Several years, I have hosted some of my women friends for dinner and laughter. I enjoy the family gatherings even more with all my grandchildren. There's nothing like having little people sing to you and want to help blow out the candles. Today is this year's party with a couple twists. I actually requested what I want to eat (manicotti). and I am supplying the dessert - the grocery store had Ben & Jerry's ice cream on sale, so I bought six different flavors for most of us to gobble up ( the youngest kids get plain ice cream since that's what they like).

I also decided to celebrate for a week this year and do something cool every day for me. Today's the party. Yesterday I did something I wanted to do for a while -- get a spikey haircut! (a photo will follow tonight or tomorrow - I do not know how to use the camera on my laptop). When I asked Donna to do something different, maybe spikey, she got excited and said YES! and had great fun. It is cool and I can put the hairdryer away. Fun, fun, fun! I have to go out to run some errands soon and am wearing my black t-shirt (I never wear black, even with this silver hair I have) and am stopping at my daughter's to get something from her shed. I'm curious to see if anyone notices there.

This is all part of closing in on 70 - I'll be 68 on Wednesday and have been journaling about how I want to live and what I want to do for this next chapter. I definitely want more fun, more love and more adventure. Today I'm happy and ready for new fun.

Thanks for stopping by, Karen