Made it to the other side. I am now one of those ‘other’ people on the planet who walk around ‘being older’, as if they were completely unaware of it! Naw, I suppose they’re aware. But what’s a person to do but march along the mortal path, make mistakes, learn the best one can… and grow older? Today, as I sit to create the quickest of posts, I have hit a particular grouping of keys which has just inverted the image on my monitor. !! Being a no-nonsense woman of action (and 50 years experience!) I simply picked the silly thing up and turned it upside down on my desk. And so there it will stay until I have some time to figure out how to ‘right’ it. Literally. But for now I will accept this as a metaphor for the second half of my life: it aint gonna be like the first half. Some shit’s gonna change. My world is gonna get turned on its rear… (and in a good way, I proclaim!) But until that time…
I’m here tonight to very quickly share some pictures from my birthday yesterday. It was a warm, breezy day, full of sunshine and without one single cloud in the sky. From my duties as recess monitor at my son’s school to a birthday gift to myself of an oil change and car vacuuming, some chicken smooching, a surprise visit from my childhood friend Sherry and her daughter Katy, and then a lovely birthday dinner with mom, dad and Elihu – complete with surprise new gas grill on the porch! – the day was about as perfect as a day could be. Let the photos commence…
My final portrait as a woman in her forties, thanks Elihu. Hey – I was pregnant with him in this same bathrobe!
A birthday tradition; I dig up perrennials from abandoned farms. How wonderful to share the beauty of these pink daffodils once enjoyed by old-time farmers Mr. and Mrs. Meunch, both now many decades gone. But their garden lives on here at the Hillhouse!
The girls are always close by to greet us
Elihu almost always has to get a proper smooching in before school
I just LOVE this fourth grade class. They’re making a fort. Lots of great ideas in this ambitious project.
They fight, yeah, but they work together really well too!
Dierdre’s got her own window!
Ok, one crazy shot allowed.
Sherry’s 50th is the 16th. We’re next door neighbors and have known each other since we were 4. !! Sherry remembers all the crazy stuff we did together in the high school and college years. I don’t. I have to ask her to tell me the stories. !
We brought our own balloons – it was just lively enough
So few of us together, must you stick out your tounge, young man?
Mom was hell bent on actually lighting fifty candles. She did it!!!
No mean feat blowing em all out!
Elihu says goodnight to grandpa
We’re not sad or mad in this pic, just tired… plus the flash is hard on Elihu’s eyes. Goodnight all!
Thank you all for a wonderful day! We felt your love and good thoughts coming in from all over.
Sending you hugs and kisses right back. May each one of us know the love of friends and family on their birthday. !
The Hillhouse 
You still look like the pretty teenager that I remember only now MORE beautiful.
oh, that’s very kind of you!
thanks very much. I do feel pretty good now. Not young, but where I should be. :)
I’m more than a decade older than you and no, most of the time, I don’t know I’m old.
happy Birthday!!! you are young…keep living like it and feeling it; you have many, many, many more years to come!
Very lovely. Great pics. I love the last one best, although they all are comforting and beautiful. Congrats on your mid-century celebration. You’ve got me beat by 11 months. Great skin! :)