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Another Year Older…..

Well, another birthday has come and gone. Birthdays. I will tell you my age, my weight, just about anything, all you have to do is ask. But when all else fails, you can always depend on your friends to remind you of how old you are. I turned 35 on January 16, 2010.

Born and raised right here in Johnson City. Way back when there was a hospital in Johnson City. It was located where the LBJ National Park has their headquarters. So when I say born and raised, I mean born and raised.

I can not say anything about birthdays because they have not started to bother me yet. I still go day to day reminding myself that I am an adult. Who are these kids and why are they calling me mom? Time has just flown by. How long have I been out of school? Who am I kidding, my oldest son is already a Sophomore in high school and I don’t know how we got here. It doesn’t seem that long ago I was wondering what am I supposed to do with this kid and now I wonder, what am I supposed to do with this kid. How are we going to afford college? Have we done the best to raise him right????? Grown up questions that I don’t feel like I am old enough for.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not immature and my kids, above all things, come first. But now I am celebrating my 35th birthday, working on my 17th year of marriage, raising a 16, 11, and 6 year old. Reality being... I am getting old, I am an adult, and I have grown up. Just how did I get here?

Birthdays, wow! I remember going to the skating rink in South Austin when I was in Jr. High. For a long time, that was the place to have your birthday party. Followed up by pizza at the spooky Mr. Gattis that has long since been torn down. When I turned into a teenager and birthday parties turned into, ‘you can have a couple of friends over to spend the night’, my mom always bought me a little something for the seven days leading up to my birthday. (Michala, my 11 year old whose birthday is in March, thinks that this is an awesome idea. I told her she needed to talk to her Nana.) The husband took me out on a date with no kids to my favorite steak house this year. Happy Birthday To Me!

So when your birthday rolls around, take it with a grain of salt and count your many blessings instead of those candles on the cake.