A happy birthday it was...

I want to thank everyone who commented last week with warm wishes for a happy 60th birthday.  Thursday was the big day and a good one it was.

Hubs had spilled the beans to everyone who might be interested, so I was treated to lots of well wishes.

The funniest thing, though, is that first thing Thursday morning I received a phone call from my bank with a personal Happy Birthday wish.  Now, that has never happened before.  

I should have asked the caller to sing to me.  😄

I got the nicest messages from friends and family via e-mail and Facebook, was sung to at Bible study, ate lunch with two girlfriends, had flowers and Shari's Berries waiting on my front porch when I got home, and in the evening enjoyed supper with my husband and two of our sons at The Bosphorus Cafe in Indy.   What fun.

After sharing a large appetizer plate of Hummus, Ezme (a finely chopped tomato and pepper salad), Tabouli, Turkish Salsa, Babaganush (eggplant, tahini and yogurt salad), and Dolma (stuffed grape leaves), we each had a different lamb dish.  Husband and youngest son ordered the Adona Kabob and the Beyti Kabob.  But the best, in my opinion was my other son's Lamb Shish Kabob.  I also enjoyed my Lamb Mediterranean.  So many things to sample!  And their rice and warm, soft flat bread (looked like this Bazlama) was amazing.  Mmmmmm...

We discovered this restaurant last year when my son (pictured with me above) suggested it for his celebratory meal after his college graduation.  It is such a happy, bustling place with so much character.   It immediately came to mind when my husband asked me where I'd like to go for dinner.  It did not disappoint!  

I wish I had taken more pictures, though.  I  always wish I had taken more pictures...

And that was my birthday.   It was the best.

(happy sigh here)

~~~~~

And now I suppose I should share my latest yarny project since this is a YOP post.  I didn't accomplish a whole lot in that department, except for starting on a blanket redo.    

Here's a peek:

I definitely like this project better than the blanket I had started a week earlier.  I suspect I'm going to need to buy some more gray yarn to finish this, but hopefully I can do that and get the border finished this next week.

~~~~~

And that's all I've got!  

To see what other YOPers are up to, 

visit our group on Ravelry.

Making things... baking things...

As I wrote yesterday, I had a birthday this past week.   I didn't make any grand plans to celebrate, but I received the sweetest invitation from a young friend a couple of weeks ago to bake together.  For his birthday (which was the week before mine) he said something he'd like to to do is bake with Mrs. B...

He had talked of making biscuits when he and his siblings were at our house a few months ago and we didn't have time to do that then, but evidently Isaiah hung onto that thought.

I put on my apron and was his sou baker (is that a thing?) for a couple of hours this past Thursday.

Mostly, I just watched, chatted, and cleaned up after Isaiah as he worked very proficiently making biscuits.

He thought that was a great arrangement.  And it suited me just fine.

Isaiah worked fast and it was difficult getting a non-fuzzy picture of him rolling and cutting out biscuits.

Here's a clear picture...  Isaiah is arranging biscuits on the baking sheet so they'll bake nice and even.

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While the biscuits were baking, Isaiah started the book I brought him as a birthday gift.  Hubs has a collection of old Landmark books we've begun selling and otherwise rehoming, and Isaiah comes from a family of big readers, so we thought this title would make a fine gift.  I tucked in a bookmark I had made.   

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And finally, the biscuits were done baking and we enjoyed a couple with jam and butter.

While this was meant to be a birthday gift for Isaiah, it was a birthday present for me that I'll remember forever, I imagine.   Thank you, Isaiah, for the invitation to bake with you, and for showing me what a good baker you are!

~~~~~

And on the crochet front, I'm still working away on my two Spicier Life blankets.

They're both just a little over half finished.  I don't know if it's my imagination, but each section seems longer than the section before it.  While I'm enjoying working on these, I'm starting to slow down. Can't wait 'till I get to the borders. 

To see what other YOPpers are up to, visit our  group on Ravelry.

Birthday week...

I had a birthday this week.  And I don't feel as old as I am.

Well, that's not completely true.  Sometimes my body feels every single day of my now 59 years, but my heart doesn't quite comprehend that I've been here on this earth for nearly six decades now.

In my heart, I feel young.  The little girl in me still enjoys kicking through a wind-blown pile of autumn leaves -- if I don't have shoes on that will get stained.  And I still love the splatter of spring rain on my face -- except that now the rain drops mess up my glasses and that's not so much fun.  Sometimes I'm tempted to lay on my stomach and read a book, but then I'm reminded that my back will ache, or a muscle may spasm when I try to get up.  And then there are those moments when I get up from a seated position, and my hips catch as I carefully unfold myself.   And way too may times I hear myself groan as I stand and straighten up after relaxing all comfy snug in a big recliner chair.

But even on hard days, or in my very practical moments, my heart has me feeling like I'm still a young woman.  Even though I wear a crown of gray, and my crows feet crinkle when I smile, and my dry eyes sometimes turn red and are not so pretty, the image I have of myself (the person behind my eyes) is younger than the one I see in the mirror.  I suspect that's the way it is for all of us.  Funny how this is.  I consider it one of life's great blessings that we don't necessarily see ourselves as the world sees us.  Then again, I'm not sure the world sees us and is startled like we sometimes are when we catch a glimpse of our aging selves in a mirror or window reflection.   And those cameras at self-check out lines.  Ugh.  Recently I was startled (and discouraged) to see my image on the little screen as I was scanning  and bagging my groceries.  Really... why do I need to see my face then?

Anyway... all that aside, embracing my age this year, I announced on my birthday that it was the first day of my 60th year.  I think my husband thought that was a negative way to look at it, but to me it felt empowering.

I'm now marching forward to 60, and feeling very reflective - as I do most years about this time.   But I've decided to own this next year in a way I've really not done before.   I don't know yet what that means.  It would be nice if it meant I worked harder at being healthier, lost some weight, stuff like that.  Stuff that most of us want to have achieved, but most of don't really want to actually DO.

It would be great if it meant growing deeper spiritually.  Complete the challenge I started in January to read through the Bible (the challenge that has already gotten waylaid).  To pray more intentionally, and by that I mean keep track of prayers and answers to prayers.  To claim blessings and gifts as if they were directly given by the hand of God.  James tells us it is so:  "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."

It would probably be life-changing if I embraced challenging relationships as refining things in my life rather than regard them as chafing things to endure or avoid.  Ouch.  That one is a really hard one for me. But I suspect I'm the bigger loser because of it.

I could go on, but these are things I'm reflecting on lately...

I didn't make any plans for my birthday, but it was such a beautiful spring day (finally!) I decided I needed to get outside and take a walk.  I couldn't manage to stir up anyone to go with me at the last minute (none of us actually answer our phones anymore, it seems -  so I enjoyed a quiet solitary walk  on the greenway trail of our town.    By the time I started, the beautiful sunny day was starting to change to a cloudy breezy day so the pictures I got were on the dark side.

It doesn't look very spring-like, does it?  You can't hear the birds chirping, or the low rumble of lawn mowers off in the distance cutting grass for the first time this year.  It was a lovely, quiet walk.  I only passed four other people in the forty minutes it took me to make the circuitous walk through what the city is trying to turn into something of a nature preserve.

Since I had the foresight to take my phone with me, it occurred to me that it might be interesting to take a picture of the same spot over the course of the the year to see how it changes.  I probably should have chosen a more scenic spot, but then again, this little corner should show the changes pretty dramatically.   Though I do think I need to work on the lighting.  Then again, my phone camera isn't all that great if the natural lighting isn't great.

We'll see, I guess.   We'll see if I manage to remember to take my camera in the future.  We'll see if manage to have my phone charged so that I can take a picture (my phone was down to 5% charged when I finished my walk).  And I suppose we'll see if I actually get out to this spot often enough to even do this seasonal photo thing...  It all felt like a grand idea, the day I took this walk.

Whatever the next year holds...  

I'm looking forward to another trip around the sun!

Operation Happy Birthday!

In October, Ben turned 15 and when contemplating what he wanted to do, he decided he wanted to spend an evening putt-putting and eating pizza with his pals.  He then decided that in lieu of birthday gifts, he'd suggest that his friends bring a donation for an Operation Christmas Child box.  Donations he received!  Between the six fine fellows below, they managed to fill 4 boxes! 

Ben is in orange.  And yes, these guys are as fine and fun as they look!

On that beautiful autumn evening in October the boys enjoyed pizza and putt putt before returning home.  And tomorrow we finally take the filled boxes to church where they will be gathered with many other boxes, prayed over, taken to a collection center where they will then be sent on their way to be received by children possibly on the other side of the world. 

Hope for a Merry Christmas and a little bit of love is enclosed in each box.  

You, too, can touch the heart of a child.  Visit Samaritan's Purse to see how.