Lukey-Luke Turns One.....

I don't know when I started calling that sweet baby Lukey-Luke instead of his real name. I generally do that with names. (I once had a student named Shane, and I started calling him "Shaney Waney." Instead of being insulted, he started putting that on his papers when he turned them in.)

Back to Lukey-Luke.

Can you believe this is the same little boy I wrote about last October, when he came into the world weighing all of 1 pound 15 ounces?

His parents are some of my favorite people. I hope their next year is MUCH less stressful than the past one has been.

Happy birthday, Lukey-Luke!

Favorite Things Friday - Yellow Tulips.....

Yellow tulips are my very favorite flower in the world. I used to think yellow roses were my favorite, so that's what I had in my first (only) wedding. I got married the year after Princess Di and What's-His-Name, so I felt compelled to try to outdo her flowers. No one told me that two dozen yellow roses would weigh roughly the equivalent of a small tank.

Today my co-workers presented me with a very sweet birthday card and these:

I apologize that the only thing I had to take a picture with was my iPhone. (I'm not sure the photos would have been any better with a real camera, I'm sad to say.)

I also apologize that in the second picture I couldn't quite take it without the computers in the background. We are severely limited as far as attractive photo backgrounds in our school.

Not only did they get me a card and some flowers, they called me out into the hall to sing "Happy Birthday" and they made a big production out of giving them to me. When I do birthday cards, I usually just leave them on co-workers' chairs. How dull of me!

Because I have a penchant for sticking my foot in my mouth, naturally I had an embarrassing moment related to the flowers. I completely forgot my birthday is tomorrow, and when I went into a co-worker's room to retrieve a student so we could beat him about the head and shoulders suspend him for a day, I spied the gorgeous flowers and couldn't help exclaiming, "Oh, what BEAUTIFUL flowers!!!" She looked at me blankly for just a second and then said, sighing, "They're for you." I felt so stupid.

The gesture was very sweet, and the flowers are a joy. Now if I can only figure out how to get them home on my bicycle.

Easter Dates and My Birthday and Other Meaningless Stuff.....

I have always been fascinated by dates (numbers in general, but mostly dates -- and zip codes). My birthday is April 7th, and when I was young it seemed that Easter Sunday always fell NEAR my birthday but never ON it. When my birthday finally coincided with Easter, I was 24 years old and had a 10-month-old baby, so it wasn't nearly as big a deal as I had thought. The next time was 1996, and all I could think about was how close the Olympics were going to be and thinking I might be able to attend some of the events (I didn't).

I should have partied harder on both those occasions, because Easter will never again fall on my birthday.

Well, unless I live to be 114 and 119. And while I guess that's entirely possible, it's also possible that my definition of partying will have changed significantly.

Look at the chart below (you'll have to click on the picture to make it bigger) and see how strange the distribution of Easter dates is. I am aware of how Easter is defined, but I would still expect SOME kind of pattern over a 250-year span.

Poor April 8th gets the shaft even more - it only gets Easter Sunday 5 times in that 250-year span. And how about March 24th? Really, why bother? It gets one and March 23rd gets TWO? What's up with that? Yet April 10th and April 17th get a whopping eleven Easters each, the hogs. Even April Fools' Day gets 10 Easters, and don't you know some parents with a penchant for practical jokes could have a FIELD DAY with April Fools' Day occurring the same day as the Easter Bunny's annual visit?

I have lost count of the number of students I've taught over the years, but let's just say (conservatively) that I have taught an average of 100 students per year, over a 26-year span. Out of 2600 (approximately) students, how many do you think I've had who shared my birthday?

Two.

And they were at the same school in the same year.

It's puzzles like these that get me on the elliptical every morning. I want to live long enough to solve them.

Remember me mentioning Midlife Swimmer in last night's post? She mentioned in her post today that her birthday is next week, so I left a comment asking her what day. I thought to myself, "What are the odds?"

Apparently they are pretty good. Midlife Swimmer and I have the same birthday, though I'd be willing to guess her big 5-0 is significantly more than 8 days away.

I apologize for any stress I may have caused with this mind-boggling post. You may now stop banging your head against the wall. It won't help anyway.

I Need Your Help......

I am a list-maker, planner, goal-setter extraordinaire. I don't claim to check off all the items on the list, meet all the goals, or keep the plans intact from beginning to end, but I like to start with a list/plan/goal at the very least.

Case in point: I set a cycling goal for the year back in January. I neglected to get serious about it, however, until October. Now I'm killing myself (not literally, of course, but you get the idea) to meet the goal. And it's still doable, but I'm going to have to change my attitude about cold-weather cycling.

Or maybe just edit my goal. Now there's an idea.

But here is what this particular drivel blog post is really about:

Next year I will be 50 years old, and while I would like not to dwell on that insidious number at all, I have decided that I would like to try 50 NEW things next year to celebrate my 50 years on this earth.

I would like some help from you picking out those 50 things. It doesn't matter if you are one of the faithful ones who read my blog every day (thank you, thank you, thank you), if you read it only occasionally (what's up with THAT? I'm not important to you?), or if this is your first visit here ever (please don't be too afraid to come back).

I don't have any rules, and this isn't any contest, because unlike SOME PEOPLE, I don't have sponsors who send me a gazillion dollars every month to bribe my readers reward my readers for coming back time and time again.

The 50 things do, however, need to be reasonable.

The first one of you who says "cook a meal" or "clean your house" will be sent immediately to time out. You will be joined there shortly by Hubby, who will say the exact same thing(s) when I tell him of my 50-year thing. (Is it a goal? Project? Proof of insanity?)

This isn't exactly a bucket list, mainly because that one's already been beat to death.

The 50 things don't have to be adventurous, death-defying acts. I have, after all, already jumped out of an airplane 66 times and lived to tell about it. To whoever just whispered, "You might try jumping WITHOUT a parachute," I HEARD THAT, and it hurts my feelings.

It would be okay to put bungee-jumping on the list, because it's something I've always wanted to do, but to be perfectly honest I may have lost my nerve.

It has to be something I have some control over, so it would be a waste to put "win the lottery" as one of the 50 things. If I do win the lottery, I expect to double the list. At least.

It can't be something I would have to quit my job to do, like hike the Appalachian Trail or ride all the way across the country on my bicycle, completely self-supported and all alone. Although I wouldn't mind giving either of those a try, I cannot retire until the following year. Perhaps hiking PART of the Appalachian Trail would be okay, since it ends (begins?) in Georgia.

It can't be something that I can't control, like getting a book published. Although that has been a dream of mine since I was 12 years old (and I hope my writing has improved somewhat in that time), just because my sisters and I think it's a fabulous book doesn't mean anyone else will. You might say I should at least FINISH the book, and that would be reasonable. I don't want the list to become homework, though.

I want the list to be things I haven't done before, so it can't be something like crochet an afghan. Not even using a pattern I've never used before. I rarely use the same pattern twice, so that's cheating. It might be reasonable to say "knit an afghan," because I've never tried knitting.

It can't be something completely ridiculous like "wear a Florida Gators t-shirt," because plain and simple, that ain't gonna happen.

The list can't have anything to do with body piercings or tattoos.

It could mention shaving my legs, but let's not waste one of the 50 precious things on such mundane things. 

It needs to be something I haven't done before, so killing off an imaginary friend is out. Been there, done that.

Ditto skinny dipping. With a huge man wearing a life jacket. Please just shoot me now.

For reasons obvious to anyone who has read this blog, the list should NOT include anything to do with knocking out a wall in our house. We are running out of walls, and frankly I don't know that my marriage could survive another renovation project.

I would prefer that items on the list not turn into lifetime commitments, like getting another cat. Or a gerbil. Or a ferret. Or a snake. Or any other animal.

Ditto adopting a baby.

It is fine to suggest exotic travel destinations, but keep in mind the fact that I don't have an unlimited budget, and it is difficult to get Hubby out of his comfort zone (read: recliner) for more than two nights at a time. I am also limited to travel that can be accomplished within the constraints of the school year calendar and not interfere with bike rides, trips to the casino, gymnastics competitions, football games, baseball games, and Sisters' Saturdays.

Don't bother suggesting expensive things like "buy a Rolls-Royce." I don't do cars anyway, and unless you can guarantee that I WILL win the lottery, I can't accomplish that on my own. 

So I need your help. What would you suggest for one of the 50 new things I should do/accomplish next year? Please please please please leave me a comment with a suggestion (or two or three or ten or fifty). I will post the list in a future blog and not make you read through all the comments. Don't worry that someone else might have already suggested it; just throw it out there. Don't worry if it's something I've already done. I have an excellent editor who will simply leave it off the list and send you a rejection slip explain the circumstances under which I have already done that particular thing.

I can't wait to see what you come up with. Now get busy!

Happy Birthday to Me.......

Ten reasons I'm glad my birthday occurs when it does:

1. April has the coolest birthstone. Really, how did the powers that be decide that WE deserved the diamond? Clearly it was a correct assumption, but how did they KNOW?
2. My birthday means that baseball season is officially underway. My gift from Hubby this year is tickets to the minor league Braves team, who relocated nearby just last year. They (there "they" go again) say there isn't a bad seat in the whole stadium.
3. It also usually coincides in some way with the Masters golf tournament. I will gorge myself on Masters coverage starting tomorrow. Hubby will be gone this weekend, so I will have complete and total control of the remote. Seriously, the deciding factor of whether or not to go to Missouri for gymnastics this Saturday was the fact that I would miss all of Saturday and a large chunk of Sunday coverage of the Masters, and I can always watch the gymnastics meet online.
4. My birthday USUALLY occurs during Spring Break. Thank you, board of education, once again for our retarded, exhausting, homicide-inducing schedule this year. Oh, and thank you in advance for your wise, insightful decision to have the same schedule again NEXT YEAR.
5. The annual G-Day football game occurs this week as well. Although it isn't an official game, it reminds me that we get to start all over this year in a mere 150 days.
6. My birthday means that the Spring Tune-Up ride is just a week and a half away. It's the first multi-day ride of the year, and this year Katydid and I are taking the motorhome. No more sleeping in a tent for us!
7. I can officially put away the sweaters, turtlenecks, socks, and closed-toe shoes. We MIGHT just have another mini-cold snap (shhhhhhhhhhhhh), but if we do I will just suffer through it. Once the toe ring goes on, it's sandals for the next 6 months.
8. Opening the pool cannot be too far away.
9. Yellow is my favorite color, and everything around here is such a lovely shade of yellow. Oh, that's not such a good thing.
   
10. Yellow roses are so much cheaper on my birthday than they are on Valentine's Day, and Hubby surprised me with a dozen of them today. They were on the table when I got home from school, and he was only slightly insulted that I failed to notice them. My only defense is that I have felt like crap all day, and my mind isn't where it should be.
    

It has been a terrific birthday, the last one in my 40's.

Okay, it was terrific up until THAT.

Happy Birthday Next Year.....

My siblings and I used to play game in which we would vie to be the first to bestow birthday wishes by telephone. The game has lost some of its fervor, however, as we have grown older, had kids of our own, and veered off into some wildly different schedules. Nurse Jane and I go to bed with the chickens. It's typically daylight when I go to bed, with the exception of the deep, dark winter. Katydid works at night, usually 4:00 to midnight, except for this week, when it's 6:00 PM to 2:00 AM. I rarely try to call her at all. Brother Jack works out of town building restaurants and hotels and nuclear bunkers to be used in times of an apocalypse. Just kidding about that last part.

We don't try as hard anymore to be the first, but we all call each other on our birthdays, or at least we email.

Therefore I was a little surprised, but not hurt or anything, that Brother Jack did not call me on my birthday this past Tuesday. I knew he was probably busy.

He called this morning, however, when I was on my way to work. He sounded a little put out that the other siblings had actually called ON my birthday. As if someone had suddenly changed the rules and failed to notify him.

We talked for a few minutes, and he wished me a happy birthday.

Then he wished me happy birthday again and said it was for next year. I guess he's the first.

Happy Birthday to Me.....

Today I received two more highly appropriate birthday cards, both from my co-workers at school.

The first one had me trying desperately to make some tough decisions.





Which one to start with? Which one to do the most? Which one could I do openly? Which one should I keep secret? As it happens, "Anger" was the only one I think I didn't commit today. There's still time, however, as the Braves' game is only in the second inning. They are currently up 2-0, however, so it's looking good so far.

This was my favorite, though:



Do my co-workers know me well, or what? I try really hard NOT to be a smart ass, but that's like trying hard not to breathe.

I lied.

I don't try at all.

I was thinking back today about some memorable birthdays.

Easter has fallen on my birthday twice in my lifetime, both as an adult (1985 and 1996), and it never will again. Unless I live to be like 158 or something, and that's looking less and less likely. Isn't it weird that Easter falls on April 5th, 6th, 10th and 17th fairly frequently, but only twice on the 7th in my 48 years? The next time Easter falls on April 7th will be 2075 and 2080.

I don't remember what year it was, but I had to be younger than 8 because Brother Bobby was still at home, and he went into the Marines the summer I was 8. We lived in a trailer park with a swimming pool, and I begged every year to be allowed to go swimming on my birthday. I had no concept that April 7th was way too early to go swimming, even in Georgia. I don't think children develop a sense of water being too cold until they hit puberty. Which is ironic, considering that's about the time they become STEWPID about most other things.

I had begged and begged and begged my mother to allow me to go swimming, and of course the answer was "no" every time. As soon as she left to go buy groceries, I asked Brother Bobby if I could go swimming. I figured anyone older than I was had the constitutional authority to give me permission to go swimming, so I asked the person most likely to grant it. It never occurred to me that A) at 15 or 16, Bobby didn't really HAVE the authority to give permission; and B) Bobby might just be telling me I could do something so he could watch me get my ass beat when Mama came home. I couldn't understand how she knew; I was home and dry before she came home from the grocery store. Never occurred to me to brush out my kinky hair that had dried into its typical tight curls.

On my 16th birthday, I received a gift I had been promised since about the age of 7. My birthstone is a diamond, and Mama had promised that she would give me her diamond ring when I turned 16. My father had bought it for her after she asked for a divorce. She got both the ring AND the divorce. I think they had been married 16 or 17 years or something when he finally got around to buying her the engagement ring.

When I married my baby-daddy, we had the stone reset into a more contemporary setting. I gave it to Sweet Girl on HER 16th birthday, and she has the option of having it set into whatever she wants when she decides to get married.

On my 18th birthday, I lived in a suburb of Dallas with Nurse Jane and her two children. I moved out there to help her with the kids and have a little taste of get-out-of-this-town-I-have-lived-in-all-my-life. I met this cute guy at the gas station where I always stopped to fill up on my way to classes at the community college. He asked me out and asked if I liked to go to discos, I think. (Give me a break, it WAS the late 70's.) I said I would love to go, and then I sheepishly said I wouldn't be 18 (the legal drinking age at that time) for another two weeks.

He never mentioned it again. At first I thought he might just be waiting those two weeks for me to reach the legal drinking age. But long after those two weeks passed, he never asked me out again. And I KEPT GOING TO THE SAME GAS STATION.

On my 17th birthday the year before, I was a senior in high school. I somehow convinced many members of the senior class to skip school just because it was my birthday and go to High Shoals, a local swimming hole where the water runs over the rocks and provides an awesome slide down into a pool below. Before the rocks, however, there was a dam right below a bridge. I had seen folks jumping off the bridge into the water below, but I had never had the nerve to do it myself. Until that day. I figured there was no better time than my birthday to do it, so I jumped off the bridge. Twice.

And now I'm two years shy of 50. F-F-F-F-F-F-I-F-T-Y. Numbers haven't scared me up until now. Thirty didn't bother me. Forty didn't bother me. Fifty, though, sort of feels different. It may bother me. But I've got two years to get ready for it.

Happy Birthday to me!