My Birthday

Today marked a big day for me:

turning a quarter of a century old... in physical years anyways ;) 

in life experiences? I have to be at least 45.

But I will always be young at heart and goofy.  There's no wondering where that came from:  it's genetic.  If you spent 5 minutes with my father you'd know what I'm talking about.  He is the biggest grown-up kid that I know: he still plays on the playground at the park, and he had these horrible, AWFUL green velvet tennis racket pants that he wore with this chili pepper shirt and funky glasses.  Why?  Oh just because he thought it was entertaining. 

I hear that staying young at heart, though, helps you live longer.  One of those nuggets of wisdom that I received from an elderly woman that I didn't know and I have since locked it away in my mental treasure chest of wisdom that I've stored up from various encounters over the years.  So maybe all of this goofiness means I'm going to live to be a very old lady.  I would be ok with that.

I woke up this morning to Ryan (my 3-year-old) who had slept in my bed last night for some snuggles.  He managed to take over my entire bed and I was left with just the tiniest sliver. How does that even happen?! I have to say those cherub cheeks and angel eyes were a nice way to wake up, though.  I laid in bed listening to the rain sprinkling outside and took sime time to really think about how much things have changed - drastically - for me over the past few years.  It's actually incredible how fast it's all happened.

7 years ago: I had just graduated high school and was out camping when somebody called the police on us & I spent a couple hours that night hanging off the side of a cliff to avoid getting an underage drinking ticket. (This is also where I met .... well.... we'll get into that later)

6 years ago:  I got my nose pierced and spent the rest of the evening with my then-boyfriend.  Not knowing that I *technically* was already pregnant! 

5 years ago:  Wow had my life changed! I now had a 2 1/2 month old!  My birthday night was spent awake on and off feeding him during the night and emailing my (at-the-time) friend Rob.  He was the only one I told about what had been going on in my life: kicking my boyfriend out.  Being a single mom....

4 years ago: I got married to my friend (Rob) in March and had moved 10 hours away from my home-state of Wisconsin to Kansas where my husband was stationed at Fort Riley!  We went to a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant in Junction City, KS and then I purchased my first 6-pack of alcohol - LEGALLY - and didn't even get carded!  I put Christopher to bed and felt sad as I sat on my back porch alone... see I had already started to notice "things" that I hadn't seen when we were dating.... my husband was becoming withdrawn and frequently ignored me.  So as he sat in our house staring at the wall (no joke) I felt sad drinking 2 wine coolers on my back porch.  HOWEVER; things have a funny way of working out.... this is also when I first met / talked to a neighbor that has become one of my closest friends. And had I not been sitting outside & moping we probably wouldn't have started talking! 

(Little did I know that I was about to become pregnant with #2!)

3 years ago: WHOA now I had 2 kids!  Christopher was 2 and Ryan was 1.5 months old and I spent my birthday evening in and out of the ER with him for his extreme colic (the doctor said it was the worst they'd ever seen) and then bouncing him in a baby carrier the rest of the night while listening to classic rock.... the ONLY music he would sleep to! 

2 years ago: Things had escalated with my husband's PTSD (read: The Monster in My Marriage and Why I Walked Away if you need to be caught up in this area!)  Fearing for my safety I left to come up to Wisconsin.  This is the day I got a phone call - while I was out listening to a band with my stepmom & stepsister - saying he wanted a divorce and nothing to do with me..... I got screamed at..... whew. Heartbreaking.  Not a good birthday in my books. I sort've lost it.  I downward spiraled.  I sought relief in the wrong places. 

1 year ago: Turns out I was wearing the same green, strapless dress I'm wearing right now!  It was actually a good day.... a really good day.  I got to do a little birthday shopping, my husband had received treatment for PTSD and things had started to look up.  This was one of those days where I would hold onto that memory: we were a family.  He bought me a present (granted it was a pistol: but hey!  It was a start! This was coming from the guy who had NEVER bought a birthday present or card for anyone prior to marrying me.  He was also worried about me living alone in the country with mountain lions, people breaking into our property, and him leaving for a month....)  My Christopher put a tiara on my head and had me wear it because he said I looked like a Princess.  Rob cooked me a delicious dinner and we had a lovely, amazing, wonderful day.  Great memories.  I relaxed in the hammock in the yard..... 

And today:  I woke up and made my Great Grandma's Secret Family recipe for Crepes after running to the grocery store in my chevron rainboots that I got for 1/2 off on zulily ;) 

Then I made lemon raspberry cupcakes.....SO DELICIOUS!  At one point Ryan was double fisting a whisk and a spatula and was covered up to his elbows in pink batter - how cute is that? Then I booked an appointment at The Wellness Spa in Stevens Point (click here for the blog on my experience there!) and my Grandparents from the U.P. (upper peninsula - aka YOOPERS) got into town and then we all met up for dinner at The Branding Iron later that evening and I ordered a gigantic, juicy, amazing, delicious steak!

Both of the boys looked like handsome little gentlemen in their plaid button-up shirts.  Ryan with his curls and freckled cheeks and Christpher with his handsome, charming face.  I just love those two so much.  I'm lucky to be their mom!  And it's so nice that Christopher's hair is growing back.  Oh my gosh.... I still cringe thinking about having to fix the "Nail Clipper Incident" .....

No : I do NOT eat meat often.... extremely rare occurance, in fact.  But; this.....was.....amazing.

(And for those of you that don't know: I go by an 80/20 philosophy  Once I do a blog post on it and why I chose this I'll post the link here _________ )

PS - for whatever reason this baby has me craving meat.... steak in particular!  Isn't that weird?!  

It was a good night.  I got a birthday card from my loves. 

My mom and Grandma picked me out some yummy chocolate and I got the cutest little owl decor.

There IS one thing that could've made it better..... but that's ok.  I'm happy.  

I'm relaxing. I'm hopeful.  I'm grateful.

and I'm feeling so blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life.

Strangers, friends, acquaintances, family... 

no amount of material things could ever replace that. 

As always - thanks so much for reading and allowing me to share my journey with you. 

If you would like to leave a comment you can do that at the main page by clicking here

Want to see some pictures from today?.. I've uploaded some photos from today to the photos page on my site and on my public album on Facebook. ust click the links and a new window will pop up so you can view them.  

Did I mention how excited I am to be able to add more than one photo to a blog?!  

It's going to ROCK! Counting down the days....

#NerdyAndProud