birthday

In the Midst of BBAW

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I happen to be having a birthday. And, in honor of that, I’m giving you another 25 things about me! (Because, you know that’s exactly what you wanted on my birthday!)

1. You all know I read and write. But what else do I do with my time?
2. I have dabbled with: cross-stitching, sewing clothes and home decor, painting, photography, and scrapbooking.
3. I have never: knitted or crocheted.
4. I feel guilty about that, since they’re much more practical than the stuff I have dabbled with.
5. Not enough to pick it up, though.
6. But, lately, my real passion (outside of books and blogging, of course) is food.
7. I’m not a gourmet or a foodie, and I’m no good at inventing recipes, but I love to cook.
8. I’m a weird stay-at-home mom that way: making dinner is one of my favorite things to do.
9. There’s something calming and creative in the throwing together of ingredients to create something delicious.
10. Bad mom moment: even though I need to teach them to cook, I actually DON’T like it when my kids want to help.
11. It throws me off my groove.
12. Sure, dinner’s gone in 10 minutes… but it’s totally worth it for those 10 minutes
13. (Which means my new hero is Julia Child. She totally rocks.)
14. General cooking is great, but what I really really love is baking.
15. Bread, rolls, cake, cookies, doughnuts, sweetbreads… if it goes in the oven, I’m SO there.
16. I used to say that there was no way I could do the Atkin’s diet because I. Live. For. Bread.
17. I bake bread every week for the family to use.
18. I started doing this because there’s high-fructose corn syrup in the store-bought loaves, and I’m anti-high-fructose-corn syrup as much as possible.
19. But now I do it because I love baking bread.
20. There’s something calming and creative in the throwing together of ingredients to create something delicious.
21. Someday, I’ll even own a baking stone and learn how to bake artisan bread.
22. Until then, I’ll just keep frequenting Panera…
23. And perfecting my cake-making skills.
24. Mmmm…. cake. Life is better with (good) cake.
25. Want to know what cake I’m making me for my birthday? This. Crossing my fingers that it’ll work out.

Geeky Quote Week #5

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Because it’s my birthday today, I had to have a quote that had cake in it 🙂 Amend it to say YA romance, and it’s spot on.

“Romance novels are birthday cake and life is often peanut butter and jelly. I think everyone should have lots of delicious romance novels lying around for those times when the peanut butter of life gets stuck to the roof of your mouth.” — Janet Evanovich

My Birthday Girl Woman

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Hello Friends of Melissa (hereafter FOM),

This is the DH writing (I believe that’s what she calls me, right?). Why am I writing here? Why am I intruding upon her personal cyberspace? Because tomorrow is Melissa’s 35th birthday, and sneaking onto her blog and posting a birthday note to her, and to all you FOM, is one of the few things I can imagine that might, just might, surprise her. And Melissa loves surprises, even though they also drive her nuts.

I’m not going to embarrass her or anyone else here. Melissa’s done a few of those “five things you never would have guessed about me” memes after all, and thus there probably isn’t really very much left unsaid that I could scandalize her with here anyway. (Well, no, that’s not really true; there are some things about her which I suspect haven’t been mentioned on this blog, and I suppose I could write about those. But I won’t because, this is a family-family website and all. I mean, her and my Mom are both regular readers.) So instead, I’ll go the maudlin and appreciative route.

Melissa’s been writing out her thoughts and opinions of books on this website for nearly three years now. She started out thinking that blogging was just a somewhat more efficient way to do what she was already doing on our old website–namely, just keeping track of books she’d read, maybe including brief reviews of them for the sake of reminder her of what she thought. She never imagined she’d ever have, y’know, readers herself…and when all you FOM started to show up, she really didn’t know what do with you. But she caught on soon enough. And she caught something more too: a vision of herself, of her future, and of a contribution she could make to others. She’s mentioned this before here, but let me just say it again: this blog helped her, as we slowly brought the whole “growing family” stage of our lives to an end and started working on just keeping the kids growing and adequately fed, figure out what she loved to do, what she was good at, what she had to offer as her 30s and 40s loomed before her. For some reason (maybe because of all the time she spent hanging out with my friends when we were first married and went off to graduate school) Melissa spent years often feeling like the young and inexperienced one in any given crowd; this blog, and all of you, helped her see her own grown-up and educated and competent self a little more clearly. So thanks for all that, on this auspicious occasion.

And 35 is fairly auspicious, I think. Maybe not as auspicious as turning 40, but it’s getting there. Halfway to the Biblical three-score plus ten, anyway. I hit that mark a few years back, and just about every day I’m reminded of all the reasons I have to be grateful for Melissa for being my companion up through that point, and now beyond it. There’s been some rough years along with the good ones, that’s for certain; but through it all she’s been kind, loving, (mostly) forgiving, and my best friend, as well as still the most attractive woman I know. I don’t want to even pretend to be able to predict what accomplishments and insights her next 35 years will bring to her, but I’m excited by them nonetheless, because I know she’ll share them with me and our children…and knowing her, probably with all of you, too. Because that’s the sort of person she is.

Melissa doesn’t post many pictures of herself here, I don’t believe, which is too bad, because she’s a looker. Anyway, here’s a recent photo of her, as usual maintaining her dignity even as her DH unceremoniously mauls her. Sorry if it’s a little fuzzy, Melissa; it’s 11:55pm, and I can’t quite figure out how to work the scanner.

Oh, and happy birthday.

Love,
Me

Happy Birthday to Me

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In honor of my 34th birthday, I thought I do a pseudo-meme in the spirit of those reports about what this year’s freshman class knows about/has experienced. Just because it’s interesing how much the world has changed in my lifetime.

Politcs/World Events: There have been seven presidents since I was born (though Nixon resigned when I was 2). I’ve voted in four presidential elections, but there has only been two presidents since I started voting.

I remember the Challenger explosion (I was at school); when AIDS was a big deal in this country; when the Berlin wall came down; Tiananmen Square; the day the first Gulf War started (I was in my dorm room at college); the Iran hostage crisis (third grade); and when the next big war was supposed to be with the Soviet Union (though, prophetically, I said in a high school government class that the next war would be in the Middle East; everyone laughed).

Life: I learned to skate on rollerskates with metal wheels. My first bicycle had a banana seat. I learned to drive on a stick shift. I slept on a waveless waterbed. I played outside for hours with the neighborhood kids without parental supervision. I learned to twirl a baton because it was the “in” thing.

Fashion: I have worn at any one time: bell bottoms, short shorts, culottes, knickers, wooden clogs, leggings with oversized sweatshirts, miniskirts, torn and pegged jeans, banana clips, big hoop earrings, shoulder pads and probably many other fashion trends I can’t think of right now. I have had a Dorothy Hamill bob, big permed hair, and feathered bangs. I have bleached my hair (but only on accident).

Music: I have listened to LPs, 8-tracks, tapes, and CDS, but not MP3s (yet). The first tape I bought was Lionel Ritchie’s “Can’t Slow Down”. My musical tastes evolved from John Denver/Neil Diamond to Prince/Michael Jackson to Rush/Boston to Sting/REM to Dixie Chicks/Sheryl Crow. My first concert was Barry Manilow. The last concert I went to was the Flatlanders. Or maybe Shawn Colvin.

TV: I remember watching the final episode of MASH. I watched (with my family) The Love Boat, the A-Team, Magnum P.I., Simon and Simon, and The Cosby Show. I mourned the cancellation of Misfits of Science. SNL was Dana Carvey, Dennis Miller, and Mike Meyers, not Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. I remember life before remote controls, the day we got our first VCR, and watching TV in black and white (though that was probably because my parents held off buying a color TV, and not because there weren’t any).

Movies: The first movie I have a vivid memory of is Raiders of the Lost Ark. I was devastated the year ET lost the Oscar to Gandhi. I remember when going to a movie only cost a couple of dollars. I thought Xanadu, The Last Starfighter and War Games were just the best movies EVER. (But that has more to do with personal taste than my age.) I had a crush on Michael J. Fox for years.

Computers/Games: I learned code on a Commodore 64 (on a green and black screen). I remember: when Bill Gates was a struggling computer guy and Windows was just a copy of the Apple method; when modems were outside a computer and talking on a BBS was a novelty; when you had to go to an arcade to play video games; Pong, Pac Man (and Ms. Pac Man) and Tetris. I was really good at Tetris.

There’s probably a lot I’ve forgotten. Still, it’s been kind of fun to rememeber my almost 3 1/2 decades.