That was a nice little break

I can't quite believe it's been a month since I've updated the blog. Neither of you have missed it, or at least you haven't said you have. How about if I promise not to write about hip replacement surgery any more?

Today's my birthday. The big 65. I'm officially geriatric, although I don't feel like it. Even with a hip replacement, I don't feel old, or even oldER.

Time does, however, march on, and aging is certainly better than dying, at least when you feel good and are relatively healthy.

Google remembered my birthday with a special Google Doodle:

Starbucks has loaded a free drink onto my app and Ruby Tuesday's has a burger waiting for me. I could have gotten $5 off a pair of DSW shoes, but I don't need shoes.

That's one thing about getting oldER: My wants are way less important than my needs.

One thing I wanted, however, was for this birthday to be special. To be noted. My husband and children really don't make a big deal out of birthdays, but I made sure they all knew that this one was different. And they came through.

My children are taking me to see Bob Dylan in Nashville next month. Each time I see him in concert I think it may be the last time, since we're both getting up there in years (he's been geriatric for 10 years!). It's amazing that he's still touring and producing new music. I'm thrilled that I'll be seeing him with both my daughter and my son and his wife, and that I'll get to spend the weekend with all of them and their children. We seldom have the opportunity to all get together at the same time and place.

My husband offered me either a big party or a new computer. No question on that one … my old laptop has been slowly dying for about six months. I don't have the new one completely set up yet, but they've been talking to each other. A few more file transfers and the old model will be used for storing music and photos. He made this birthday very special.

My month-long blog break wasn't intentional. I'll be updating a little more often going forward. Because, you know, when you're old you have a lot of wisdom to impart. And a lot more time on your hands.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

So this happened while I was gone

But the BIG EVENT of the weekend was my oldest granddaughter's high-school graduation. Commencement was lovely, her party on Sunday was lots of fun (and it didn't rain!), and I spent my 64th birthday driving home.

But I did get that burger at Ruby Tuesday, and I didn't know it but they also give you CUPCAKES!

So pretty much an off-plan weekend as far as food went, but hey. I'll totally go with the "it only happens once a year" excuse, and for Miss M, it only happens once in a lifetime. She has two additional graduations in her future, but you only leave high school once.

Lots of fun and family time. A bit of walking. I'm up to 70 miles for the month as of this morning. I could hit a hundred if I managed five-a-day for the rest of the month. I'll try. But if I don't make it, it's not going to ruin my life. Or even my month.

We brought the cupcakes home with us. Guess what I'm having for breakfast? Heh.

Let's get this party started!

So I just went to images.google.com to find a birthday illustration for today's post and this was the Google doodle:

I thought, "Hmmm, wonder who else is having a birthday today?" So I hovered my cursor and it was for me: Happy birthday, Debbi!

I shouldn't be surprised, since Google knows everything about everybody. 

George Washington convened the Constitutional Convention on May 25, 1787, the first step in creating our country's new government.

Also on this day, Babe Ruth hit his 714th and final home run in 1935, Muhammed Ali knocked Sonny Liston out in less than two minutes in 1965 to become boxing's world heavyweight champion and Midnight Cowboy – the first X-rated film to receive an Academy Award – was released in 1969, the year I graduated high school.

When I was a little kid, my birthday never competed with a holiday weekend, because Memorial Day was always May 30. That changed in 1968, when Congress moved four federal holidays to Mondays. Next year the holiday and my birthday are one and the same.

So how will I be celebrating today? Sixty-three isn't an especially momentous number … the birthdays with "5s" and "0s" on the end seem more celebratory, somehow. So we're keeping it low-key. We'll be saying farewell to some of the family reunion folks today as they head back to their homes in other states. We're meeting at the Dairy Queen and I think I'm going to have a vanilla cone dipped in chocolate, if that's still on the menu. I haven't been to a Dairy Queen in years, so I really don't know. 

I'll walk today, of course. I'd thought about walking 6.3 miles, but I need a little more distance to make my five-mile-a-day goal for this week.

And since we've eaten dinner out the last three nights, I'm not especially interested in another restaurant meal. I'll be cooking my own birthday dinner, probably my favorite chicken wrapped in bacon. Mmmm.

Way to party hearty, right?

Here I go again

Today's my day to begin a new orbit of the sun. As I have for probably every birthday since I turned 50, I'm hoping this will be the one in which I finally get it – a way to eat less and move more that results in a body I can stop fighting with, one way or another.

I think both of you know I'm (hopefully) on my way. May this orbit be THE ONE.

The scale gave me a nice gift first thing this morning. Official weigh-in day isn't until Monday, but I've become rather obsessed with collecting scale data lately. Since December 26, 2012, I've lost 25 pounds. Since April 6 (when I started the Whole30, and yes I know I've gone way past the 30), I've lost 18 pounds.

I set a couple goals when I started (again) last year. By 1/1/14 I wanted to walk 1000 miles and lose 50 pounds. I'm ahead of schedule on both: 434 miles (it'll be 440 after I do a 10K – 6.2 miles for 62 years – today) and half the weight gone.

Happy birthday to me.

I hope to take this advice to heart this year. If you'd rather not click through, it's an old AA adage to not take yourself too seriously, from the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. We call it Rule 62, and it seems appropriate for this birthday, although I don't think I take myself very seriously at all, most of the time. I've certainly never thought anyone else did – the curse, if you will, having a bit of a baby face, coupled with being short and having a non-assertive personality.

When I woke up this morning, the full moon was setting behind the mountain to the west as dawn was breaking over the mountain to the east. Not very often you get to see that. I think it's a lovely way to start this trip.

Happy birthday ...

to ME! Running way late this morning, that's what happens when you decide you have to comment on everyone's Facebook messages. Heh.

Anyway, I hope I feel more like writing next week. I've just not been in the mood lately, I'm sure y'all can tell.

My husband's mother's cousins are descending this weekend. Average age is about 82. A friend said it sounded like God's waiting room. Should be, um, interesting.

Last year I came up with 60 things about me (spread out over several days). Maybe I'll think of one more new one to post later. Or not! Heh.

May he stay …

forever young.

Happy birthday to my favorite entertainer, songwriter, poet and musician – Bob Dylan is 71 today!

So easy to remember his birthday, when it is 10 years and one day before mine. Heh.

So yesterday was a very long day, and I came home from work in a heavy downpour to find the power was out. My husband and I went to a the local Chinese restaurant for dinner. We're going out for dinner tonight, to celebrate my birthday.

We're going out for dinner tomorrow, the first day of his mother's family reunion, and we're going out for dinner with the clan on Saturday, as well.

I will be well and truly SICK of restaurants by the time Sunday gets here.

Today, though, I will play Bob Dylan music and enjoy a day off and get ready to greet age 61 with grace.

Cake is just a four-letter word: Debbi turns 60

I totally stole the title of today's post from NPR. It was much better than anything I could come up with. (Except when I worked for a newspaper, we didn't capitalize every word of our headlines. NPR, apparently, uses a different style book.)

I was inspired by Faith to create an awesome list of 60 at 60. It'll take a while to finish it, which is a gift for both you and me. I don't have to look back over my entire life in one swell foop (as my mother used to say), and you don't have to slog through it all in one session (as if you even would).

When I was one, my grandmother adored me and thought I was hers. And I was an only child.

My brother joined the family when I was two. Being an only child didn't last long.

My first memory, when I was three, is of sitting in a corner of the dining room listening to my mother and her friends talk about childbirth. It's a wonder I ever reproduced.

Apparently nothing happened when I was four.

I started school when I was five, wearing a navy-blue dress with tiny little schoolbooks printed on the fabric.

Six? See four.

In my seventh year, my brother and I became big brother and big sister, and we treated the baby like a doll. (My mother would say, "Put that baby down, you're going to make her sick!) We also moved and I met my first BFF. And I got a cat, a white Persian named Tinkerbell Pandora, who would be my constant companion for the next 14 years.

When I was eight a house near us burned to the ground and scared all of us kids to death. I've never trusted homes heated with natural gas since then. Give me all-electric, thankyouverymuch.

Nine. Fourth grade. I remember my teacher telling me I needed to learn to delegate. Apparently I was mad about power even as a young child.

We moved again when I was 10 (I'm a poet and don't know it!), to Wilmington, Ohio, the town I think of as home to this day. I met two more BFFs, one who lived on a farm in the country and one who lived right down the street from me. She and I walked to and from school every day, and her mother had a freshly baked snack for us every afternoon. Ten is when I went from skinny kid to chubby pre-teen.

I learned to play the organ when I was 11 and even went to the county fair to demonstrate how easy it was. My picture was in the paper.

At my 12th birthday party my dad made homemade pizza and my dog ate all the frosting off my cake.

When I was 13 I met the five friends with whom I would go all the way through junior high (that's what we called it back then) and high school. We were a team, a pack, a gangette.

When I was 14 I had my first crush. His name was Bobby. A popular song then was I Want To Be Bobby's Girl. You can only imagine how many times I played that 45 on my little turntable!

When I was 15 my brother introduced me to my second crush and (later, of course) first husband. I dated Jim all through high school.

That's enough for now, more tomorrow. I'll leave you with my favorite birthday quote:

It takes a long time to grow young.

~ Pablo Picasso

Another day year older

If I were one of the cool kids who had high-speed internet access, I’d download a video of the Beatles singing “Birthday” and post it here. If I could find one, that is.

But since sometimes – sometimes – my dial-up access hits the blazing speed of 26400bps, I think I’ll just plant that earworm and move on. It would take until my next birthday to download the damned thing.

I spent my birthday yesterday driving home from Ohio, where my husband and I met our triplet grandsons for the first time. All together now: Awwwww. One is home; the others are still in NICU but should be home soon.

I took my running gear with me but never managed to use it. I even remembered the Garmin this time. To make up for sitting on my ass holding babies all weekend, I ate extremely cleanly, eschewing bagels and donuts, requesting a bacon-free salad with oil and vinegar on the side (twice!) and substituting an extra order of grilled asparagus for the rice side dish that came with my cracked pepper salmon at dinner last night.

I just about broke my arm patting myself on the back.

Birthdays don’t have to be about overindulging in sugary cake or fat-laden dinners. And at my age, it probably makes more sense to eat healthfully than to eat crap. I figure I wouldn’t be where I am now if I’d been more careful on the previous 56 birthdays.

Oh, and all those other days in between.