Month 7 - The Birth Month - of the Year 30

I’m a big birthday person. No surprises there. Who else do you know that celebrates a birthday all year long?!! Every year I’m treated to about a week of celebrations (my friends tease me mercilessly about this). Therefore, because this year was a major milestone, I dedicated a whole year to it. When July 28^th is gone, I plan to keep celebrating (and blogging) the rest of the year.

I am not sure why I put so much emphasis on my birthday—or maybe I do... My dad asked me recently what I expected to happen on my birthday and I replied that I usually expected nothing less than fireworks and the stars to fall; I didn’t know how else to explain it. I always have a sense of expectancy and excitement that surpasses anything I have usually felt about past Christmases. This excitement can be both good and bad. Sometimes a silly person like myself is disappointed when the stars don’t fall and when she realizes that it is just another day. Such enthusiasm also places a certain unintended burden on my friends and family because they don’t want to disappoint me on my birthday. I am a birthday tyrant, I guess.

So…my “new” thing this month was to get my mind off of myself! J I tried to focus on giving gifts to others--thirty gifts, in fact. These gifts were by and large not financial or tangible. A gift might be helping someone in a very simple way. I wrote several notes to people letting them know how much they have meant to my life. Obviously, I am not going to detail the thirty gifts because to say any more would be tacky in the extreme. Instead I invite you to peruse some pictures I’ve posted of past birthdays. Perhaps you’ll even find yourself in one of the pictures!

 

7.28.81



The day after I was born, my mom watched Princess Di and Prince Charles get married on television. Perhaps that is where I got my princess complex. (By the way, that is my dad, not my mom -->)



3rd birthday



5th bday--first one I remember





8th birthday



Back in the day, a birthday at McDonald’s was exciting. I mean, look at our expressions.

Of course, I wanted to dress like a princess for my ninth birthday. This picture never fails to make my family laugh—a drama queen in the making. What could the surprise be? A pony? A trip to Disney World?

A Huffy bike in girly colors. Wishing now the "surprise" face was staged for the photo.

Besides McDonalds, Pizza Hut was also the cool place to go for 10^th birthdays…apparently. It was 1991, the year of the ridonculously big hairbows and fluorescent sox.

 My favorite birthday gift. Millie lived 16 years, dying just last year. (It's a goat, by the way. The picture is a little dark.)

For my 20^th birthday, my friend Julia orchestrated this really great surprise party for me at RJ Gators. That’s me getting “pied.”

21^st bday celebration at Applebees

Okay, so now I am realizing just how many surprise parties I've had over the years! Yet I was gullible enough to still be surprised by most of them. This my 23rd was a surprise as well.

<>  <>

The grand entrance

      

   Guess What?! Surprise!!!! (24th)

<--- My 25th -- not a surprise :)

26th--House of Blues with the sibs

Bravo's at Northlake--28th

Last year’s birthday would have had great pictures, too, but alas, I was working at a children’s camp in Virginia where photographs were forbidden! Even though I was a stranger to everyone I worked with up there, they really blessed me on my birthday. The entire camp sang to me, random children gave me impromptu gifts, and my co-workers gave me a lovely little party. My favorite gift was a scrapbook in which each girl I’d worked with wrote a page filled with sweet messages. I realized last summer how loved I really was as cards and packages from back home poured into camp and people I’d just met tried to make me feel special.

If this journey down memory lane has done anything (more than try my readers’ patience), it has reminded me of the many years of love, friendship, and good memories I have enjoyed.



My 18th birthday was neat because I was working at a Christian retreat center in the mountains and all of my co-workers surprised me with a party in my room.