May is the month of Days for Me

Since my earliest memories, I was always excited about the month of May. The whole month just felt different. It meant so many happy things when I was a kid. It meant mine and my sister's birthday, which was always fun. It also meant that school was out, which is the most wonderful time of the year. Remember how fun the last few weeks of school used to be? The month of May still feels special to me. It's obviously still my birthday month. It is still almost the end of school, which brings such joy to my heart that I can't even express it. Now we get to add in Mother's day too. Basically the whole month is great. The sad side to all of this though, is I'm not a kid anymore and the special days come and go now with not as much excitement as they once held.

Mother's day this year was pretty good. I had requested the day off from playing at church so I got to sleep in. That was the best part of the day. The girls made me feel really special. Kayci came through my room at about 6:30 am yelling "Happy Mother's Day." She is so cute. After the initial adrenaline rush from being startled awake, I fell back to sleep. Haley used her own money to buy me some tennis socks, a tennis hat, and a tennis thermos. All of it was over priced because she purchased it at the Claremont Club, but she was so excited to give these gifts to me I was very touched. Steve, always clinging to the adage..."You're not my mother," surprised me this year by asking the neighbor to mow our grass. This ended up not being that great of an idea, but Steve was really trying to make life easier for me. In the neighbor's defense, he is only 12 and not at all raised in the same way I was. (This meaning, I did a good job when asked to do something; I listened to instructions, and cleaned up when I was done.) This kid, in spite of mine and Steve's warnings, ran over 3 sprinklers with the lawn mower, butchered the lawn with our edger, did not empty the grass from the mower, and did not sweep up excess grass left around the yard. Because of this fiasco, I spent mother's day first at Lowe's buying new sprinklers and other gardening tools, then home to repair the sprinklers, re edge the yard, and trim my lemon tree. My lemon tree is straight from hell. It has thorns on it that are about an inch long. These thorns actually pierced the bottom of my shoes. One branch fell, after being cut, and landed thorn down into my skull. I am pretty sure it touched brain tissue. By the end of the day, I was cut up pretty bad, but my sprinklers worked, my yard was somewhat straight again, and my tree was nicely shaped. (Except for the top...I can't reach it and have a fear of falling off of ladders and my kids finding me in a pool of my own blood.) Steve came home about this time and offered to bring home any food I wanted. I chose Chipotle (since I had already treated myself to Del Taco for lunch). It was a very successful day.

Just yesterday, my across the street neighbor, brought over a picture of me working in the yard on Mother's Day. He thought it was funny...I thought it was normal.


My 35th birthday was a full and busy day. My mom and dad and youngest sister (JRS) made the day very special by making the effort to be with me in spite of their own busy schedules. The girls sang for three services in the morning and then had their musical that night. Since Del Taco was too far away, we had Taco Bell for dinner...for some that sounds lame for a birthday dinner...for me it was perfect. Jonni and her friend took me out to Bj's where you get free Pazookie's on your birthday. It was a great day. I was with all the family that could be with me and received a lot of nice phone calls and text messages from people who remembered. That is always a nice feeling. The whole choir and orchestra sang happy birthday to me at church. While it was embarrassing...I felt special. I really do have a good group of people that support me.





I was awakened just this week with the thought that the years 30-35 went really quickly. In five more years I will be 40 and my baby will be ten. I actually felt like I was going to have an anxiety attack right then. The fear that it is all slipping away so quickly makes me want to squeeze more things in with the kids. I hope the next five years go painfully slow. But I am starting to realize, time just picks up speed the older I become.