birthday – Alt F4

Yesterday was my birthday. Another thing that I think makes me different than most people is that it seems like just another day. This is another huge difference between my feelings and my wife’s. For instance, through the years my celebrations are getting smaller and more subdued. Whereas my wife’s are getting bigger, grander and take a week’s worth of work to prep and several days to clean-up. I think that it is difficult for her to accept that I really don’t want much fuss to be made.

Last year, my birthday was on Sunday. It also happens to be the week of the month that we are committed to leading Children’s church. The pastor seemed genuinely surprised that I would do such a thing on my birthday. In fact, he has mentioned it several times over the year. I saw it as my commitment, regardless of what day it was and how crappy and selfish it would be to bow out at the last minute and cause extra work just because it was my birthday.

Don’t get me wrong, I definitely don’t want to work on my birthday. But that’s not different than the next day or any day for that matter. I suppose when you are born during the school year, it seems normal that it is a day of schedule and commitment from as far as I can remember. Transition that to work, it is the same as school and we just had a bunch of holidays.

Sunday, we had a nice dinner with my brother’s family and my parents. We drove about an hour to meet in the middle for everyone. Since we skipped our traditional Christmas Eve gathering this last year because of our caretaking responsibilities, it was nice to get together for a short period of time. I suppose that is my idea of an ideal party; people that want to get together, have a nice time and share some laughter.

I was thinking Sunday night as I was trying to fall asleep that I am 47. That is only three years to fifty and I will be on the back side of middle age, if I am not already. The strange part of it seems like this decade has been more enjoyable than the twenties or the thirties. Those two seem like a blur and were here and gone, but not the forties. This decade seems like it really has been six years since I was 40.

If I were to speculate, I would guess that there is a reason. In the early part of the twenties, I was focused on getting my degree. Then it was getting married, searching to find the ideal living situation and positioning in the career space. In my thirties, I had family born and solidifying career and sort of setting roots. Now, in my forties those roots have taken hold and the fruit is starting to come on.

With a fair degree of comfort and stability, I can fill up my gas tank if I want to, I don’t have anxiety over picking one holiday celebration or the other and I can find my way down the hallway in the dark. I think those are the things that make this decade more enjoyable than the previous ones.

End Your Programming Routine: I have had birthdays where it snowed (although that has been a while), I have had birthdays with flooding, I have had birthdays where I have been lucky to be on ‘Christmas break’ still but usually, it is a work day. I did have a good day. I enjoyed my time with the family and we had dinner and played a game. It’s not that it didn’t have some conflict and struggle, we did. But everyone made an effort to be more polite and accommodating. That was a great gift.

I know that it seems like I dart around from subject to subject. And to a large degree that is true. But, this is a creative outlet that will eventually pushing to something larger. This is why I make it a priority every weekday to post. As everyone is influenced, my favorite podcasts are ones that are not strictly business but intermingle personal life into the subject matter. That is why I do it.

First and foremost, this is my mom’s birthday. Happy birthday mom. It is sometimes difficult to step back and see your parents move from “senior citizens” to very near elderly. My dad is moving toward mid seventies now. I am starting to keep an eye on them more to make sure that they can continue to be healthy and active, but behaving age appropriate. As the years move on, I need to be more involved as I am definitely the closest geographic child.

Friday night, my wife and I took a class in hosting a small group in our church. The idea is that people are allowed to gather in small groups at this time and it harkens back to a format of early church where people met in their homes. Additionally, relationship is the foundation of strong spiritual connection and growth. This is supposed to start next Sunday, I am thinking of writing more about our plans on Friday.

Saturday marked the much anticipated opening of Tractor Supply. This is the biggest retail opening in nearly thirty years in this town. It was the mid-nineties when the last grocery store (one of two) was built and a complimentary establishment to other businesses in town. I do believe that it will impact other businesses in the area, but we didnt have great options to buy things like pet food in town. I am not sure about their hours, but for a town that starts to roll-up after five, I can see myself frequenting them because other hardware options are closed.

After we inventoried Tractor Supply, we headed to Costco for our major monthly, grocery shop. I picked up a new laptop, an HP Pavillion 15.6″. This is my first experience with HP as my last three home computers and six business computers have been Dell. I am not going to try a completely justify the purchase, but in these days of school and working from home, having a device that I can use to build my site will be nice. I have been wanting to start podcasting and more video editing and now I feel like I have a dedicated home to work.

After the chores have been done, back to work on my apartment. I wont talk about it too much now, but a photo grid from the weekend.