Moving this past year caused me to discover all kinds of stuff about myself.. for instance when I looked back at my FL house and saw all the different colors I used to paint it I realized that I am a very colorful person.
Once we settled in a little, I started worrying that I was going to have a very lonely birthday. I was turning 40 and had to choose between keeping it a secret so that I wouldn’t have to share it with well meaning strangers and arranging something so I could celebrate it big with people I know and love.. who lived very far away.
My birthday is in mid-September.. and although I think it’s the perfect time of year and love that I was born on my Dad’s birthday, it’s turned out to be a bad time of year for celebrating…
In Mike’s field of work, fiscal close out is Oct. 1 which often means from mid-September on he is working long hours trying to spend millions of dollars so that his budget doesn’t get cut the following year. He is usually not a lot of fun during that time of year .
The very first year he was able to work it out to take me for a date on my birthday was the year the twin towers were hit by terrorist.. ever since then the week of my birthday has been a national week of mourning the anniversary of 9/11.
So this year when Mike agreed to take me to see the cherry blossoms for his birthday I decided that I needed more time than just a night or a weekend to celebrate my birthday and that I would celebrate all year. So every trip we took, every time we went on a date, in my heart we were celebrating my birthday.
One night, in July, we drove the kids to a concert near Birmingham and went into Birmingham for dinner. I shared with Mike my silly idea of celebrating my birthday all year. And guess what was waiting for me in the bushes out side the restaurant? This birthday balloon. I took it as a sign that my Heavenly Father was celebrating with me.
I will have to keep it in a scrapbook to remind me of His tender love for me.
My generous mom and mil sent me money for my birthday and I bought myself these candle pillars to light when it’s too warm to light the fire place. We enjoy the atmosphere. I looked all over town and on line for candle pillars and couldn’t find any… until I heard the Lord tell me to wait one more week and found that the next week Hobby Lobby had hundreds of candle pillars on sale 50% off.
They turned out even more beautiful than I imagined.
I found this leather jacket at Kohl’s. It was a little more money than I wanted to spend so Mike took me all over town to see if we could find a better deal. None of them were as nice as this one. I waited to see if it would be cheeper on Black Friday.. it wasn’t and they had run out of my size. I looked for it on line on the following Monday and discovered they were having 15% off everything Cyber Monday. I forgot all about Cyber Monday.
I also got to buy several winter tops on sale. I didn’t have many after all those years in FL. I bought three for less than $10 with tax at one sale.
God planned a birthday surprise for me on my actual birthday weekend. A friend from Huntsville invited me to go on a field trip with her. We got to go on a tour of the Capital building with a man that was a member of Martin Luther King’s church and actually marched in the Bloody Sunday march from Selma to Montgomery. He is considered the AL Historian and has his masters in history. He was fascinating to listen to.
We got to look at some beautiful art. I love art.
Here is my friend Lee Ann and her son with our docent, Aroine Irby.
Here our our kids hanging outside the governors mansion.
Isn’t this charming?
And I love this arrangement with the angel.
This is a prayer garden in the back yard of the mansion. It’s cool to know that they have a place to pray.
This is a sculpture of Jesus that was donated to the Department of Archives and History. I love it. It looks very much like my visions of Jesus.
So the other thing that I learned about myself is that I am big on birthdays and think that they should be celebrated big. I was so blessed by all the trips I got to take this year to celebrate my birthday, for the great sales I found, and for the time I got to spend with my friend Lee Ann and her son.
J
I enjoyed your essay on celebrating your birthday. I’m glad you and Mike are able to enjoy having time to get away for an adventure in this beautiful place that God made for us. He made it for us to enjoy and I think it gives Him pleasure when we do.
Love those candles!
How neat is it that you met someone who knew MLK!
I read a book this week that I could reccommend for your book club:
http://www.hillaryjordan.com/books.php
It is a page turner for sure and has an ending that will leave you thinking about it for days.
Your fireplace looks beautiful! Love the candles.
ummmmm. . . happy birthday? I like all the pictures! I’m glad you have been able to celebrate so much. How fun!