Thursday Thirteen

THURSDAY THIRTEEN THANKS!
1. Thank you dear family and friends for all the birthday wishes.

2. One of the nice things about getting so old is people start trying to find nice things to say about you. And with so many bloggers, as well as professional writers in the family, I had a well celebrated birthday!

3. Like everyone else still breathing, I had a birthday this year. My birthday slipped up on me, coming so close behind last year's birthday. I wanted to discount it. In fact I stopped counting several years ago.

4. My "Blogging" children do not let me forget. They counted for me. This most recent birthday, coming on a Sunday, was celebrated the whole week-end.

5. My daughter Carol The Median Sib got up early Sunday morning to click off 83 "random" things about me. She had to scrape the bottom on the barrel to find so many positive thing to say.

6. Joan on Daddy's Roses, always knows what to say and how to say it, wrote a flattering post about me with pictures, one picture in a bathing suit (snapped by my husband a few years ago) and one more recent picture in a pulpit robe.

7. Other bloggers in the family, including my son Terrell of Alone on a Limb fame, and his beautiful wife and daughter were here to help celebrate. .

8.He is an outstanding son even if I do not always agree with his political stances. I still feel free to point out the errors of his political understanding and he does not hesitate to point out mine.

9.Beth of Blue Star Chronicles fame wrote” Happy Birthday Mother” and was here with her beautiful daughter. Large gathering. Thanks everyone!

10. Actually I am delighted to be alive and enjoying life and loved all the fanfare, gifts, books and flowers. The yellow tulip bouquet brought by MIke Bock from Ohio is a gift that keeps on giving as is the pot of pink Kalanchoe's from grandson Gil and his Naomi and sons Lewis and Mark.

11. And the food! Carol The Median Sib, prepared, on Saturday nght, the most fabulous dinner with her special chiken recipe with corn sticks, two great salads and a sour cream birthday cake with only 73 candles on it. She cooks with such ease and natural talent and invites everyone to share.

12. One of my sons-in-law (I have five) prepared the Sunday dinner of his tender beef roast, his special recipe for gravy, mashed potatoe etc. They (he and his wife, my daughter, Deborah) make their living writing. So, I tell them, they do not bother with mundane things like "blogging." But they always take time to help the family celebrate all the many reasons we find to celebrate.

13. My first daughter Jan and her husband Gil were here. Jan fits into the "professional writer" and "non-blogger" catagory, although that is only a part of her professsional profile. Jan was the most "beautiful and perfect" baby I had ever seen. She was born when i was still in my teens and her daddy was not quite 21. The tears of joy and amazement in her Daddy's eyes is a picture engraved on my heart. We were later to see six other
"most beautiful and perfect" babies and a similiar response from their Dad. When Jan and Gil would come to visit, her Dad would always introduce her as our "oldest daughter." Because "oldest' sounds negative and there is nothing negative about Jan , I decided to refer to her as " first daugfhte" on the rare acassions when i mention my children.