Pinwheels and Popsicles - Success!

Thank you, thank you for coming! We had an unexpected but much appreciated blast at our party. I am eating all the leftover popsicles...

More pics soon, I'm sure.

Love,
Jen

Pinwheels and Popsicles
Thank you, thank you for coming! We had an unexpected but much appreciated blast at our party. I am eating all the leftover popsicles...

More pics soon, I'm sure.

Love,
Jen

Pinwheels and Popcicles: Thank you.

Pinwheels and Popsicles
Thank you, thank you for coming! We had an unexpected but much appreciated blast at our party. I am eating all the leftover popsicles...

More pics soon, I'm sure.

Love,
Jen

Pinwheels and Popsicles

Dearest Friends and Family:

Yes, Michael and I are the ones who sent the tacky evite for Stella's (and my) birthday party. I am slow on getting things going this year, but we have big birthdays to celebrate this month! Stella will be the big Numero Uno on the 24th, and I turned a quarter of a century on Monday.

We would be honored if you would arrive - in any state, form or fashion - at our little party, pinwheel in hand, to help celebrate.

If you did not get the evite, shoot Michael and/or I a line or post a comment, and we will be sure you get the invitation information.

Best wishes,
Jen

25 Plus 2 - An Amendment to Pessimism

So last night I went out with my "Bastrop Girls" - we have been friends since middle school and have kept in touch - and on the long drive home in the middle of the night, I decided I needed to amend my post from yesterday.

Aside from delivering a beautiful baby, which I consider a family triumph, really, and not a personal one, I have been rockin' on keeping in touch with friends. If I hadn't been able to say home with the kids (thank you, Michael), I may not have been so successful at it, but nonetheless...

We had a fabulous time in Bastrop: ate at Big Mouth's on Main Street and the walked down to the Oyster Bar, to which I had never been. Everything was prettty dead - it was a Tuesday - but even if it hadn't been, we would have still been the loudest bunch of gabbers. We gossiped about old classmates, teased each other about old crushes...I got a lesson in pasture parties. I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard for so long.

So in year 25, congrats, Jen, for keeping connected with good friends who represent times when nobility, honor, grace and maybe a little bit of wisdom were born and were in focus...

And man, we had the best joint 13th birthday party ever. Who was making out in the horse trailer again?

Much love to my Bastrop girlies!

25 Plus 1

Yesterday was my Harry Potter 25th birthday (thank you, husband, for reminding the world), and it came and went as birthdays do when you've gotten too old and busy to really celebrate them.

I remember birthdays as a child were a grand event - even for my rafting-trip-to-New-Mexico 15th birthday, I made a big damn deal about my "increasing wisdom," believing, of course, that age constitued worldly knowledge in one's pocket like an investment in life, saved, well earned by only surviving another year. I remember wanting so badly to be "old enough," to make more decisions, to carve out a future, to "make my mark."

Right. So how did all this happen?

From the lofty vantage point of ten years later, I think there must have been a moment in my life, pregnant 21st with kareokee, a time when I stopped paying attention and completely lost my focus on living nobly with honor and grace. Because being "old enough" seems to have become surviving the next catastrophe, wisdom gained, saved, invested, earned has become short-lived. My quarter century wisdom has the life span of a twinkly Snoopy birthday candle. Puff. I screw something up so viciously, note the lesson, vow to do better and then commit the same error at the next most immediate opportunity.

And now: happy birthday. Plus one day. I didn't even plan it. Barely was awake enough to acknowledge it when it came and went. Like last year. What grand trip, what grand gift did I get for myself? I survived the year - complete catastrophe by exception only - but the excitment of achievement, of lessons imparted by age got lost somewhere. Ultimate failure at 25.

Maybe in blowing out my pancake-planted candle this year, instead of making a wish for peace and happiness in my life, I should have planned for an achievement in year 26, made a resolution-like commitment to myself to wake the hell up. I should have promised, in that pause, to learn everything possible when I'm taught by life, emblazen it in my memory, and then, after promising all of that, I should have promised myself a big fucking party.

A person can promise all of that in one breath, right? If I can say goodbye to an entire year in that time, why not promise myself the next one?

Here's to next year. May I be more attentive and have a big party.

Much love to you all who remembered my birthday.