WOW!

Thank you, Laura, Susan, Brooke, and Deborah for your very kind comments.  I don't know that I've ever gotten four comments and they were from friends, not family.  Amazing!  Thank you so much!

I did have a very, very, very nice birthday!  I don't know if I could handle such a nice celebration every year.  It's a lot on the senses and on "Me, Me, Me."  Question:  It seems as we get older, we want less of that and I wonder why? It feels more like pride than humility to me.  A form of self-consciousness.  In my youth my pride did like the attention, now in my old age, my pride doesn't so much - although I loved the lovingkindness of what my family did.  And friends, also.

Well, beginning and ending with the 4 treasured comments on my blog post - and then Charlie cleaned my house all day - even got the crud out from behind the refrigerator -  You know all that dust that builds up - he got that out.  We hadn't really planned to clean so much - I was just picking up but.....

It started with a scheduled visit from our plumber to install a new garbage disposal at 8:00 am.  (the perfectly good other one was broken last week because a tiny glass thing got down in there and was chopped up and it tore up the disposal)  He came at 8:00, completed the installation - and I went for the broom to clean up the debris.  Charlie suggested that he get out the vacuum..... and from there I received a delightful unplanned birthday gift.  Pinesol came out - everything.  The walls and floor behind, under, around the refrigerator are clean.  Yay!  He vacuumed the whole house and with the vinegar/water solution I made for him, he cleaned my steps.  Love it!  I wiped some surfaces - got clean sheets on all the beds upstairs and decluttered what was beginning to gather since the last decluttering project.

Clean, straight house makes me very satisfied.  I don't always have it.  I don't always do it.

Charlie worked all day toward a very nice steak dinner celebration.  He did it all.

So in true blog post fashion I'll post pictures that clearly were made with a blog post in mind.  I took some and Ann, Sarah, and Kate took some.  I wish there were pictures of everyone present, but we all failed to think to do that.  Mike and Mary Bratton joined us, along with Ann and Steve and their 3 4, my sister, Mary Ann, and Sarah and Kate are home.  We missed Laura Beth and her family.  :-(  They are back in McDonough.  Gifts were NOT necessary, but I was lavished.  Mike and Mary brought me a mug filled with gift cards!  Ann and Steve gave me a gift card which doubled as a thank you gift for my "Abigail Help" - hence more than any of us normally do for birthday gifts, Mary Ann gave me a generous basket from William Sonoma filled with fun products.  Sarah came home.  Ada called me from McDonough. and Kate brought me a delightful mug from China and the green tea to go with it.  It was all very fun.  Oh! and Beth Baldwin and her family sent me a basket of daisies!  Flowers delivered to the front door!  I was amazed at all the to-do!  Definitely time for us to get back to normal.  For me to turn into a regular person again.  :-)

Okay, I've never denied my sentimentality.  I treasure "things" from the past.  Symbols of my past.

This cake stand.  Scroll down and there are two pictures I showed yesterday in my post.  I didn't realize, until my adult years, that this has always been the cake stand which showed up at our birthday parties, holding our cakes.  I never paid attention.

It belonged to my grandmother, Ella.

When she died, my mother came into possession of it.

At some point she gave it to me.  

I forget when and why.

It's not a fine piece of crystal - but very solid and durable and clear glass.  It's just always been around and I never knew.

Until I had it and used it and began to see it in old photos.

and the birthday cake?

Mary Ann brought it from Liger's Bakery in Montgomery, AL.

It was the cake we all received on our birthday when we were at Huntingdon College.  Mary Ann was there from 1967-1971.  I was there from 1969-1971.  In our dorm, Pratt Hall, our crowd of friends loved these cakes! and the Petit Fours!  Another great memory from the past, celebrated in the present.

That concludes my birthday review.

It was a very fun day.