Sunday, February 27, 2011

Today's My Birthday

Jeepers creepers! Today's my birthday and I'm not exactly sure how I managed to get this old.


One day the calendar days flipped over in slow-mo, and now it's like gale force winds have taken up permanent residence whipping the days past at super-sonic speed.  I have–in many, many ways–become the eye of the hurricane. And trust me, it's not a pretty sight.


One day I'm standing in line for my first driver's license, getting married and celebrating my babies' birthdays, and now a nano second later, I'm thinking about retirement. How in the heck did that happen?


But most of all, I want to know who the heck is that old, tired stranger looking back at me in the mirror? My students always look surprised when I tell them how old I am. I'm not sure if they are surprised because I look younger than my 54 years or if I have that you-look-older-than-dirt appearance. I guess I can ponder that while I'm thinking about that whole "who's that staring back at me in the mirror" thing.


In the meantime, let's go through… 


Richie's Top Reasons 
It Sucks To Be Me On My Birthday 


#5…Unlike my much younger years, any cake I eat (and, oh how I plan to eat the tasty Barefoot Contessa's Carrot Cake my husband made for me) will stay with me and my hips for at least the next 500 years.


#4…Tomorrow is a teacher professional development day, and we all know how I feel about those kind of days.


#3…The day after teacher in-service day is state mandated TAKS testing day for English Language Arts.  (I feel the same about those days as I do those teacher inservice days.)


#2…I am drowning in yearbook disasters. Things (and you know how much I hate those darn tootin' things)…Things like discovering pages that haven't been started, pictures that haven't been shot and names that were alphabetized by first names, not last. These are the things that try men's souls and make one dream of retirement.


And the #1 reason It Sucks To Be Me On My Birthday? …Drum roll pah-leese!…


#1…I am working on yearbook pages on my birthday with only Howard the Shelter Cat to help me. And, as you can see by the photographs, Howard (bless his heart) is about as much help as the… Well, you fill in the blank.

















8 comments:

loonyhiker said...

Happy birthday! I hope you had a wonderful day. Birthdays beat the alternative (death!) any day of the week. My hubby's birthday is tomorrow and all day I've heard him whine about having a birthday so I made him read your post! He is glad someone agrees with him!!!

elysabeth said...

Carol, You aren't that old. I have a birthday coming in June so I can't say you are really old since you are only 5 years and a few months older than I am. You can't be thinking of retirement at 54 - lol. Although I know if you have put in your 30 years with the school system, you probably have to retire. Just think of all the things you won't have to be disliking - teacher inservice days, TAKS testing days, and the dreaded yearbook disaster days - of course working on the yearbook could never go smoothly - regardless. But you know, evenn if you retire, you would have to stay busy doing something so might as well devote yourself to full time yearbook staff now and get it over with so that you will have all the problems smoothed out when it comes time for your real retirement - lol.

Happy birthday, wish I could enjoy that carrot cake with you - I used to love it when I could eat it but then developed this stupid nut allergy so can't eat it any more (of course, it's mostly the cream cheese frosting I love but carrot cake used to be one of favs back in the day).

Enjoy the cake and don't stress too much about the yearbook - everything will work out like it should. E :)

----------------
Elysabeth Eldering
Author of the Junior Geography Detective Squad, 50-state, mystery, trivia series

Where will the adventure take you next?

http://jgdsseries.blogspot.com
http://jgdsseries.weebly.com

Clix said...

Richie, all I can offer is mental hugs delivered through the ether. Know that you're in my thoughts as we go through yearbook-insanity here as well! Are you trying to finish up for spring delivery, or do you have until fall to distribute?

askthehomediva said...

Clix,
Thanks for the warm, fuzzy thoughts. Spring delivery. Unless of course, I set my hair on fire.

askthehomediva said...

Elysabeth,
No, I can't retire for another three or four years. Can't retire until my youngest gets out of college.

Thanks for the happy wishes ;-)

askthehomediva said...

Loonyhiker,
Tell your hubby Happy Birthday! I've decided carrot cake as well as chocolate can cure about anything ;-)

Unknown said...

Happy Birthday. And, cat may be more help than some of the staff who might not even be motivated enough to look at the computer screen.

Nice toenail covers.
Andy

Unknown said...

Yeah, but he's darn tootin' cute!

Happy Birthday, Sis!