The final year ...

Do I feel older today as I enter into the final year of my 50's ... I never dreamed this day would come when I was young. In fact, I thought when you turned 50, you would get old and die. I grieved for a long time about the day my dad would turn 50 and he might just go on to heaven. I am happy to report that he is 83 and still here -- and I can talk to him daily. For that I am very thankful! I do have to admit that while I don't feel any older today, I did wonder about that when my first great-grandchild was born. Wow! Should I feel old? Then I realized that my sister, Rachel, is now a great-great aunt so if I go by the "great" definition, she should feel MUCH older than I do and she is almost 15 years younger than I am. So much for that ...

I remember my 40th and 50th parties ... On my 40th, we were living in North Carolina and I was working at a construction company. My primary boss was Eddie Beaver but much of my work was actually done for Ed Arthur. I have a feeling that Ed A. was responsible for what I found in my office that Friday morning .. why do I remember it was a Friday? Well, that was the day subcontractors came in to pick up their checks and when I walked in that morning, there was this big dead wreath proclaiming, "Our Sympathy At the Passing of Your Youth"!! (Hey, Terri Russell, did you have something to do with that?) I understand that someone went to a local graveyard and picked up that wreath -- it was on a nice easel type of thingy set where you could see it right when you walked in the front door. (Like an 'in your face' kind of thing!)

Soooo.... if that wasn't enough, I looked into my office which was right off the foyer. My office chair was gone and in its place was a rocking chair!! A rocking chair! And a nice afghan and a cane!! But, that wasn't the best and if I were much more organized like my daughter, Sandi, or my sister, Rachel, or my sisters-in-law, Betty and Linda, I could go to a scrapbook and pull out the photo. I saw it recently but have a feeling it is in some box somewhere .. oh, well ...

Anyway, there was a big sign on the front of my desk .. it covered almost the whole front of it and it stated, "I'd rather be 40 than pregnant"!! Well, I may agree with that but really, Ed, did you have to proclaim it to the whole world?? I'll have to admit, it did make some good memories.

My 50th was much kinder ... our girls threw a real 50's bash for me and turned our family room into a 50's cafe! Poodle skirts, old fashioned bottled root beer in buckets of ice, and lp records filled the family room. They had invited lots of friends and we truly felt like we were back in the 50's!!!

Okay, so I've spent about an hour looking through old photos and can't find them -- where is my organization talents when I need them -- then again, now isn't the time I should have had them -- that would have been years ago! Roxanne told me she remembered seeing some of them in a photo album -- shock, they made it to an album. I do have some albums that are theme oriented but they are in a drawer in the family room.