They Say It's Your Birthday

Gee, I missed you!

Me to Blog:   

Long time no see.  I've missed you blog and have ignored you way to long.I've thought about you a lot but just wasn't ready to make a commitment.  

Blog to Me:  

You don't call, you don't write. I feel used and neglected.  Not even a comment to let me how the family's doing?  Really!

Me to Blog:

I wanted to have something grand or profound to share with you, really I did, but when nothing came to me I just decided it's time to come back and beg your forgiveness.

Today's my birthday and I thought 'what better day to revisit my guilty pleasure?' - so here I am.  I'm not going to tell you how old I am, but let's just say that I'm old enough to buy a margarita without the waitress even thinking of asking for my ID...although I don't recall anyone asking for it when I was 16 either!

This birthday is a birthday of reflection and gratitude.  A time to remember that, even when there have been significant challenges, the good so outweighs the bad.  Forgive me if this post is a bit self-indulgent...but wait that's what my blog is all about anyway. Gratitude. I could write for miles and still not list all my blessings, so I have decided to kick off my top five then toss in a few throughout the week, month and year.  Hopefully, mine will remind you of a few of yours that maybe you haven't acknowledged. 

5

My Job:  This one could be divided up even further to subcategories but the fact is I really like my job, my bosses (there are many), my co-workers, the doctors and pretty much everything about the work I do. I took a huge pay cut four years ago to take the job and it wasn't anything like I had hoped it would be when I started, but I have grown to love it and all the people who make it what it is.

4

My Ex-Husband:  A few months ago I sent an email to my ex that unfortunately had a link to my blog in the signature.  He took that opportunity to link up and read my posts. I took it as an invasion of my privacy and closed out my blog. Okay, so now you know the real reason I stopped posting. What a silly thing for me to worry about! Duh, this is a public forum, so why would I think it was my little world.  There are probably lots of things out there that rub people the wrong way. So let's get back to why my ex-husband is a blessing. He is the father to the most precious, beautiful earthly gift two people can share...a child. So to he who will remain unnamed in my blog - thank you for our little SweetPea!

3

My Friends:   There's lots of crossover on this one because my friends also overflow into several of my blessings categories. Who would have thought that at my age I would have been blessed with a best friend - someone who was like the sister I never had.  That's a really big blessing for me. I had two surgeries this year and significantly underestimated my ability to be a helpless, pathetic slug..thank goodness my friend did not. Hey, wait a minute, I'm not sure that was a compliment?!

2

My Family: Can't even begin to express the blessings that SweetPea has brought to me but there have been lots - mixed in with just a pinch of heartache every once in a while, but that makes for a healthy recipe for families in my opinion. Was/is my family the perfect Leave it to Beaver kind of family? Heck no, but man did our group make for entertaining holidays.  I had awesome parents who gave unconditional love, a big brother who still keeps me in line, and cool grandparents who had interesting lives to share. Great extended family too with a rich mix of geniuses, religious right, liberal left, gays, physically disabled, traveling salesmen, oil company executives, and wing walkers just to name a few.

1

My Faith - The most important blessing in my life. It has changed everything for me. The fear and insecurities I carried with me most of life have been lifted and all from a little thing called grace.  My only regret is that I let other people try to tell me what faith was for way too long instead of living it and learning it myself. Faith in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit is the key to everything. For me discovering this was much like many things in this life...I believed it but I did not really understand it or live it.  I am so grateful it finally clicked.

So that's it for me.  It's nice to back and I look forward to visiting with you again.

Love,
Miss Fanny