So basically each time I have a birthday I love to reflect. Reflect on the year I had prior the brand new year I will be starting. I like to say that yesterday I completed the full year of being 45 and today is my first day of being 46. It’s a little crazy to think that I just jumped over that mid way mark and I’m ever so much closer to 50. However as my daughter wrote me yesterday…age is just a number and you are young mom, really young! I love the way she thinks. In my mind I do feel very young.
I like to take a self-portrait. Last year much like this year the day was full. Just filled to the brim with blessings. I received lots of beautiful personal messages wishing me a happy birthday. Motorcycle man always spoils me each year. We work together and I love it. He is downstairs I’m up. He has placed flowers on my desk on my birthday for as long as I can remember us working together. Which has been an awfully long time. This time it was a very sweet basket of daisies. This is my favorite flower even since I was a child. This has never changed. When I find things I like I stick with them. When I woke up he had the most darling mug ready for coffee, it read “this coffee is making me awesome” I loved it, then later on he gave me a nice wine glass that read “does this wine count as a fruit serving?” He really knows me well. We had poke for dinner and watched our favorite shows. It was a perfect night. I received some very thoughtful and personal gifts from those who know me well and it just couldn’t be more perfect.
I reflect on the year prior. I probably gained some weight since my last birthday. Our oldest first born boy moved out on his own, our littlest and only girl is in the last year of middle school. Our second born is a Jr. this year and started driving, these things are all new. I got published a big dream of mine which came true! I got to meet some beautiful photographer souls that were on my dream list. Angela, Andrea, Laura, Debbie and Allison. Isn’t that just the most crazy thing ever? Life is good. I discovered FINALLY the true reason for my sore legs, I finally admitted to that weakness. They are so much better now. Not completely healed but better than I have ever seen them in the past 5 years. I made some new friends. I went on some epic awesome adventures, we drove across the states to Arkansas, we saw the Grand Canyon, we went to a family reunion in Indiana, I went back East with my girl and got to see New York for the first time and revisit D.C. We stayed in awesome Yurts in Big Sur, my friend from Seattle came to California for a visit and I got to meet her and her family at the beach, a new girl came into our lives full of sunshine and positivity, her name is Crystal. I got to see my niece and her family from Michigan and her mama too! I got to witness friends get married. Tessa moved back to California. My niece up north got accepted into a great university in Michigan because she is an awesome softball player and so the scholarship is full!! Abbie and I started a mother daughter portrait project. We took some wonderful trips to the moon with my moon gang. So much more. It helps me to remember when I photograph something each day. I can look back on the year and smile.
That's a little bit of what I can remember, which seems like a lot of bit. Believe me I don't travel much so the fact that I was in Indiana,(even a layover in Georgia) Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia trips me out big time, totally not my normal. I look forward to what my 46th year will bring me.