40th birthday

Easter, turning 40, and candy in the light fixture

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Now I officially feel old. This last week my younger brother turned 40. 

I don’t remember feeling old when I turned 40. Maybe it was because I spent the first few waking hours of my 40th birthday in the ER. Having a sick child really took the little joy left out of turning 40. Everyone took turns staying with Arabella so I could have my special day. I felt a little selfish about that. 

I bought a 1970’s vintage outfit that I was going to wear out for my birthday. I had to go all the way to Chicago to find something exciting to do on a Monday night. There is certainly no nightlife around here on a Monday. But with a sick kid and other children that refused to go anywhere with me dressed like that, I wore normal boring clothes. I am such an embarrassment. Seriously, it wasn’t as if I was going to go out wearing my birthday suit.

My friends did take me out a couple of weeks before my birthday. I didn’t feel old. They convinced some people that they were taking me out for my 21st birthday. It was kind of funny when people came up to me and asked me how it felt to finally be old enough to drink. Really? What are you talking about?? Believe me that looking like I was 10 when I was 16 really did pay off later. LOL. 

But now I feel old. I ran 15 miles the day after Matt turned 40. It was really difficult for me to do. My inner voice kept telling me how old I was and doubted I could do anything. Sometimes I want to tell my inner voice to shut up and summon my inner child instead. 

How does Matt feel about turning 40? He feels great! Being autistic, he really has little concept of aging. He is starting to get the tire around his waist like all the older men in my family seem to get. Still he has no worries about his weight. There was a time in his life when we worried. At 5’7″, there was a point where he barely weighed 90 lbs. He was very sick to the point where we thought he would die. So a little gut is not that big of a deal.

 Yesterday the whole family went bowling for Matt’s birthday. Matt loves to bowl so we go every year for his birthday. I really don’t like bowling. I find it boring and I suck at it. Matt loves it though and he even beat my score. We bought him a huge balloon bouquet that was a lot harder to fit into a car than you might think. We almost got it tangled in the ceiling fan when we got to the bowling alley.  

After bowling, we all went out to eat. My dad went somewhere else. I am not sure if that had to do with senility or miscommunication. After supper, everyone wanted to come over to my house for games. My dad started driving home until my mom reminded him he was coming to my house. Then he turned the car around after swearing a bit and came to my house. He dropped off everyone in his vehicle and sat out in the car. 

Today my whole family met up at church for Easter with the exception of my dad. My mom is a devout Christian and my dad is an atheist. No, it doesn’t work well. I was surprised to see my brother Mark in church and dressed up to boot. I thought that the only time that I would see him go to church was on his wedding day. Boy was I wrong. His new wife said that she wasn’t going to church by herself. Now Mark is a church goer. Maybe he thought a little about all the times that my mom went to church alone. I was happy that he went. He always sided with my dad. I was wondering if he would choose to go to church with his wife or stay home with my dad. I was surprised my dad didn’t give him a hard time.

The church was having some issues with its organ. Apparently they asked my dad to come fix it. My dad said that the last time he went to church it was working okay. I said it was true that the organ was working just fine in the 1980’s. I told my dad that it would have been nice if he came to church today with his family to at least view the condition of the organ. Oh well! At least he was wearing clothes today. He wore red plaid pajama bottoms with a Packer shirt. He didn’t match or even shower lately, but at least he wore clothes. Baby steps!

After eating ham at my mom’s, everyone started their journey back home. Mark and Luke live several hours away while I live nearby.  

I had the kids do some work while I hid their Easter candy. Alex is good at finding things. He found his sisters candy before they did. So this year I hid his candy in a very difficult spot. I unscrewed the light fixture, then hid his candy there. Brilliant spot, he did find it though before Arabella found hers.

I hope everyone had a great Easter! 

The 1st (planned) overnight sail

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Last year for my husband’s birthday, we planned our first overnight sail on our sailboat. Technically, it wasn’t our first overnight sail. But we won’t talk about that. If you want to read about everything that could go wrong without sinking the boat, feel free to read the accidental overnight sail post. It was pretty funny, but not at the time. 

As I mentioned briefly previously, I got my first ear cartilage piercing for my 40th birthday. I am a very ritualistic and rule oriented person, at times borderline OCD. My world consists of order, rules, rules, rituals, and more rules. My rules. My structure. I am an extreme person. That is just the way I am. So, I got my ear pierced for my birthday. It required cleaning 3 times a day for 12 weeks. Ok, I got that, no problem. My husband’s birthday was exactly 12 weeks to the day after I got the cartilage piercing. It would be perfect to change the earring right before we left for the overnight sail, or so I thought. I had a hoop earring that I wanted to try. 

Removing the back of the earring stud required a lot of yanking. My ear was “ear itated” before I got the earring out. Then it started to swell and bleed. I tried to get the hoop in which was impossible. I could barely get it into my regular ear piercings. Hmmmm, now this is where I really went wrong. I put a nickel earring stud into the ear cartilage piercing and left for the overnight sail. 

It was a perfect early fall day for a sail. It was warm and windy, but not too windy. We sailed several hours to get to the resort. Once we got there, it was during the week and the pool was closed for the season. There was not much to do. By the time we got there, my ear doubled in size. I thought that maybe my piercing was infected. I was so stressed that I couldn’t eat. Worried. This is the point when my acid reflux acted up again as an adult but I didn’t know at the time what it was. 

The next day we headed back home. I called the ear piercing place and they said I was probably allergic to the nickel earring. I found that strange because I didn’t have problems with nickel in my regular ear piercings. They suggested putting the piercing stud back in. This was problematic because I was on open water and didn’t have any other earrings with me. The minute I got home, hours later, I put my piercing stud back in and haven’t taken it out since. I am almost afraid to. I felt bad that my seemingly great idea turned my husband’s birthday into a big mess of anxiety. I have only stayed overnight on the sailboat once since then. It was for our anniversary when the big unexpected storm hit. 

Why does everything have to be so eventful in my life?? Well, it sure gives me things to write about and at times things to laugh about. 

My 40th birthday

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I spent the first couple hours of my 40th birthday at the ER in downtown Chicago. 

Today is my last day of being 40. Tomorrow is my silver birthday. No, it is not because I have silver hair as the kids thought. It happens when the numbers in your birth date flip flop, the opposite of a golden birthday. I just found out about this 2 months ago. Good thing, I guess, since tomorrow is the big day. But I have to work tomorrow. That can be a hazard of being self-employed. My employee who covers for me, especially on the long running days, has the day off tomorrow. Her mother is having surgery. Sorry you have to work it is my silver birthday would be totally wrong. But I digress, you probably want to know how I ended up in the ER. 

Last year I started my birthday celebration off with my first and only ear cartilage piercing. Milestone birthdays always require special rituals. My friends took me out to eat and dancing afterwards. I started celebrating July 3rd as my real 40th birthday was on a Monday and let me tell you that the nightlife around here on a Monday night is nothing worth blogging about. Half of my friends were up north already for the holiday weekend, so it was a rather small crew. I headed up north the following day myself and that is where it happened. My youngest daughter, Arabella, got sick with a fever. I took her to a fast care when we got home Sunday because she had a 104 temp after meds. They said she had a virus and sent her home. Arabella got a lot of rest and seemed to be feeling a little better. 

We headed to Chicago later that week as planned to pick up my mom and oldest daughter from the airport after a school trip. We toured the aquarium, saw The Blue Man Group (awesome show by the way), and I bought myself an authentic 70’s hippie outfit that I wanted to wear out for my birthday. By the end of the weekend, poor Arabella was very sick and feverish. She had to stay behind with family for some of the planned events. In the wee hours of my 40th birthday, Arabella was burning up. Paul and I decided to call our family dr first thing in the morning. When we called our family dr, we found out that she retired that morning. Really? WTH! So we found that nearest ER to find out that Arabella had pneumonia. We were given antibiotics for her. That night I went to the House of Blues for my birthday. I didn’t dress up because I felt down that I had to leave Arabella behind and my other kids said that weren’t going if I dressed in hippie garb. Party poopers!

We headed home the next morning. Arabella wasnt feeling any better and on the ride home she developed hives from the antibiotic . We got home and headed back to the ER. This time the dr thought it was asthma as she responded well to the steroid treatment. They took her IV out and were ready to send us home when the dr decided to do a quick X-ray . The X-ray showed pneumonia everywhere. The dr mentioned hospitalization and put the IV back in as I started to cry. Further tests showed a really bad case of walking pneumonia. The dr reluctantly sent us home with promises of finding another dr for follow up. This is how my 40th year started. I hope that tomorrow proves to be a less eventful start of my 41st year.