Tag Archives: monday listicles

The – the things I’ve learned – Monday Listicle

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AH Monday, how I love thee so!

Ok, not really, but at least we have the Listicle to get the week started right! This week Stasha’s assignment is to list ten things we learned in 2012. If only my memory weren’t so shoddy… oh, wait… I have a blog! Every single thing of note (as well as the utterly mundane) has been recorded for posterity on the internet. Thank god! Otherwise I never would have realized that every month in the past year has brought some valuable (and, again, some not so valuable) lessons. Here they are, along with, if you’re interested and have an awful lot of free time on your hands today, links to the posts explaining them. (If you don’t have an awful lot of free time on your hands… (how shocking!) I totally understand.)

12 things I learned in 2012.

1. January – in January I learned that shooting guns is fun!

2. In February I learned that some people really do treat their pets as if they were kids and that disturbs me profoundly.

3. In March I learned that comments from readers are more valuable than I could ever have imagined.

4. In April I learned that men simply can’t pee within the confines of the toilet.

5. In May I learned that I don’t react well to the idea of anything permanent. Like buying a house. But then I got over it and now I have a house.

6. In June I learned that my kids can survive without me for a few days. I’m not sure whether this makes me happy or sad, but it certainly make me freer.

7. In July I learned that the very things I’d most like to change about myself are the things I can’t control.

8. In August I learned that people who work in Consulates are mean. And they hate me. Also, they’re mean.

9. In September I learned that everyone likes a good wedding picture (or even an entire series).

10. In October I learned that I absolutely, positively, don’t want to be pregnant (right now).

11. In November I learned that time doesn’t make loss any easier, it just makes it less painful.

12. And quite likely in December I will have yet again failed to learn that it’s not a good idea to go out on December 24th to get a few last minute gifts. But alas, we don’t always learn from past mistakes, do we?!

By the way… I got sucked back into the black hole for bloggers that is twitter, so please be nice and follow me. If only for my self-esteem… and yes, I will soon (soonish) set up the easy and practical sidebar button for just this here purpose, for now click on the link or search for thebonnybard or follow the smoke signals… please and thank you.

The, the more things change the more they stay the same, Monday Listicle

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Hello friends and happy Monday! It’s time for Stasha’s Listicle and this week it’s a really hard one: ten ways I am the same or different from my younger self, courtesy of Christine of Random Reflectionz. I’m not quite sure how to even approach this…

I don’t want to be too obvious, like I was thinner, younger, blonder (in every way)… eh, let’s go with the old standby of winging it and see where it takes us, which should be interesting as half the time I’m not even sure I can make it to ten with these listicles (and often don’t). So ten things ways I am the same and different from my younger self using the comparatives more and less.

When I was younger:

1. I was more arrogant, I thought I knew it all. Now I actually know it all, but in a completely non-arrogant way.

2.  I was less head-strong. In fact, I used to let everyone around me influence me. Now I don’t really care what everyone around me thinks. This is both good and bad because consequently:

3. I used to take more care of myself. When I was younger I wouldn’t leave the house unless my hair was done, and my nails manicured, and my skin as smooth as a baby’s behind. Now… well now I’ve got kids, so if my teeth are brushed I’m good to go.

4.  I used to be less discerning about men. Back then I had a crush on Luke Perry, who no one has ever seen again after 90210, now I have a crush on Matthew Perry who keeps doing awesome shows. (if you haven’t seen it, check out Go On).

5. I used to be more adventurous. The sky was the limit. Literally. In fact, the only thing I regret not doing when I was younger that I really, really, wanted to do is skydiving. There is no way in hell I’m going to do that now, because… well, I’ve got kids. Also, I’m now a scaredy cat.

6. I had less fun. Yes, this one is a little weird, but I used to have fun more often but less intensely because:

7. I was more self-conscious, and I embarrassed much, much more easily. Then again I hadn’t given birth in front of what felt like the entire hospital staff plus a few students.

8. I had less to lose. Which kind of explains the adventurousness. I guess the older we get, the more we appreciate the things we have and the more conscious we are of how easy it is to lose it all.

9. I have more love. I love more intensely, yet less dramatically.

10. I have less time. This one is really true, yet really hard to swallow, and also the only one I’d really change (along with the effects of age on my metabolism, and gravity on my body). I used to have all the time in the world, summers were endless, fifty minute class periods were excruciatingly long, now the years fly by at a steadily increasing pace and I can accomplish unimaginable feats of organizational prowess in only fifty minutes. So sometimes I’d just like to stop time for a moment and be able to simply sit and think, remember, and record, the sensations of a specific moment, to savor it, and really enjoy it, live it, before it’s gone forever.

The if you can’t say something nice… Monday Listicle

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Happy Monday. I’m late posting today, I’m a little tired, and my allergies are just plain trying to kill me, so no long preamble for me.  So, as per Stasha’s instructions here is a list of ten (actually nine) compliments.

The ten most bizarre compliments I have ever received.

1. you have the most beautiful hands, are you a hand model? This was a pick-up line by a sleazebag in the center of Rome. I’m pretty sure that, had I let him, he would have segued straight into: why don’t you come up to my apartment so I can take some pictures of your hands… and then quite possibly try to molest you.

2. hmmm, you smell like hay. Hay? Seriously?!

3. you have great teeth. What am I, a horse? And also, I don’t have great teeth, I have straight teeth thanks to my orthodontist, but my teeth are pretty average.

4. you’re so quiet and reflective. I am, indeed, both quiet and reflective, no one could ever possibly accuse me of being the life of the party or a prima donna, but as this was said to me at a dinner party, I’m assuming they meant boring and spaced out.

5. your cooking style is so eclectic and interesting. i.e. gross and inedible. This was said to me by an Italian friend of a friend who only eats Italian food, ideally cooked by her grandmother, not an adventurous person to say the least. That day we had grilled meat, which, though it can be “interesting” at times, it can hardly be called eclectic. I had made a regular lettuce salad and a tomato and mozzarella salad, as well as baked potatoes, we grilled steaks and sausage, I’m not quite sure what she expected to eat at a barbecue.

6. your feet are so big! This was said to me with, I kid you not, a hand clap and squeal at the end. Now, I’ve got, as my mother would say, a very stable base, there’s very little risk that I’ll fall over, my roots are well spread out… my feet are, in fact, on the larger end of the scale for someone my height. That said, they’re not freakishly large or anything, it’s certainly something no one has ever noticed before. In any case, I’m not quite sure exactly why she was so excited about the size of my feet, as far as I know, there’s no correlation between a woman’s feet and the size of her… well, anything in fact, that could possible elicit that much glee.

7. This is the best glass of water anyone’s ever poured me. Truth be told, I’m not quite sure if this person was complimenting me, the glass, or the water therein, in any case, it’s altogether too much complimenting for a glass of water.

8. You write divinely. Well, this one just kind of pissed me off. There’s really no need for hyperbole, I may or may not write well, but divinely? I think not. In fact, I know not, because if I did in fact write “divinely” I’d be a published author now wouldn’t I? Or a very, very religious or illuminated person. I’m none of the above, and frankly I find this misrepresentation of something I actually care about a bit insulting.

9. Mama, you’re so old. This was said with love and something akin to pride in his eyes. I’m perfectly aware that to my four-year old being old is the absolute best thing that you can be, as a lot of the cool things he really wants to do will happen when he’s “older” (like “when I’m older I can ride my bike to school by myself” which gets repeated approximately every hour on the hour at my house) but honestly, there’s no reason to ever say that to a woman. Even if she is your mother. I’m just saying.

I’m capping it at nine cause I can’t remember a tenth. Forgive me?

The “Falling Leaves” Monday Listicle

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I can barely believe it’s October already, it was July five minutes ago. Where, oh where, does the time go? So, now that the day’s banalities are over let’s get on with the Monday Listicle. Today’s topic: top ten autumn must haves… I love autumn… not the crappy rainy autumn that it looks like we’re having, but the lovely, colorful autumn, the sweet cinnamon and pumpkin smelling autumn, the warm sweater and comfortable jean wearing autumn the catalogues show us.

No seriously, I mostly love autumn, I love the colors, the smells, the chill in the air, and the sense of wonderful new beginnings and possibilities that the start of a new school year always brings, even now that I’m all grown up. Despite the fact that I spend a fair amount of my time bitching and moaning about the weather, I actually love living in a place that has four distinct seasons.

But still, autumn has its peculiarities… for lack of a better word… so here are ten must haves for autumn in northern Italy.

1. apples – many, many bushels of apples. So you can make lovely apple pies, and apple butters and baked apples…

2. chestnuts – falling off the trees, ready to be cleaned and roasted (or boiled, or baked)

3. a fireplace – to warm up the house until it gets cold enough to turn on the heating (and to roast the abovementioned chestnuts)

4. rain boots and an umbrella near the door – because it’ll rain, but it’s not all bad, you need rain so you can go pick mushrooms.

5. mushrooms – to make risotto with, and to cover veal scaloppini, and to batter and deep fry if your liver can take it.

6. working heating – because at some point that fireplace isn’t going to cut it anymore.

7. cozy blankets – to wrap yourself up in on the couch, in front of the fire, as you sip hot chocolate and eat apple pie

8. coffee and cake – to enjoy with your friends cause the kids are finally back in school and you have the time to actually sit and gossip, uninterrupted, for a few short hours a week.

9. baskets – for all the apple picking, mushroom hunting, fire wood gathering, you will inevitably be doing.

10. a beach house – where you can run off to once you realize that picking, peeling, coring, and cooking apples for all the wonderful cakes and pies you’re making is a gigantic pain in the ass, that there’s only so many chestnuts and mushrooms you can eat before your stomach rebels, that, though romantic, that fireplace is a bitch to clean and you use up a box of matches every time you light the fire, and that the flippin’ rain isn’t going to stop till it turns into snow in November.

At that point, and it will come sooner rather than later, you get a few friends, you leave your kids with your husbands at home, and you take off for the beach, wind in your hair, sun in your face, and the blessed sound of girlish laughter and rolling waves in your ears.

Four happy girlies taking advantage of happy hour… the sad face in the back left corner is very pregnant and drinking a shirley temple…

psyching ourselves up to get into the freezing cold water, along with the surfer boys you can barely see to the right, in their full body wetsuits… wimps!

Autumn at the beach! (Surprisingly, our teeth aren’t chattering and our lips aren’t blue, but we had just been rolled around in the surf by a larger than expected wave.)

The – my readers are audibly groaning but I don’t care cause I love weddings- monday listicle

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Oh boy, oh boy, this week’s listicle is going to bore some of you completely out of your minds but I’m excited! Can you tell? I love weddings. Love them. Seriously. I simply can’t believe Stasha handed me the opportunity of showcasing my wedding pictures on a silver platter! Aren’t you thrilled! I did write an actual list, but you get wedding pictures in the mix, lucky you! (Seriously, Stasha, what were you thinking? You must have known some of us would go overboard and our readers would be groaning!) So, ten things wedding… ta-da!!!

(The following pictures are of my wedding and bear no relationship whatsoever to the text, I just figured you needed to see wedding pictures in a post about weddings, right?)

1. I attended both my Mom’s weddings. My parents were married when I was eight, they got married in Vegas because an immigration officer told them to (long story, fodder for another post). My dad didn’t want to marry my mom, not because he didn’t love her, because he did, more than life itself, but because he was twenty-eight years older than her and wanted her to be free to leave him at any time. She never did.

2. My Mom got married again last year, to a very nice guy. She had a church wedding with a full catholic mass, she had a beautiful white dress and long veil. She finally had the wedding every girl dreams of that she couldn’t have with my Dad (who was divorced and couldn’t, obviously, remarry in the Catholic Church).

My Grandma and me. You can also see my brother reflected in the mirror, looking like a 1920’s movie star.

3. I had the absolutely most perfect wedding (for me) courtesy of my wonderful parents.

 

Proud parents and younger brother (he doesn’t usually have an evil warlord expression on his face…)

4. I’ve often wished I was British so I could have an excuse to wear fabulously ridiculous hats to weddings.

5. I cry at weddings. I also sneak into church when I see a wedding is about to happen, I can usually be found in the back pew, dabbing at my eyes with a hanky. I normally leave before the end of mass, but I like to at least see the bride’s entrance.

6. A friend of mine got married in a gorgeous red gown and looked amazing,  I kind of wished I had thought to wear an unconventional color at my wedding, but I’m way too traditional (and I didn’t want to give my dad a heart attack).

7. I didn’t watch William and Kate’s wedding for no reason other than I got distracted when it happened, although I still remember Charles and Diana’s wedding (I was nine).

8. I hate typical Italian weddings, where you go to church in the morning and then have lunch, which usually starts late because the happy couple is off taking pictures and then lasts well into the evening. I went to a wedding once where we were at church at 11am, sat down to lunch at 2pm and finally got up from the table at 7pm. I wanted to shoot myself.

9. I love looking through other people’s wedding albums, if only to mentally laugh at all the out of date fashions.

10. The most important thing a priest ever told me was to remember that after the wedding was marriage…


Monday listicle the days of yore

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Stasha’s Listicle this week calls for us to list ten things school, any ten things school… Stasha, really, you shouldn’t be giving us this much freedom!

My kids start school next week, preschool, most everyone goes to preschool in Italy so the general feeling when they’re three is the same as what you get in the US when they start kindergarten. FREEDOM! (evidently a recurring theme today.)

But, as we’re on vacation this week, enjoying the last few days at the beach under a torrential rain, I’m not really in the “back to school” mind set yet. I’ll likely be writing a tear jerking post next week about how “my baby is all growed up”, but right now I’m more concerned with ending cabin fever syndrome by taking off for the aquarium in Montecarlo. Also, and completely unrelated, yesterday I accidentally found (i.e. googled) an old high school boyfriend who had seemingly dropped off the face of the earth. This convoluted confluence of events led to the following listicle:

Boys from school

1. the first memory I have of a boy at school was in the third grade, his name was Jack and he had a crush on me, I learned of this crush because he kept asking me to chase him and then look up my skirt. Having just arrived to the US, this was all very “foreign” to me. Sadly a few days later he was shimmying up more interesting skirts than mine.

2. my first real “friend who’s a boy” was in the sixth grade, Jeremy, we went to school together all through middle and high school and are still friends to this day. At some point or another we both had a crush on the other, but the stars never aligned correctly and we never had a crush on the other at the same time (that we know of).

3. my first kiss was in the eighth grade, at school, behind the admin building. It was wet, and very quick and I ran away giggling delightedly with my best friend right after, wiping my mouth profusely on my school uniform sleeve. This is why I’m so shocked to hear of all the six graders having varied degrees of sex nowadays, this boy was my “boyfriend” for over a year and the most he saw was a boob.

4. my first boyfriend was a year younger than me, I was a sophomore and he was a freshman, though we were the same age (I was the youngest in my class by a stretch), this of course didn’t mean anything and I was called a “cradle robber” for the rest of high school. I broke up with him the summer prior to my senior year because I thought I was too mature to go out with a younger guy and he rode his bike to my house every day for weeks delivering flowers and cards. I was an idiot. I later changed my mind but he was dating a new, foreign girl, and I pined after him for my entire senior year (with much hilarity from my classmates) Incidentally, he’s the one I recently googled, he’s a neurosurgeon (typical) and, though bald, still cute.

5. my senior year I dated a series of losers, college losers, which, somehow, in retrospect, is all the worse. I was the object of a classmate’s crush, a good friend who contributed tremendously in my passing the IB exams (he’s now a classics professor at some northeastern university), and with whom I acquiesced to attend the prom. Since I was a monstrous idiot (i.e. teenager) then, I effectively ruined both his and my prom, but thankfully he hasn’t held a grudge.

I’m capping my little list at 5, because though there were other boys (of course. Like one a week who held my interest for a few days for whom I would’ve “just died”, of course… fikleness thy name is adolescent girl.) these are the most significant ones. What this little walk down memory lane has done for me today is to mostly inspire terror at what my future holds as a mother of both a boy and a girl. God help us as we embark on this new school journey, from the other side.

Monday Listicles – we’re not in kansas anymore, Toto

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This week’s listicle is coming to you from Milan, more specifically from the Brazilian consulate, where I’m trying to get my Brazilian passport sorted and the kids’ births registered and whatnot. Considering the lines, I’ll probably be old and grey by the time I make it out of here, but hey, my kids will have dual citizenship so it’ll be worth losing the better part of my youth over (or not…). Anywaaaay…. This week’s listicle is courtesy of Anja of Cocalores, ten clues you’re living in 2012, or for us born in the seventies the “we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto” edition.

Ten clues you’re living in 2012

1. you text your husband to ask him to bring you a glass of water

2. your whole entire life is on your phone

3. all your framed pictures are ten years old

4. you not only type faster than you can write, your hand gets crampy from writing out an honest to goodness pen to paper thank you note

5. you don’t understand “thank you note”

6. you haven’t bought an actual, non digital book in at least four years

7. you obsessively google every tiny little question that pops into your mind, no “I wonder” is left unanswered

8. you spend hours of your day on facebook, instagram, pinterest, and blogs

9. your best friends are online

10. your mind has processed more information in the last hour than you can even imagine and yet you can’t remember what you had for dinner unless you sit there and think about it

11. you know none of your friends’ or loved ones’ numbers by heart

12. you have serious problems following simple directions, like keeping a list at ten.

Boa segunda feira a todos! (Happy Monday to all!)

Monday Listicles Two for the price of one…

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I’ve been MIA. I didn’t even do the listicle last week…. Even though it was my friend Bridget’s and I can’t believe I missed her listicle! Which is why you get two for the price of one today. Yessiree, cause you can’t not do the listicle when one of your favorite bloggers and very supportive internet friend comes up with it, and the one that Lisa came up with for this week is pretty cool too so there you have it, double lists. Sooooo, first ten things my parents did right thanks to Lisa of TheSprog and then ten people (more or less) alive or dead I’d like to have dinner with.

Before I begin, I’d like to add that I realize I’ve been crap at blogging, and more importantly, at reading all the blogs I love the past couple of weeks, but I’ve been enjoying the summer, and having my kids with me more than I had for the almost two months since summer started. We’ve been having adventures, and sleeping in, and seeing friends, and discovering new, fun, play areas around here, we’ve been hanging out with family and friends visiting from all over, we’ve been cooking, and lazying in front of the tv, well, in a word (or three) we’ve been having fun. And who can possibly blame me for having fun? There’s so much heartache and anger and frustration and sadness and tedium in life (even when there isn’t much, it’s still too much) that we need to just stop everything and have pure, unadulterated and simple fun some of the time. So my appeal to you is: have fun. Pick a week (or even just a weekend) and stop everything else, no commitments, no guilt, no yelling, just fun, just whatever you want to do, even if it’s completely ridiculous. Having a little fun all year is great, and it’s healthy, but having a whole lot of fun, all together, an overdose of fun and joie de vivre, every once in awhile is crucial. Trust me, try it!

Back to listicling, here goes…

Ten things my parents did right:

1. they taught me to be an optimist (by example)

2. they sent me to Italy when I was nineteen

3, they let me work, even though it was going to affect my studies a bit

4. they loved my husband as soon as they met him (unlike all the boyfriends before him)

5. they showed me the world and taught me to navigate it

6. they (well, my mom mostly in this case) taught me to cook decently

7. though my Dad taught me to make the perfect breakfast omelette, no mean feat.

8. they let me be me, and showed me that I was more than I expected

9. they were firm and unapologetic

10. they stayed together, through the hard times, and loved each other till the end. (and beyond).

My parents did a lot of things right so I could probably go on and on and on… but now it’s time to list ten people I’d want to have dinner with:

1. My paternal grandparents, since they died before I was born.

2. Henry the eighth, mostly because I’m watching the Tudors right now and would really like to know what’s with the obsession with Anne Boleyn.

3. Harry Dresden, because he’s the coolest wizard of them all (this list accepts fictional characters, yes?)

4. Marie Antoinette, so I could tell her to keep her freaking mouth shut and possibly get the hell out of dodge.

5. Tomàs de Torquemada, so I could tell him to just chill out a little with the inquisition please.

6. Prince William and Kate, cause they’re cute and I wonder whether they wouldn’t rather have eloped to Vegas.

7. Ryan Gosling – no explanation needed.

8. E.L. James, so I could hand her a dictionary, and a thesaurus, and a book on grammar and writing and… maybe I’d just ask her to please stop writing crap or alternatively to get an editor already,

9. Picasso – cause he sounds like he was a good time.

10. Bridget – cause I’ll probably never make it to Alaska and I’m sure I could persuade her to come to Italy, our wine is exceptionally good!

Linking up with Stasha for another great listicle monday!

Monday Listicles – Shut up, just shut that shit up already!

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It’s Monday once again and time for listicling. Amazingly last week I managed to post more than just the listicle, despite all the busy vacationing that I’m doing, but I’ve got to admit that Stasha’s lists are my favorite posting “assignments” of the week.  This week she asked us to list 10 sounds that drive us bonkers, this was pretty easy for me tonight, as we had a really annoying dinner experience and I’m still rankled from it. The restaurant was hot, as in Dante’s inferno, as in I ordered a soda just so I could rub the cold can on my neck, face, and cleavage in what could have been a very seductive move had I not had sweat running down my temples, as in invest in some fucking fans already. I’m sure you get the picture. Plus the service was abysmal, the restaurant was crowded, and when I say crowded I don’t mean like American restaurants get crowded I mean the waiters kept jostling our chairs as they passed, I could have easily reached over and picked food from my neighbors plate, I could have actively participated in their conversation, and at one point the person closest to me was almost sitting in my lap. Italian – we have no sense of personal space – crowded. This is why I don’t spend time at the beach in Italy in August, because from here on out it can only get worse. The cities on the other hand are wonderfully empty, there’s hardly any traffic, parking is plentiful and unlike the days of yore when one couldn’t even buy milk in cities in August, all services are available and all the people who are still around and working are surprisingly polite and unstressed. Which is why I’m going home on Tuesday. Anywaaaay, I should probably get off this tangent and back to my list of:

10 sounds that make me want to stab someone, then choke them, then throw their limp lifeless body down a ravine

1. clocks ticking

2. hands, fingers, feet, tapping

3. teeth grinding

4. or air being sucked through teeth

5. snoring

6. heavy breathing that almost qualifies as snoring

7. cuticle or nail picking

8. nose sniffling

9. tongue clucking

10. oh, and did I mention clocks ticking

Also, any noise at all when I’m trying to sleep.

I’m not sure, but I may, possibly, be a little high-strung. Just a thought.

p.s. also, yappy dogs, yappy dogs yapping away, make me want to kill myself.

The end.

Monday Listicles – Birthdays

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Last week, in what I now consider a moment of foreshadowing, I thanked Stasha for her Listicles because she makes me post at least once a week… and last week I posted nothing else all week. So here I am again, alive and kicking and listicling. I don’t really have an excuse for ignoring my blog other than the fact that being on vacation is actually more time consuming than being at home, doing homey things. I know, poor little ole me.
Oh, I do actually have an excuse, now that I think about it, my mom and her husband are visiting! I have houseguests! Hence, I can’t blog, what with all the beach laying, cocktail sipping, restaurant eating, and varied and sundry gallivanting and cavorting. (For them, I’m still running around after the kids).
Anyway….
This week’s topic is Birthdays(!) brought to us by the lovely Robbie of Fractured Family Tales and for some reason, my mom being here is rather an inspiration to me so here goes…

Birthdays… then….

1. Strawberry Cheesecake – my mom is not what one would call a baker by any stretch of the imagination. She’s a fantastic cook, but she doesn’t eat sweets, so she doesn’t make them. I remember one of the few birthday cakes she baked for me was the year I turned 13, we were in Canada for a year and she hadn’t scouted out the bakeries yet so she made me a cake… I don’t remember what kind of cake it was, I just remember it was covered in chocolate and bizarrely decorated with kiwis, but she hadn’t accounted for the altitude change (which was mighty since we were in Calgary and she was used to cooking in Houston – practically below sea-level) and the cake didn’t rise, or something. It was inedible. But we all applauded the effort, which was truly a demonstration of motherly love. All this to say that normally, in Houston, she would buy me the most exquisite strawberry cheesecake from a bakery that has, unfortunately, since closed, but that evokes “birthday” to me like nothing ever has since. For my daughter’s second birthday I baked her a strawberry cheesecake, and if it turns out she enjoys them, I’ll bake her one every year until she begs me to stop and do something else already.

2. Anticipation or possibly trepidation – I don’t know if my parents ever forgot a birthday when we were little but for some reason my brother and I approached our birthdays with a certain degree of anxiety, feeling the need to remind our parents of the auspicious event several months ahead of time, then weekly, daily, and finally hourly as the moment drew nearer. We approached the arrival of our birthday with rather more hype than the Rapture or the frenzy preceding the New Year of 2000. It was like a humongous, cataclysmic turning of the clock. Nothing, barring possibly the birth of my two children, has ever approached the same level of unadulterated excitement rife with possibility.

3. Freedom – my parents were pretty strict, but each year that passed we “earned” a small extra privilege, a slightly later bedtime, a little extra television time, more say in what we wore, or what we ate, little things. These extra privileges that accumulated year after year though were much coveted, much anticipated, small tastes of the freedom that was to come with adulthood. Every year that passed we became more “grown up”, and somehow this building up of our desires made them much more appreciated when we got them. Adulthood, represented by the freedom to make our own choices, earned daily, yearly, in small increments is possibly sweeter than it being thrust upon us all at once, or not at all, as is often the case nowadays.

4. Special – as I said, I grew up in an adult-centered, traditional family, i.e. nobody gave a crap what the kids wanted or were feeling at any given time, the phrase “mother knows best” quite likely originated in my family. But on our birthdays, our parents really cared (or pretended to care) what we wanted. I got to choose what the family ate (unthinkable!), my brother had to be nice to me, on a couple of occasions I even got breakfast in bed! I got to be Queen for a day, every year on October 3rd, what more could a kid want.

5. Presents – we never lacked for anything, in fact our lifestyle was often the opposite of that, but my parents weren’t random buyers… they didn’t buy us crap just cause we asked for it or we could afford to. They bought us what we needed, they were generous, but presents were for special occasions and that’s it. We never really knew what we would get. We knew we would get at least one of the twenty two thousand things we had asked for during the year, and we would usually get something that was a complete surprise. Basically, opening presents was exciting.

Birthdays… now…
6. Excitement (veiled in embarrassment) – I still get excited about my birthday. But most of the time, I’m embarrassed to admit it. As adults we’re not really supposed to celebrate ourselves, but after twelve years with my husband, I’m not holding my breath for a surprise birthday party, so despite my age, I still celebrate myself. I anticipate the phone calls, texts and FB messages, I anticipate the presents, I anticipate the yummy cake I’ve baked myself.

7. Others – birthdays aren’t just all about me anymore, I get to celebrate others. I’m in charge of the Husband’s birthday, which is conveniently two months after mine, so if he gets me a crappy gift he gets a crappy birthday party and present. It’s a great motivator. I’m in charge of the kids’ birthdays, and though tiring and often frustrating, it also makes me happy because I’m creating their traditions, their happy memories and one day in the future they’ll be writing a listicle on birthdays and citing my amazing birthday cakes (or something to that effect).

8. Reflection – birthdays now aren’t quite as happy go lucky as they once were, of course. I take them as a chance to stop and think about where I am, what I’m doing, why the hell haven’t I lost that stupid baby weight for yet another year… Every year that passes I take stock of what I’ve done and what I want to do and it gives me a chance to center myself again, to start afresh, for new goals, new motivation, for patting myself on the back or encouraging myself to get on with it. I try to keep it positive, but thinking about where I’m at also gives me the chance to give myself a swift kick in the behind when I need it.

9. Aging – yes, every year that passes I age, I gain a few more wrinkles, I’m not quite as bendy, I’m a little creakier, but I’m also calmer, more aware. I’ve accomplished more, even if it’s just a little, every year I take a step forward. So aging isn’t all bad.

10. Celebrating – I’ve already said this, but birthdays need to be celebrated. Not just acknowledged, but actually celebrated, anticipated, with excitement, like when we were kids. My mother-in-law drives me insane, because she never celebrates anything (ok, that’s not the only reason she drives me insane…), she’s always in a bad mood on her birthday, she’s standoffish, she won’t acknowledge her anniversaries… she’s a curmudgeon. But honestly, every year that passes we have fewer and fewer birthdays ahead of us, fewer celebrations, and we are never getting them back. So I say, whip out the champagne, cut yourself a slice of cake and celebrate your birthday because nobody is going to be celebrating your death. (Or so one would hope.)

So remember… October 3rd! 😉