Remember when seventy-one seemed ancient??? I remember my great-grandfather dancing a soft shoe across the back porch of grandma’s house when I was little little girl. He was my age then…still raising cattle, frequenting auctions, and tearin’ up jack on the backroads in his Chevy. But he seemed older than Methuselah. I think we are younger old people now. In general, our health is better and we’ve remained active with intellectual curiosity. We didn’t have to work as hard as our elders and it shows.

I love this picture. Grandma grabbed me and the camera in one arm and the cake in the other and ran out the front door to get a picture of me with my first birthday cake. The house didn’t have running water then. No indoor bathroom…just an outhouse on the other side of a rickety bridge that ran across the “crick.” Uncle Buddy yelled, “Bring that cake back here!” Grandma  paid him no mind…she was on a mission.

I look back now over my birthdays and I can’t really remember many of them. Mom gave me a surprise birthday party when I was thirteen. When I turned seventeen, my first boyfriend sent me roses. When I turned twenty-one, I was very pregnant and had my first child four weeks later. When I turned thirty, I was working hard putting my husband through medical school. When I turned forty, I had a child in college and a three year old. When I turned fifty, I was left on my own…trying to find my way after a tough split. When I turned sixty, I was a new widow. When I turned seventy….ahhhhh, when I turned seventy I was finally coming into my own! Happy, healthy, active…living in my home state and married to my best friend.

Yesterday was a perfectly wonderful birthday. People called and sent texts all day long. I put the pork butts in the smoker around 11:00. They should have gone in hours before that and since they didn’t, they were still in the smoker when I was writing this at 9:00 last night. That’s ok…we still had a nice meal and the pork will wait in he fridge till tonight. We did cut into my little birthday cake and I fixed some ice cream with my new Ninja Creami. After dinner, we went out and soaked in the pool. It was really hot yesterday and that pool felt great.

So, as my bestie Gail called it, National Ginny Day is over for another year. I want to thank you all for your wonderful birthday greetings. You all are the gift that keeps on giving and I am so grateful for your presence in my life!

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“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”

Numbers 6:24-26 ESV