Happy Birthday to Me!

Today I turned 45 years old.

Facebook has proven friendly on the birthday wishing. And my phone rang all day with birthday well wishers. I took my yearly birthday nap today, and hoped that the kids would give me 45 minutes time to fall asleep and then get back up, but instead they all came into my room and the girls were crawling all over me, Ravi had a model airplane that he was driving around on my bed, and at some point a sharpe part of the plane tore my completely worn out sheets, just in a little spot, but still....they are not torn. Ahhhhh.

But you know, I felt really special knowing that my kids actually wanted to hang out with me on my birthday. All three kids took a chore that I normally do and they did it for me, so they could earn $1 each. Then they asked me to take them to the dollar store to buy me gifts. I had to pay the tax too, but my kids love me and want to give me something that they picked out, that they bought. Very sweet. I try to remind the kids to make gifts for each other during holidays, but I would have had to help them make a gift for me, so dollar tree was fine.

I got a call from my dad yesterday and he offered to take me to the Hummingbird Festival about 1 1/2 hours from here. So we are going on Sunday, and hoping that the rain doesn't come till late in the afternoon. We will go early enough to enjoy the festival BEFORE the rain. My mom called me this morning asking if I would like to have a birthday dinner, so they are taking me out to a nice (and new to me) restaurant tomarrow night. Last but not least, I'm taking the kids to the fair tomarrow, for rides and so much more. They are so excited.

Other news is that my kids got H1N1 last week and were sick pretty bad at first. But I took them to the doc, got the meds for Tamiflu and they got better right away.
Lakshmi had a 104 fever and was walking around the house with a smile on her face saying, "I feel great". AFter a few hours of that, I realized that she was afraid she would miss the fair if she was sick, so I settled her down by reassuring her that she would not miss the fair because of being sick.

My small garden has almost finished for the year. I still have two tomatoes and two eggplants finishing up, and then I am going to make an end of year dish to celebrate and offer to our Lord Ganesha for thanks. I've learned more this year, and I only hope that next year nets more veggies and fruits. The fig tree was delightful this year, and I canned several jars of fig preserves, plus still have enough figs in the freezer to can maybe 6 more jars of fig preserves. I'm still hoping I will get in some more cans of tomatoes. I haven't been able to order a water bath canner, so I have been making small batches of jams, preserves and tomatoes.

That is the limit of my work this year, but the fact that I taught myself how to water bath can this year is wonderful. It means I will be able to continually do this all through the year, whenever I have anything can-able.

My mint leaves are coming back in after the heat lifted off this summer, and I am almost ready to make mint jelly. I think I will give it for gifts, as I have alot of mint.

This summer in the south was like a very warm spring, and there are predictions that we will have a very cold or severe winter. I guess this is the reason that all of my tomatoes ripened in a 10 day period recently. Talk about abundance. In otherwords, you should have seen my bun dance, putting those tomatoes to use! : )

Very good news for me this year is that I am starting out with better health than I have in years. I did have swine flu this year, but otherwise I didn't have pnuemonia, something that has been a return every year.

Also in an area that I have had problems with for the last 4 years, child support: The child support payments are now going to start rolling in with no problem. I am awaiting a court date to have all this dealt with once and for all. But at least the state is having my ex's employer take the money out of his check now. It was the one thing he begged me not to do when we divorced, because he didn't want anyone there to know I guess, but anyway, he played with me via the money too many times, and I really had no choice than to have the state handle the money from now on.

I'm happy that I have resolved alot of this so I won't have to have much contact with him. This will help the kids alot, since it was stressing them out every time we were in the same space, and this will prevent Chandra from having any reason to be near me, or hurt me again in the future.

I think I waited on the child support waiting list for 4 years. It was a long time. I applied not long after our divorce, because unfortunately he was not paying on time, being late by a few days, and as of late, he was even not depositing all the money he usually did, so things had turned so sour that I couldn't take it anymore.

So, please lift a glass of wine (or tea) for me, and many of the issues that have been resolved this year. I couldn't do it without the support of all of my friends and family.

Edited that final bit...forgot to take it out at the end.

Hugs and kisses to you!

Jyotsna