We had such a great visit with our kids last week! We managed to do plenty of visiting and relaxing but also did some fun vacation stuff like going to the beach and going to a Rox game. We ended the week with a cook out to celebrate Dale’s birthday and it was an awesome party, if I do say so myself.

We even fit in a family photo shoot.

I got shots of Dale with his kids.

Dale with his grandkids.

And even Dale and I with the kids and grandkids.

Like any vacation, it was over all too fast. Good thing we have long memories to go with those photos.

A post written by my husband, Dale . . .

A few years have come and gone since last I was a guest blogger at Carole Knits.  The occasion then, as it is now, was to give Carole a day off and wish her a very happy birthday.  So here we are again on September 21st to do just that.

We have many ways of marking a year for different purposes.  We have the calendar year, the fiscal year, and the school year.  We can mark a year by the four seasons or the moons or a blogaversary.  All of these methods are, one way or another, shared by all.

There is one yearly measurement, however, that is yours and yours alone.  I think of it as the “birthday year” and it’s a very personal way of marking the passage of time.  Just like a calendar year, it’s a time to celebrate, a time to reflect, and a time to look forward.

Carole, I do hope that this past year was everything you hoped it would be and as years go, in your personal collection, I hope it was right up there with the best of them!  No need to recap the year’s ups and downs, adventures and accomplishments, that’s the beauty of your blog’s archives.  But now it’s time to think about your upcoming year.  I wish for you a year of love, happiness and fulfillment.  A year from now I hope you can say that this was the best year yet.

And since I do read this blog, and I even sometimes pay attention, I want to start this birthday year off right, and do something special for you.  So I’ve written you a poem.

Ode to Carole

When you asked if I would be a guest on today’s blog

I will admit that my mind was locked in a fog

Words don’t come as easy to me as they do to you

And I’m in awe of your talent, I hope you know that’s true

So here’s a wish for your birthday in my simple and humble way

And if the rhymes aren’t terrific, I hope that will be okay

I just wanted to let you know I’m glad that you’re my wife

And I wanted to thank you for sharing with me another year in your life

Happy Birthday, darling.

Well thanks for reading this.  I do hope that all of Carole’s friends will join me in wishing her  a very happy birthday.  And please join me next year at this time when I’ll attempt to be a guest knitter.

Okay, only kidding about that last part.

Please indulge me as I begin with a little song . . .

Well she was just seventeen
You know what I mean
And the way she looked
Was way beyond compare
So how could I dance with another
Ooh, when I saw her standing there

Yesterday was my daughter Hannah’s first day of her senior year of high school.  And today is her 17th birthday.  Could someone please explain to me how we got here so quickly?  It seems like it’s only been a year or two since I delivered a healthy 8 lb 5 oz baby girl at 9:08 am on September 3, 1992.  Really, it can’t have been 17 years.

And yet then I stop and look at the beautiful young woman in these photos and I realize that this didn’t happen over night.  It has taken years of caring and nurturing and loving to get us to this day.  There has been yelling and crying and negotiating and laughing.  Lots and lots of laughing.

I can’t help but feel like turning seventeen and becoming a senior in high school is a bit of a turning point.  And this point – this particular point – is one of the last ones I’ll have before I really have to start letting go.  I’m not quite ready yet, though, and I intend to savor every last moment of her seventeenth year.

Happy Birthday, Hannah.  I’m so proud to be your mom.

Thanks again for the kind birthday wishes and all the supportive and thoughtful comments you left yesterday.  I’m all verklempt, I tell you.  But enough about that, let’s talk about my birthday presents.  Specifically, my birthday presents from my two nearest and dearest friends, Lois and Sharon.  The reason these presents are so special?  They made them.  Yup.  They made me stuff.

My present from Lois was this fabulous quilted topper for my kitchen table.  She actually made it and gave it to me this past summer when I got new dishes.  It matches the dishes perfectly and really looks beautiful on the table.

My present from Sharon was this awesome hand knit scarf.  It’s the Oh, Canada pattern, downsized to one repeat, and the yarn is Judy’s sock yarn.  It’s beautiful and I love the fact that Sharon took the time to knit it for me.

Aren’t those the best presents ever?  Sometimes we don’t feel appreciated when we give someone a hand made gift but in this case Lois and Sharon know that I adore these gifts and I adore them, too.  Good friends who give good presents definitely make for good birthdays!

Thank you all very much for the birthday wishes.  I appreciate them so much and they really made me feel special.   But the thing is, birthdays aren’t easy for me.  It’s not turning a year older or feeling like time is going too fast or anything like that.  It’s that I really miss my mom on my birthday.  She’s the one who would make me my favorite dinner, know just the right present to buy and bake me a red velvet cake because I loved red velvet cake.  Let’s face it, she’s the only other one who was there on that day – it was sort of her birthday, too.  She got what my birthday meant.

And the truth is that no one will ever make me feel as special as my mom did on my birthday.  So, when my day rolls around I tend to get kind of emotional and sort of needy and mostly hard to please.  Ask Dale and he’ll tell you all about it.  Ahem.

I did some things this time to honor my mom, though, and I feel pretty good about that.  Saturday night we had friends over for dinner and I the same dinner that my mom used to make for me on my birthday.  We had roast chicken and stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, Brussels sprouts and acorn squash.  I baked a pumpkin pie for dessert because its my favorite kind of pie.  It was a lot of work but I enjoyed every minute of it because I felt like I was honoring my mom and doing something special for my friends (and me) all at the same time.  It took some of the sting out of the day.

On Sunday, my actual birthday, Dale and I went to the beach.  I sat and knitted, listening to the waves and enjoying the warmth of the sun.  I thought about how much I love the beach and how I got that love of the beach from my mom.  After we left the beach Dale and I had a wonderful dinner in Plymouth and I thought about the times that my parents took me out for my birthday.  I was just a little girl and they would always secretly tell the waitress it was my birthday and after dinner she would bring over a cake.  I was taught, from about the age of 4, that I should pick out another couple in the restaurant and I should share my cake with them.  I loved looking around the restaurant during dinner and contemplating which couple would get part of my cake.  I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that I can still some see of the faces of those people all these years later.  It was a really special thing for my parents to teach me and I’m grateful for those lessons.  I hadn’t thought about it in a long time and I’m really glad those memories came back to me yesterday.

I still miss my mom and I still wish she (and her red velvet cake) could be with me on my birthday.  I’m still learning – even after 11 birthdays without her – to live with the loss, to enjoy the memories, and to not expect anyone else to be able to take her place.

Looking back, moving forward, finding peace.  I guess that’s what life is all about.

Last Friday afternoon my kitchen counters looked like this:

And the bureau in the mudroom looked like this:

And my backyard looked like this:

I bet you’d like to know why my counters were covered with hamburger, lettuce and chicken wings. And why the mudroom was loaded with taco shells and flour tortillas. And probably you’d especially like to know why we had one of our Civil War canopies set up in the backyard, all decorated with Mexican blankets and chili pepper lights and other Southwestern type stuff.

Well, I’ll tell you why. It was all in preparation for my daughter Hannah’s Sweet Sixteen Party. Here she is, the little darlin’!

One of Hannah’s favorite things is tacos so we decided to have a taco bar for the main food at her birthday party. And once we’d decided that, well, we just sort of ran with it as a theme. It was fun to come up with the decorations and food ideas and the tacos were a really big hit with the kids – and adults, too, frankly.

We hired a DJ and the kids enjoyed the music and some karaoke, too, including a pretty funny rendition of “Hot, Hot, Hot” from Hannah’s friends and a very sweet rendition of “Sixteen Candles” from Hannah’s dad, aka Dale.

And now here we are today – Hannah’s actual 16th birthday – and I’m wondering where the hell the time has gone. Really, I blinked and now here she is, a junior in high school, itching to drive a car, get a job and go to college. And all the while I just want to stop time and make her my little girl again. Sniff.

Won’t you all join Dale and I and wish her a very happy sweet sixteen? Thanks! And pass the Kleenex.

The start of the Summer of Socks inspired me to finish the Heads Up socks last Sunday. I was going to show them to you a few days ago but saved them for today for a very special reason – which I’ll explain shortly.

As you may recall, the yarn was dyed by Scout after being inspired by Dale’s flagpole accident of last March. The colors are really wonderful and the bright yellow adds a great off-beat touch. One of the reddish browns reminded me of dried blood but I tried not to dwell on that too much.

Okay, so the reason I saved this post for today is because it’s Dale’s birthday. I don’t want to get all sappy (because yesterday’s post was sappy enough) but I can’t help but thinking that my husband came very close to not being around to celebrate this birthday. That accident shook both of us to the core and I look at these socks as a reminder of the frailty and uncertainty of life. It’s a big job for a pair of socks but I think they’re up to the challenge.

So with all of that in mind I took this photo. Dale is holding my Heads Up clad feet in this hands, symbolic of the fact that he holds my heart in his hands every day. I’m so blessed to have him for a husband. He’s kind and funny and dependable. He drives me crazy sometimes but the truth is that he’s absolutely perfect for me.

Won’t you all join me and wish him a happy birthday?

You knew it would be a mountain, right? I do love me a mountain. And, while my birthday posts in the past have been of a more personal nature, this one suits me just fine, too.

Happy birthday to me, Happy weekend to you.

Hannah was thrilled with all your birthday wishes yesterday. Thank you all so much for taking the time to leave comments, offer advice and extend a happy birthday to my girl. It means a lot to both of us.

And you know, your comments were truly just the tip of the iceberg for making Hannah’s birthday a happy one. You see, it has become a family tradition to receive hand knit socks and yesterday I gifted Hannah with these new ones.

The yarn is Claudia’s Handpaint and yes, they are from two different dye lots. That’s a long boring story and I’m not going into it here but it was totally my fault.

I actually thought they’d look a lot different than they do – one is clearly darker than the other. But Hannah says she doesn’t mind and I hope she wears them well.

There was one other thing that really made Hannah’s day. Tori Amos tickets. Hannah had asked me quite some time ago if she and Jessica (my stepdaughter) could go to this concert together. I told her no and said I didn’t think it would be good for she and Jess to go into Boston on their own. Man alive was she mad at me! She complained to Jess and Dale and her friends. It went on for days and it wasn’t pretty.

Secretly, though, I had planned all along to get her these tickets. And while I still don’t think it’s a good idea to send my two daughters into the city alone, I’m planning on remedying that by going in with them. Dale and I will drop them at the show and then go have dinner and hang out and pick them up afterwards. Simple solution.

And a fabulous surprise.

This is Hannah at age 15. New haircut, new glasses, new school clothes.

You know what’s not new? Her sweetness, her friendliness, her gullibility, her sense of humor and her love for her family. Her personality hasn’t changed much over the years and I’m quite glad about that.

Won’t you all join me in wishing my baby a happy birthday? Thanks!