Happy Birthday to me, part doo

Well, Neil really came through for me today! In a big way, and I wasn't expecting it or even secretly wishing for it, but he bought me a whiz-bang Bernina sewing machine/embroidery machine! I don't want to know how much it cost. He said it made him nauseous and he haggled to bring the price down.

I do know I'll use the hell out of it and I'll have it for the rest of my life until it goes in my coffin with me! Oh, wait. I plan on being cremated so I don't think steel will cremate. Either way, it's awesome.

So, so far this day has been great. I slept for the first time in a week, my baby is finally on the mend, I got this awesome present for my birthday, and we get to go out to dinner tonight while Mom stays with the boys! Yay for me.

A retrospective look back over the last 26 years...This is my momma, pregnant with me and holding my brother, Brett, and my Grandma, who would be so pissed to know this picture is on the internet. Come to think of it, mom will be too. How cute was Brett? He looks a lot like Griffin, or vicie versa... My first Christmas. Doug is holding me, or is he trying to choke me? Brett is the sweetie holding Santa's hand. No idea who Santa is.

On Home Leave in Nebraska with Grandma Clare and Grandpa Gene, probably sometime around 1973-4? The summer before I turned two? I loved them so much, I miss Grandma Clare every day. When I got my sewing machine this morning, I thought of her. I remember working in the sewing room in Peoria with mom and Grandma and laughing until we cried because I'd accidentally sewn two legs together making one stovepipe. I love the knobby knees on all of us.

My first sweet ride....you can't see it but the training wheels are still on. I was cruising, though, wasn't I? I loved that bike. I think I was three or four in this picture? Can't remember now.

Ahhh, the bowl cut. If you are a child of the seventies, you had a bowl cut. Even maybe children of the 80s had bowl cuts? And my nylon kitten shirt was one of my faves, I wore it out.

Check out the expression on Grandma's face! I must have been getting in trouble. This was during a Home Leave in Nebraska again, probably when I was six or seven, and I remember being at this barbecue. I remember because I took a hairbrush and went around and brushed everyone's hair who would let me! My aunt Susan had shiny black shoulder length hair, she got a lot of special attention that day.

And now we enter the Awkward Phase. I was 12 or 13. Could I have been skinnier? Taller? Worn shorter nylon shorts from KMart? And why did anyone let me cut my hair like that? And the glasses, were they trying to make me a social outcast?

OK, this is too upsetting. I must stop. My trip down memory lane may resume at a later date. But probably not. Who wants to see stuff like that? (motioning to the picture above this text)