Happy Birthday to Me!

I am 36 years old today! And a wonderful day it has been for sure! For starters, I got a bright and early phone call at 6:00 a.m. from my dearest friend Mary in London! It was wonderful to hear her bright and cheery voice on the other end of the line and to share a few minutes of much needed catch up and conversation! THEN, I got treated to pumpkin lattes and pumpkin cream cheese muffins by my dear friend Angelica at Starbucks this morning! Thank you SO much for that yummy treat! THEN I went and bought.... dah tah da...RUNNING SHOES!!!! Yep...it has FINALLY been six weeks since the whole nasty little toe meets up with the hitch incident...and so I finally get to run again. HALLELUJAH!!!!!! Really...HALLELUJAH! THEN...(the treats just go on and on, don't they?!)...THEN Jim and Jackie called and took me out for a birthday lunch of yummy Mexican food (my favorite!). And now...well, now I am sitting here blogging about all of this with a great big smile on my face and a very full tummy and just a sense of total and complete satisfaction with my life. I mean...how awesome can a life be? God has been so amazingly good to me. I have been reflecting on my last 36 years and thought about all the paths my life COULD have taken and all the pits I COULD have fallen into and all the different ways my life COULD have turned out....but for the grace of God. It is awesome how He has just held my hand and walked me through these paths of life and kept my feet where they needed to be. He has blessed me again and again and again. I am living EXACTLY the life I wished for growing up and being EXACTLY who I wanted to be when I grew up. How AWESOME IS that? I never dreamed of being a corporate big shot or wildly succesful or rich or anything remotely like that. I dreamed of being a wife and a mom...a mom who got to stay home with her babies and raise them up...and I have been able to do just that. I prayed for that and was given EXACTLY that. What more could a person hope for. Never in a million years did I imagine a talent like photography...never! Yet...here it has been given to me and I am awed at how that has developed over this past year. It is just mind boggling. God is so, so, SO good to me and to my family. I am just blessed to bits this morning! And so...even though I am another year older...a few hairs grayer...a good six pounds heavier (and a very stubborn six pounds they are!)...I have never been happier in my life. I have a husband who makes me feel like the most special person in the world. I never doubt for a second how much he loves me. I have three beautiful and healthy children who are just awesome and smart and showing new and neat talents each and every day! I have a job that is so totally fun and awesome (I mean...really...what other job do you know of where precious babies just smile at you for an hour at a time?!). And I am just reveling in the countless blessings of my life on this...the first day of my 36th year on this earth. So Happy Birthday to Me! What more could a girl ask for?! Life is so, so good here in the desert!