It’s my birth­day tomor­row. I’ll be 43. I think that num­ber sounds nice. Now that I’m solidly set­tled into my 40s, I’m com­fort­able in this sec­tion of the uphill por­tion of the old geezer moun­tain. I find myself in a place of enjoy­ing my blessings.

So my bless­ings right now:

• My word for the year is Tenac­ity — (which on a total side note…the visual for that word that keeps com­ing to my mind is a cat…I am not a cat…I’m noth­ing like a cat…cat’s actu­ally scare me…I need a new visual some­thing fierce!) — which means my con­fi­dence level is mov­ing up the chain just fine. That’s a good thing for me. No fak­ing it…just feel­ing good about Jen. The mom thing is still a lit­tle bit of a strug­gle, but that’s par for course. That’s life! If you’re not pray­ing through some­thing with your kid­dos, some­one is liv­ing a lie. Period. Grem­lin has hit his growth spurt which is amaz­ing to watch. This stage is fan­tas­tic! Every morn­ing they walk out of their room, they’re taller. Old­man started going through this at his age and we just jumped clothes sizes, ya know? The only dif­fer­ence is Grem­lin has hor­ri­ble grow­ing pains with this spurt. Thanks to Gma for let­ting us in on the mus­tard secret. Live.Saver.
• The part of this mom bless­ing that gets me really down is Gremlin’s food aller­gies. Peo­ple who blog/post about 15 min­utes meals? …I wanna punch them in the throat. There is NO such thing when you have to go all Lit­tle House on the Prairie for every meal. But…that’s just one of the those things that sucketh.
• The idea that I have a kid who will be get­ting his per­mit in less than a month makes me want to puke. Really. I’ve seen what this guys does with bikes, skate­boards, ripsticks…you name it! And now he’s sup­posed to get behind the wheel of MY car?? Dude…it hurts.
•  J and I have been mar­ried for 16 years and I feel like I just had cold feet yes­ter­day. He still asks me to marry him and have his babies. I still say no and then make out with him. It’s great fun…and the guys gag. 
• I’m excited for #43 because I’m finally feel­ing great. I’ve been using some of the prod­ucts of Plexus and dang if it doesn’t really work. I HATE pills. The idea of tak­ing pills make me grouchy, but when you wake up feel­ing incred­i­ble and not hav­ing back pain for the first time in 20 years? I can man­age the swal­low­ing of pills. *Big girl panties up and in place*
• Oh how I love my Hulk­man. He makes me smile con­stantly, but my heart breaks when I see Hulk­man have episodes of get­ting older. He doesn’t remem­ber some people…he looks con­fused some­times and that look in his eyes is hard to see. Man, I love him! I just can’t imag­ine life with­out my “twin”. The Lord is really going to have to work on my heart before He takes Hulk­man away from me.
• My folks are doing really well *knock on wood*…Mum has been can­cer free for 6 years and is still as strong as ever. Dad is still more tech-savvy than me and loves to rub it in. Noth­ing new there! Punk.
• Friends: that word has had dif­fer­ent mean­ings to me through my 43 years. I was blessed as a child/teenager to be sur­rounded by true friends. Despite the many moves, I didn’t have too much prob­lems mak­ing friends. As an adult I’ve had to learn how to be a friend and how to let oth­ers in. Now I love them. Peo­ple are incred­i­ble beings! Some­where I lost my com­pas­sion for human nature…our uniqueness…our vul­ner­a­ble souls. I would have to say the most that I got out of 2014 were the friend­ships. We are beings that need that con­nec­tion. We need to laugh with others…cry even…just BE. (Shout out to my SS class for show­ing me that again. You weird, weird people!)

So I’m 43!!! I can’t wait to go back over my posts this next year and see where else I have grown and what other bless­ings I might dis­cover. And if you’re going through this adven­ture with me…thank you. Thank you for shar­ing your life with me. I’m hum­bled and blessed.

Cheers…