44

i was going to write a bit of a spiel about turning 44 and the significance of this and the fact that i like being an even number and how solid a number 44 looks and what i had learned from the first half and hoped for the second half of my life.

and then i was going to write about the birthday i wished i had had (one without sick kids and driving 2 hours each way to ballarat for a meeting and not having lunch until 3 o'clock and not getting back to the city until after 6 and getting weepy in the work carpark because i couldn't work out how the security card system worked and then getting weepier at the station because i just missed the train by a bee's whisker and there wasn't another one for 15 minutes.........)

and then i thought how glad i am that i have kids to cuddle when they're sick (and at other times of course), that i have a girly who sat up last night handstitching an apron for me and who bought me the best birthday card (i'll scan it tomorrow or the next day), that i have inlaws who will drop everything to look after the sick kids for me, that i have a job that i love and really believe in, a colleague i like being with and was sad to leave behind in ballarat, that i have an ex husband who will say 'just get in a cab and i'll pay for it' (after having put off a minister or two so he can take aforementioned sick kids to the dr), again the inlaws who make me birthday dinner and buy me a fabulous birthday cake, and special family who send me cards and emails and a sister and brother inlaw who when i say i need a hug will come over with flowers and chockies, a blog to write and again kids to tuck in and say i love you.

which all adds up to i like being me - and 44 is looking pretty good. and wasn't i a cutie back in the sixties?