When one turns, ahem, almost forty, it is advisable to freak out and fill one's birthday month with as many activities as possible. If you wish for a wild-never-a moments-rest-month, then read on!!
1. Turn almost 40. Celebrate by eating whatever you want and accepting well-intended compliments that you don't even look close to 40.
(3 and 4+4+1=39--ha ha!)
1. Turn almost 40. Celebrate by eating whatever you want and accepting well-intended compliments that you don't even look close to 40.
(3 and 4+4+1=39--ha ha!)
2. Go to your 20th high school reunion. In Parkersburg, West Virginia. Maybe even get one of your flights delayed so that you can visit extended family for a couple of hours at their new business establishments.
Then prepare yourself for all the fun of arriving to your final airport at 2am and driving for two more hours. Be certain to rent a little yellow VW bug so that when you drive around the small town of your alma mater, everyone will notice you and maybe even flag you down in your old neighborhood to suspiciously ask what you are up to. Be sure to visit with as many people as you can and drive to all your favorite establishments of your bygone teen days-- since you don't know when your next visit might ever be.
3. Walk the height of the Eiffel Tower. If Paris is unavailable, try the New River Gorge Bridge. In particular, the Bridge Walk, aka walking the entire catwalk that spans the length of the bridge, underneath the creaking, rumbling sounds of the busy highway above. Bask in the incredible, lofty views; dig the tiny pin dot of rafts taking on the white water in the river below. Be grateful your are harnessed in and therefore unable to fall off and meet an untimely death.
4. Drive the crazy back roads of West Virginia and Virginia. As the sun is going down. With a dying, then dead phone and therefore no access to your map apps (cute little yellow bug had no phone charger!) (But, some places were too remote to even pick up a signal, anyway!) Crawl in to bed at an old, historic inn, to which you will not have time to learn all about it's cool history. However, you will be able to rise the next morning and dig these old builidings.
What do me and Thomas Jefferson have in common? Besides our love and appreciation for the Declaration of Independence, we have both taken in the soothing, annually 98 degree temperatures of the naturally effervescent Jefferson Pools. The building was probably in better shape 240 years ago, but no biggie.
5. After a relaxing soak, drive further in Virginia to meet up with one of your oldest pals whom you knew in 4th grade and haven't seen for a decade. Enjoy the fact that you are still good friends; look forward to your next get together, secretly committing to yourself to not make it another decade apart.
6. Board a plane for home. Have some more fun with those flight delays. Make your husband lose three hours of sleep to come and pick you up. Hit the ground running four hours later with the demands of your six children and a brand new week which includes getting new flooring for your entire house. Which includes tile demolition. Which means dust. For weeks. But realize it is worth it to see gorgeous floors like these...
7. Celebrate your eldest child's 17th birthday--yea! And attend an IEP meeting for your special needs child--ugh.
8. Pick out coordinating outfits for 8 people. Attempt to get 8 people smiling and cooperating at the same time for family pictures.
9. Help plan and carry out a Halloween party for 22 fourteen and fifteen year-olds. Move the party indoors due to rain.
10. Purchase and assemble costumes for 8 people. Litter new floors with costume pieces and fabric scraps. Go to church's trunk-or-treat and win best family costume award.
11. Make attempts to sleep in in November ;-).