This weekend because our house is one hundred years old and because we have been married for forty-five years and because we wanted to get some friends and family together, David and I had a party.

I had sent out invitations to many family members and invited my Sunday school class and my best friend from high school and her husband.  Most of them came.  We planned to have a cookout.  It rained.

Happily, David and I had made contingency plans for bad weather and had set up chairs and tables in our house and in my shop for about forty people.  Every chair was filled.  It was a great time and we had fun.  I hope everyone enjoyed the day.  I felt so blest.

Here are a few snapshots from the day

David grilled under an umbrella.

Before pictures of my shop.

This is one of my nieces. She is so sweet.

 

Ah, grandsons, you gotta love them.

Three friends from church.  Aren’t they cute?  You can just tell they are fun to be around.

 

My best friend from high school and her husband.  She was telling tales about me to my daughter sitting with her.

I met family members I had never met.  Another red-headed boy. I told him I was partial to red heads, which I am.   I could kick myself because I neglected to take pictures of those eating in the house..  I was too busy reminiscing with everyone that I forgot to take pictures.  Two of my mother’s sisters were here who I don’t see very often.  They can tell so many things about my mother that I didn’t know.  I didn’t get their pictures.  I hope someone did.

 

Anyway, David and I enjoyed ourselves immensely.  Is that a giant pimple on my head? Someone needs to pop it.

Years ago, I gave this book to a friend on her fiftieth birthday.

When I turned fifty, she gave it back to me. One day I will give it to someone else turning fifty.

I love Judith Viorst. She wrote a lot of children’s books. “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” was checked out of the library several times while my children were growing up.  There is a poem in this book that I would like to share.  My sentiments exactly.

A Sexy Old Lady

I’m intending to grow up to be a sexy old lady,

With a gleam in my eye and lace on my underpants.

Never vulgar, of course, but a  perfumed and pedicured lady

Whose passions persist long long after the age of romance.

 

I’m intending to walk around town as a sexy old lady,

The kind that no Boy Scout need hurry to help cross the street.

With a light-hearted bounce that announces now here comes a lady

Who knows all the steps to the dance and has not lost the beat.

 

I’m intending to finish my days as a sexy old lady,

Yes, spiritual too-and compassionate, wise, mature, droll.

But along with that high-minded stuff I shall still be a lady

Aware of the joys that lie just slightly south of the soul.

 

I’m intending to go to my grave as a sexy old lady,

There’ll be plenty of time for propriety after I’m dead.

So, if heaven has answered my prayers,

I expect to be found, around eighty, upstairs

With my sexy old husband nestled beside me in bed.

Thank you, Judith Viorst.

Bye.