today is my birthday. i’m another year older - and wiser. i never thought i’d get to this point, but birthdays are almost embarrassing. i don’t want people to make a fuss over me and buy me stuff. that second part might be a big fat lie. i definitely don’t want anything i won’t use - i like gifts that are practical. like a 9 pack of charmin. my dad made me an absolutely bitchin wall mirror shelf. i’ll post a picture after i paint it - it’s raw wood right now. i think i am going to paint it barn red. what color do you suggest? i also got some money. i LOVE money. who doesn’t? paul bought me a different shelf that i wanted and a vest. actually, i bought both the shelf AND the vest and gave them to him and said, “here. i bought myself birthday presents.” he said, “thank god. i didn’t know what the hell to get for you this year.”
i thought i’d go over the years since my birth and share something i remembered about that year in time. originally, i wanted to do every year, but i don’t think i’ll be able to cover each year…
1976 - i am born. my mom was in labor for like 26 hours. even in birth, i was difficult.
1977 - my little sister is born. my mom’s life is over - she now has two babies to take care of.
1979 - i am two years old, playing “football” with a can of beans. i’m running in for a sweeeeet touchdown when i fall on the can of beans, splitting my upper lip and leaving me with a permanent l-shaped scar below my nose.
1980 - sometime during this year, i learn to read. i learned to read when i was three years old.
1981 - i start kindergarten - and i’m four years old until i turn 5 in september. i was the youngest kid in the class. i met brigitte in this year, too.
1982 - my mom takes me and my sister to E.T. at the movie theater. this is a huge deal - it’s the first movie i remember seeing in a theater.
1983 - met al sometime around this time. not sure of the exact year.
1984/85 - i win the third grade spelling bee. i’m still an uber spelling nazi. >:)
1986 - i was home from school on the day the challenger blew up - it was parent-teacher conferences. we watched it take off - and then you all know what happened after that.
1987 (early) - lose the fifth grade spelling bee on the word “business.” i left out the i. oooohhh…the humanity! i’ve never ever misspelled it again.
1987 - started 6th grade at a middle school - with all new kids. when they built the new middle school, they split our town from the old middle school and we “got” to go to the new one. what a fucking rip off that turned out to be - 8 of us, and we all had to start over and make new friends. at 11/12 years old, that sucks major ass. MAJOR. i had horrible hair and glasses. i was 4′10″ tall.
1988 - i don’t really need a bra yet, but everyone else has one. so i get one.
1989 - someone decides year round school would be a kick ass idea. so now we go to school for 12 week tracks and have 3 weeks off in between. it kinda sucked, but we did get to go skiing in the middle of the week in the winter time - and that was b’dass.
1990 - by this time, i have grown about 10 inches…and i am 5′8″.
1991 - some asshole (probably the same guy who thunked up year round school) decides that freshmen don’t need to go to high school. they need to go to middle school again. so we get to go to shit ass middle school. this is the year i met paul, my husband. i try out for the softball team, i don’t make it. i try out for basketball…and i don’t make it. i try out for soccer…and i make all the cuts - except for the last one.
1992 - finally, i arrive at svhs. greatest high school in utah. or something like that. i join the debate team.
1993 - i have a love/hate relationship with school. socially, school kicks ass. homework blows. later this year, i will FINALLY BE A SENIOR. and by definition, that means i will be cool. even though i wasn’t.
1994 - yay, we graduate. i lettered in debate and in drama. good for me, right? i was in love with paul this entire year but he always had another girlfriend. and i hated her. she was INTERFERING. to be fair, i wasn’t exactly single, either.
1995 - after three quarters at the university, i earn 2 D’s and decide school sucks and that i can make more money at a “real job.” so i quit going to school. i also met my first husband this year.
1996 - got hired full time at pepperidge farm. this was a big deal. pay was bitchin and insurance was even better.
1997 - married my first husband. ugh. wish i could forget about that.
1999 - jakey is born. how i love that little boy.
2000 - we move into our home - we did lots of the work ourselves. later, this home would be lost in the divorce. sucksville.
2001 - jenna was born and i fell in love with having a daughter. i know all moms say this, but she was just so cute right when she was born - one of the cutest newborns i’ve ever seen in my life.
2002 - this was the worst year of my life. my mom got diagnosed with cancer. my marriage sucked ass. nothing was working. i decided to go back to school. i found out i had more college done than i thought, so when i started again, i was almost a junior. that was really encouraging. i met my friend denise in this year, too.
2003-2005 i don’t remember much of these years. i took a buttload of journalism classes and i made a lot of cookies at work. i drank a lot just to get by. i graduated from USU in 2005. and i started a new job - at my current company this year, too. OH - and i was re-introduced to the paulster. 2005 was AMAZING, especially if you compare it to the first few years of the 21st century…
2006 - i think that is the year we started blogging. we started out over at blogspot, and then we bought our own domain and hosting. none of us have quit our day jobs though…
2008 - paul and i got married. we moved. we are moving again soon - we just bought a house (we haven’t closed yet…but we will….). life is super great and i find myself wondering when it all might crash down… here’s to hoping it will not. 
happy birthday to ME! send PRESENTS…of the expensive type!
