Birth-month Celebrations 2013

Little girl me.

It’s June. Yay! Time for my birthmonth celebration. And it's a milestone year. I'm turning 40!

For the past couple of years, I have celebrated my birthday for the whole month. Some might think it takes a strong dose of narcissism to celebrate for the whole month, but I assure you I’m not celebrating out of vanity.

I started celebrating my birthday for the whole month because I realized I put myself last the rest of the year. I focused on the needs of everyone else in my life and didn’t really pay attention to my needs. I think women, particularly moms, are prone to this. We’ll do for our family before we do for ourselves. And when we do something nice for ourselves, we end up feeling guilty about it.

Celebrating my birthday for the whole month takes the guilt of splurging on myself. And because I look for free or inexpensive ways to celebrate, it’s not a big drain on my budget. Even when I’m celebrating my birthday, I’m a cheap date.

Each year, I look for events that appeal to one of my passions or likes. My list is pretty short. I want to do something:

• Spiritual
• Musical/Arts/Writing (normally a dance production or a book fair)
• Knitting related
• Jane Austen related



Almost 40 year old me

• Something my family will enjoy doing with me

So here is my schedule so far (subject to change as I find more events):

Knit in Public Day. June 8. This is always an enjoyable event. What’s not fun about knitting in public (although I do this more than just this day). My LYS is hosting an event in Old Town Alexandria. I hope to remember my lawn chair this time.

Air Force Band Concerts. Every Thursday in June. I’m not going to them all, but I hope to at least catch the one at the Air Force Memorial. There’s also one featuring the Singing Sergeants on Fort Myers. Need my lawn chair for this one, too.

Folklife Festival. June 26-July 7. This is my go-to family event. The presentations and exhibits are great because they’re not just some speaking. There is dancing lessons, musical performances and exhibits. I’m looking forward to the Dare to Adorn exhibit, which is a historical treatment of African American fashion. Plus, it’s always great to be down on the National Mall. If I get tired of the festival (which I won’t), I can always hit the National Museum of Art.

Writing a Draft of My Next Novel. The Whole Month. My writing activity this month is to write a draft of Love Simplified 2 (unofficial title). What better way to celebrate my birthday than to do what I love.

As I attend each event, I’ll be featuring reviews and pictures on my Facebook page.

Happy birthday to me!

My Life in Stitches: Yarnie Birthday Wishlist

My birthday is coming. This year, I will be hitting a milestone year, 40, and I think that deserves a big celebration. As usual, I'm planning to celebrate the whole month, because, quite frankly, I'm too fabulous to be restricted to one day. My birth-month celebration usually includes a series of small outing/events each weekend of the month.

As I was thinking about what I wanted to include in my plans, I realized that my friends and family would soon be trolling for gift ideas for me. That's always the hard part for me. I am a simple girl. I don't want a bunch of stuff and everything I want I already have plenty of (read: yarn, books and shoes). But there are some things I do want. So here is my Yarnie Birthday Wishlist.

• Karbonz Interchangeable Needles by Knitters Pride. Oh, boy have I been drooling over these for a while. They are a perfect median between nickel and wood needles. Not too smooth and not to slick. And they're very light! Like, like, like.
• A new yarn swift...or new spokes. I have a Chiagoo Amish style yarn swift. It works fine...except the spokes no longer stay in the the groves. I'm tired of screaming when I wind yarn and the spokes come flying off. So if I could get my hands on new spokes, that would be great because I actually like this style swift. If not, I would love another.
• Dragonfly Fibers Fiber, fingering weight yarn, Peach Melba colorway. This is the one thing that
  
  shouldn't be on this list. I'm still trying to maintain my yarn fast even though my husband has bought me yarn twice. But this little beauty has been tempting my heart but a lady in my knitter group just made something with it and I was sad I hadn't gotten when I could (LYS sold out). I thought I'd never have the pleasure of knitting with it but I just discovered the company does custom orders, so there is hope for me yet. 

A Sick Perspective

Sometimes getting sick is a good thing. Not the feel horrible part, but the part where we have to take time and recover. That’s hard to accept that but it’s true. Beyond whatever symptoms you have, I think we are equally annoyed at the the fact that our schedule comes to a screaming halt. We lie in bed and think about all the things we should be doing. Most would do anything, try any remedy to get better and back to our “normal” lives when the sad truth is we need the interruption.

Last week I had a nasty virus. Viral syndrome, my doctor called it, which is just a cryptic way to say that a virus has infected more than one system in your body. Mine was respiratory infection with a side of a stomach bug. For the first two days, I didn’t know my name or what day it was. A fever of 101.6 will do that for you.

But as I started to recover, my mind started working. I found myself thinking about all things I wished I could be doing that I couldn’t. I wanted to be singing at my church’s women’s conference, but I couldn’t. I wanted to be writing but I couldn’t sit up in bed for more than a few minutes at a time before breaking into long, painful coughing fits. I wanted to be knitting, but I couldn’t.

Then my thoughts started to expand. I started thinking about other things I wanted to do but wasn’t brave enough or didn’t have enough time to do. Laying in bed unable to do anything made it really clear what I wanted to do. It also made me wonder why I wasn’t doing it when I was healthy. To think about what was really holding me back. I prayed, “Lord, when I get better, I’m going to do the things you’ve put in my heart to do.”

Talk about clarity. I realized that all the things I delayed in doing was for stupid reasons and I should just go for it. I realized that if God put it in my heart to do, He’d help me do it. Unfortunately, I had to be completely shut down to see how much I could actually do.

 It was like I was Sleeping Beauty waking up from the spell. I needed to be removed from my “normal” life to see it in a different perspective. And now I’m thinking up a master plan, but it took me getting sick to see clearly.