Forty or Fifty

Well, here on my 40th birthday, I bet you're expecting some funny little blog post about everything I've learned during my tenure here on this fine planet.  Unfortunately, this is ME you're reading, so you had to know that basically:

I GOT NOTHING.

I've lived 40 years and done a fairly decent job, I'd say.  I've got a great husband, a couple of awesome kids, and an incredible group of parents, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins and in-laws.  I have some terrific friends, most of whom are far away now, but I know I'll always have them in my life.  I've got this dog, which the jury is still out on, but she's not nearly Cherin's Charlie, so I won't complain.  (Hi Cherin!)

I don't think there's much I've done that would come back to haunt me if I chose to run for public office, and even if there is, we didn't have the technology in those days to document it for all time.  Thank God for that.  But I'm not a hugely political person, so running for office isn't a life goal of mine anyway. 

I've been on television once, during the high school teacher strike my freshman year of high school.  I've written 2 letters to the editor of the newspapers in Virginia Beach and in Kalamazoo.  I don't like to speak in front of groups of people.  I don't like crowds and loud places, so I haven't been to a concert since my sophomore year in high school.  I can't parallel park, so I don't even try. 

I hate consultants.  :)

I love crab legs and chimichangas.  Not together, because that would be weird.  And I don't guacamole on my crab legs.  I love strawberry milkshakes.  I read a lot.  Stephen King is my favorite, but I also like Dean Koontz, Jodi Piccoult, Stephenie Meyers, Suzanne Brockmann.  I watch Law & Order: SVU, Big Bang Theory, Fringe, Two and a Half Men.  I don't scrapbook or cross stitch as much as I'd like to.  I drive a minivan, and I like it.   I had a little Toyota truck for years and I liked that too.

I've lived in Rolling Meadows, IL, Cedar Rapids, IA, McHenry, IL, Virginia Beach, VA, Suffolk, VA, Kalamazoo, MI and now Utah.  I've liked them all.  Every place has its good things and its bad things.  It's always the people I meet that make it worth being there.   

I make lists, lots of lists.  Every day has a list of things to do.  I never get them all done, but it helps me remember what I want to do.  I put stuff on my list I know will never get done, like scrapbooking.  I also put easy stuff on my list just so I can cross it off.  Once everything on my list is done, I guess I am too.  Luckily, dusting will always be on my list so I might live forever.

I am 40 today, at least that's what it says on my birth certificate and BOTH of my parents mentioned it when they called.  (I don't know why they thought it was so funny - if I'm 40, how old does that make them?) But most of the time, I don't think I know any more than I knew at 14.  I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. 

Maybe when I'm 50.