Birthday Girls

I was the baby of my high school friend group.  We are all experiencing a monumental birthday this year. 

I remember ten years ago when we turned 60. We all had high expectations (based on direct hints to our families) on our birthday celebrations. From the friend whose husband forgot to buy concert tickets, to another friend whose daughters had an arguement and neither would go to the birthday dinner if the other was there, to my family who forgot it was my birthday, we were all a little disappointed.

In November I took the oldest of the group out to lunch to celebrate her big day.  

We toasted with Red Lobster Snowglobe Sangrias. We had a fantastic afternoon with crazy adventures and I prepared a gift bag (actually I think seven gift bags, planning for the future) of fun and beautiful gifts for women of a certain age. 

Two of my best friends celebrated their birthdays at the end of April. Luckily for me, this coincided with the monthly tea party at my new favorite restaurant! 

Unfortunately we could not all open our eyes or make a normal face or not manage to look goofy in the same photo. And we took many photos. Personally I just look weird without glasses.  I ended up splicing a photo together. 

They loved the gift bags and we had such a good time.  We actually spent a lot of our conversation time on healthcare costs and insurance issues, as well as husbands and our own healthcare issues.  We have all experienced some big health issues this year and most of all we are grateful for being able to still meet for lunch.  

I have more lunches and gift bags planned for the upcoming months. One friend has broken her shoulder and just returned to assisted living from a nursing home where she went for rehab.  I told her I have something special planned for late summer and she has to keep working hard!  

And I am looking at several plans for my own birthday celebration, lol.  At the top right now is checking into a swanky hotel on my own and ordering room service all weekend. Alternately I am thinking of a party with a 1970's theme. We shall see!

My friend Jo sent me a photo of her gift bag and gifts displayed for her family!

The Tenth Birthday

 I know I left on a cliff hanger with a table full of miniature cakes - well here is the rest of the story! 

We went with pink and yellow lemonade instead of tea.  But we did have tea cups! 

My daughter made iron transfers for them to design their aprons.

These are the sweetest bunch of ten year olds you will ever meet!

Not only are they master cake decorators, they are also master cookie icers!

I spent lots of time on the tea party foods, but our favorite was

This tray of what one of the girl's mothers called "spring rolls". She is Filipino and these were a long thin cylinder of a wrapper rolled with shredded vegetables inside and fried until very crisp. They arrived fresh and hot and tasted pretty darn close to heavenly. We all loved them!

We finished with cupcakes and rainbow ice cream. 

And then we baked mini loaves of chocolate bread! 

After all the baking, the girls wrote and performed skits featuring the birthday girl. And every parent arrived on the dot at the end of the party to retrieve their daughters. And the gramma returned home exhausted. 

The end.  

I will be back soon with the next tea party. This time for my high school friends. 

Memory Monday

 

Me at three. My parents had an Olan Mills photo plan. Gotta love those bangs.

Memory Monday

 

Me, 1961.  Age 4 1/2.  

Peeking behind me, my gramma. I think she may have sewn my dress. 

This week I am working with my soon-to-be ten year old granddaughter on a tea party scheduled with five friends for tommorow. We are in the home stretch. Today I frosted six mini three layer cakes (it is a baking theme) for them to decorate and take home and learned to make a ham and cheese tortillia rose sandwich. 

Spread cream cheese on a large flour tortillia.
Layer with ham and cut into 1" strips.
Use a glass to cut cheese circles and then cut those in half. 

Roll and secure with toothpick. 

Meanwhile. Someone had asked about my "little family". The domestic violence victim who relocated from out of state and was couch surfing with two little girls. Between four churches we pulled together a security deposit and first month's rent and she moved in. I couldn't get her out of my mind and went shopping one Saturday and outfitted her kitchen from pots and pans to silverware. 

I checked in with her a week ago Thursday and she still didn't have beds (she does have a toddler bed for the 2 year old).  My son and his wife got a new mattress and I was trying to pull together a crew with my husband who has pulled something in his back, my sons who all have different days off and work weird shifts, the old mattress, a metal bed frame and a possible twin bed on Facebook Marketplace. I gave up and ordered two metal bed frames and two inexpensive-ish mattresses from Walmart and had them delivered. My husband did ask how much more we are going to spend on them, but we are done now. 

I had a busy day in the office this week. I had a family of five, dad works on a dairy farm and his hours will pick up with the weather, mom had a serious back injury and had two surgeries and is off work. And they owed a big electric bill with a shut off as their furnace was out for a month and they were heating with space heaters. 

I had a man (and this situation happened with a lady last month) who turned 65 and switched from disability to a very minimal social security check. When your income is below a certain point, we have a state fund (I think it is through the state) which picks up the $202.90 for Medicare. He was charged the $202.90 for January and February which put him behind on electric and he had a shut off notice. 

I had a woman in her 50's with a $700 water bill. She has an unemployed daughter living with her and two grandchildren. No one is working. Another church offered to split it with us and there are children. . .  She also was ranting to me about a local business that employs migrant workers on H2-A visas. I bit my tongue from saying, well they are at work in the fields all day and aren't here with bills they can't pay. . . 

Well, back to the birthday preparations. I post my list so I can keep on track. 

The peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are cut into flower shapes. The egg salad will go on Hawaiian rolls and I put the cucumber slices inbetween paper towels over night with a little salt before putting them on bread and butter in the morning. 

The note in the middle says "1 cup oil" because my daughter needs a cup of cooking oil and this is not something she has in her kitchen. . . 

Sunday I am taking my two best friends from high school to the restaurant that has the monthly tea to celebrate their birthdays. I will be taking photos of our gorgeous food. It will be nice to have someone cook for me! 

Old Prairie Moonlight

Were you a follower of Oatmeal and Whimsey?  Gayla suffered a great personal tragedy and had not been blogging.  She is back at 

https://oldprairiemoonlight.blogspot.com/   

Be sure to check out her new quilting project! 

Spring Break

 Where have I been?  Spring Break.  

The grandkids all had spring break a different week. My daughter and daughter in-law, who are both teachers, had spring break a different week than their children.  

Here are some photographic memories. 

Road Trip

Engineering at a children's museum.

A candy store/ice cream parlor with toys and an incredible selection of sugary drinks. 

A candy and toy display. I have eight grandsons. This appeals to them. 

An educational field trip (along with four other cousins) to the Birthplace of Thomas Edison for his school report. 

On Good Friday we took six cousins out to breakfast at a local diner. They were having a good time I swear. They do not like it when Mimi takes a photo. 

 A visit to an Aviation Museum. 

Spellbound at the large collection of Tuskegee Airmen memorabilia and the narrated video by Harold H. Brown. 

Pearl Harbor diarama. 

Lunch in a 1952 diner overlooking the tarmac of a small airport. 

Watching planes land during lunch.

This was a milk shake. The table next to us ordered one first. 

A cold day at the Flea Market. 

A man on a mission.

Another diner, not as good. 

Early voting. They got "future voter" stickers. 

A visit to the police station to drop off items to Uncle Scott. 

Hanging out with grampa while Mimi volunteers in the church office. 

A trip to the egg barn. 

Car picnic at the local drive-in on a rainy afternoon. 

Three and a half hours at an indoor playland. 

And yes, they wore the same clothes for days on end. It was spring break and I pick my battles. . . 

Now we are tired. Very tired. Thank goodness everyone should be in school this Monday.