Watch Out It’s Messy In Here

My birthday quite often falls on Memorial Day weekend.  This happened to be one of those years.  The Ex had a reunion thing going on all weekend, so even though it was his weekend in the every other schedule, we agreed that I would take the boys.  Win win situation, he could do all of his events, I got to spend my birthday with my guys.  Then I started thinking that we should do something fun.  Go camping, or on a trip.  Celebrate Memorial Day, and ignore my birthday.  So I contacted my favorite cousin-in-law in the 'burbs of Boston to see if she would be up for some house guests the last weekend of May.  As always, she was more than willing to be our hostess. The plan was to not let them know that it was my birthday.  Threatened the boys with death, or worse, embarrassment in front of friends, if any of the Mass cousins found out.  I kind of wanted to just not have a birthday this year.  They agreed to keep my secret.  I told...

Today is my 35th birthday. I've been dreading this day for quite some time. 35 is halfway to 70, 70 is old. So I am now halfway to old. Getting old scares the crap out of me. I watched my grandmother get old and die. I don't ever want to do that. I am actually hoping to get struck down in the prime of my life. I once saw my sweet grandmother poop on the floor as she was walking across the kitchen. My mother had to give her showers, and change her diapers. I never want my sons, or their wives, to have to do that for me. And, I hope to never have to do that for either my mother or my mother-in-law. Getting old sucks. So, I refuse to give in. Today is my 35th birthday. But I am in better shape today than I was on my 34th birthday. If you had told me 1 yeas ago that I would be training for a half-iron man (70.3 miles of swimming, biking and running!) I would have laughed. I was only training for my first triathlon at that point. And even the though of doing that ...