30-some years old

In the early hours of my 30-somethingish birthday,  someone may have over-indulged on my brew of choice and drank a little too much Mt. Dew with her cheap pizza tonight.   A party animal I am..

So reflection/confession time. 

Things you may not know about me:

• I HATE my birthdays.  Like really hate.   I don't know why but I am so uncomfortable with the attention and would rather the day went by unnoticed.   I think it is because having a summer birthday, most of my friends were usually at the beach and it was all the expectation of presents or 'Happy Birthday, I just miss you soooo much!' calls that never came and the downer after.  
•  I also HATE singing the 'Happy Birthday song'.  My children have been blessed to have their Daddy sing it or it would never be started and nobody would know when to blow the blasted candle out.   Thank goodness I make really, like really, good cakes.
• I have yet to see a psychiatrist for my Happy Birthday phobia.   And I'm dealing with it fine, thank you very much.
• Voted 'most changed since junior high as I went from a homely little one who was said to look like 'a little owl' and had never been given a boy's Swatch watch to wear (HUGE let-down in the day), to the Vice President of Student Council.
• Worked at Sonic as a car-hop, without the skates.   It was required I learn in 2 weeks after hiring but after falling on my tail too many times, I risked firing as I turned my white skates in with a 'no thank you note'.    Thank goodness I was hot so they let me stay on and drink free Cherry Lime-Aids to my heart's content.
• Did the beauty pageant wave in 3 home-town parades on the back of a convertible mustang.   
• Participated in 2 pageants - one of which I won (with only two competitors) and was crowned 'Miss BBQ Queen'.  The other of which had to be rigged cause I didn't even place runner-up.   Still a little bitter bout that one.
• If I show you my owl pictures and my pageant pictures you would swear I was a liar.  I can promise you that.   I was a reality make-over show before reality make-over shows came on every other hour on cable tv.
• I fell in puppy love with a jock who was my bus driver and sat behind him drooling over his shoulder every day of my sophomore year.   Shocker is that my pageant days had not yet hit and he still flirted with the little owl anyway.
• Even more a shocker was that the bus driver turned Navy Sailor would come and visit the non-skating-Sonic-carhop who was now hot on his weekends off.    
• Even more a shocker was that we got married between my Junior and Senior years of college at a party school.   Was I trying to throw away my free pass at being-an-idiot-years??

So in my last 15-17 adult years I have pretty successfully:

• married my high school crush, and stayed married to him - SCORE
• Made it through graduate school as a married student who never saw her new husband, and still stayed married to him - SCORE++
• Been pregnant and gave birth to 3 beautiful children.  Each through the magical moments of epidural deliveries.   And do not regret never doing it naturally.  Not one iota.   And my hair and make-up still looked good for after birth photos.   So there.  Another +. 
• Did my tour of duty in the public schools before starting my own business.   Loving the work I do but hating every minute of the required paperwork and labor it takes to get paid.   I think I need an epidural drip for my office chair. 
• Made three trips to Africa.  The first completely 'on my own' with a group of strangers who were to become life-long friends.  My longest (and only) plane ride prior had been approximately 45 minutes to Florida.  On my honeymoon.
• Fell in love with Africa and began the short, but turned out to be long, process to adopt our daughter from there.   And realized that natural labors are bound to be much easier than adoption pregnancies.   Why is there no option for medication in adoption labor??  oh wait, there is - it's called anti-depressants....  
• Have realized anti-depressants are not the enemy.  They help me to curb my desire to yank my eyebrows out if I have to wait too long at a stoplight during my week when Tony feels compelled to ask 'are you PMSing!!!!'   Why yes, hubs, yes I am.   Did the chocolate ring around my mouth give it away??
• Have realized that said chocolate doesn't fall off my thighs as easily in 2010's as it did in the 2000's.  Dang it.

I have also realized that I am the daughter of a King.  A fact I think I somehow missed in my early years.   I thought I was good to go to the party but really was one of the virgins stuck outside the gates with a lamp with no oil.   (Matt 25:9-11 for an explanation of the virgin reference)  

And my only regret (besides letting Dave Ramsey advise us to move our deductibles really high before a hailstorm which wrecked our cars and roof..) is that I started it all so late in the game...

How much more could I have done if my passion, or light, had been lit earlier?   How many more miracles could I have been able to witness had I opened my eyes earlier? 
How many more friends, true friends, could I have made if I had searched them out sooner?
How would my life have changed if I had let loose and given it over to HIM at a younger age?

Somehow I don't think things would be much different because one thing that it did take me 3 years in the adoption race to learn is that HIS TIMING IS PERFECT and patience is hard learned.    So I guess He has me right where he wants me and the above bullets are exactly where he wanted 'em to be...

just wondering where the next 20 years may take me.   Cause my fire is lit now, and I pray that my path will be as well. 

Happy Birthday to me... if I celebrated birthdays that is.