Life in the Slow Lane

My big sister is 9 years older than me. When we were younger we just had the normal seperated relationship because of the age gap. But now at 30-something and 40-something, we are two peas in a pod. My life would be a bore without her. But onto way more important stuff. Big sis has decided to start down a new career path in life. For many, many years she's been in the construction world. Now it's time for the medical world! She just completed classes to be a CNA, and loved it so much she's starting classes in the summer to become a Registered Nurse! Her whole perspective on life has changed since she started these classes just a few short months ago. They've empowered her. Reminded her how book smart she is. Gave her something awesome to look forward to. I don't know if I've ever been more proud of someone other than myself. I've always looked up to her for her fashion sense, haircuts, etc., but now I look up to her for being a smart, confident, bright...

I was going to walk about my great walk this afternoon. First long walk of the year. 50 degrees here, highly unusual for March. Some years we are still getting snow in April! But then when I got back from my walk, I let the dog out of the house and parked myself on one of our rockers. And just sat. And rocked. And listened to the birds... the only noise you'll hear around here unless it's a summer weekend and some neighbors pop in. We decided to put the porch on the house last summer after thinking about it for three or four years. Even when the guys were working on it I was a bit hesitant. A lot of money, but also I didn't feel we'd get enough use out of it. I'm here to say now that I love my porch. I look forward to waking up at 5am on late spring/summer mornings and sitting out there with my coffee. I love swinging on the swing with the kids. I love watching them ride their bikes up and down the long stretch. I love staring into the woods and thinking about...

Here in Pennsylvania we have a PowerBall drawing on Wednesday and again on Saturday. I've never been one for lottery tickets, but when I started working in September, I figured I'd splurge. Then one night I dreamt numbers, and since then I've been hooked. A few tickets twice a week can't hurt, right? I saw Wednesday's numbers yesterday, and that reminded me to check my losing tickets as usual. I pulled the numbers up on my phone this morning and started reading them against my ticket. Holy crap I have the PowerBall number! That's $3 in my pocket, yea! Oh wait, I have another number....and another number....and ANOTHER number! That's when I got that feeling, you know, the heart palpatations and the thoughts of collapsing. Immediately I'm scrambling on their website to see how much I've won. $100! Sure, I could have gotten another number and bumped up to $10,000. But hey, it's $100 more than I had this morning when I woke up!!! So that f...

Tomorrow is my big day. The big 3-3. Honestly, I lost count at 30. For some reason I just don't even care how old I am, as long as I'm still in the 30s. I feel the same. I act the same. And if I can lose the last 20 pounds, I'd probably look the same. Even now I still get proofed to drink and sometimes even for lottery tickets. I have a friend that had a big list of things she'd like to do in her next year of life, but I don't really feel that I have too much to do. I'd like to continue to get myself healthy again, I'd like to continue teaching, and I'd like to continue to help my boys grow and learn. Of course there's some materialistic things I can say(new washer/dryer, car, etc), but even those don't feel all that important this year. I used to get really excited for my big day, talk about it weeks in advance, and celebrate for at least 4 days straight. But this year I feel like just sleeping right through it. Maybe today is just my birthday ...