Birthday Memories

Week 4 in the Me before Mom series asks: How did you celebrate your birthday? Do you have a favorite celebration? Worst? From the cake to the presents to the guests, invite us in to the party.

I don't remember too many big birthdays when I was a kid, so the parties I did have really stand out in my mind. I think my favorite birthday was when I turned 6. My birthday is a few days before Halloween so we had a costume party. My mom found a prom dress at Good Will and, using her mad sewing skills, turned it into a pint sized gown. We were really into country music so I was a salon girl and my brother was a cowboy. I don't just remember the party from the photos. I have vivid memories of bits and pieces of it. We lived in a condo complex and we split up into 2 groups and went on a scavenger hunt. Then we had cake and all the girls stayed for a sleep over.

 

Ahh, the 80's and my mom's feathered hair. Good times. I loved this party. It still makes me warm and fuzzy thinking about it. My pretty costume and my first sleepover will never be forgotten.  

Of course many a birthday passed after that one. There was the birthday in 3rd grade when I got in trouble at school for lying and my party got cancelled. Fast forward to 6th grade and me and my best friend got to go to a New Kids on the Block concert as my present.

Jump 9 more years to my "Not-so-sweet 16" and you can call that my worst birthday on record. In a nut shell, I got a powder blue, '67 rag top, VW bug. I took the day off of school to get my drivers license. I went to school only for my first class, in which I had a test, and then I left. I made an off-hand comment to a teammate on the volleyball team about missing practice, which she told my coach and got me kicked off of the team. My mom had planned a surprise party so, to get me out of the house, my boyfriend and I took my new, old VW and went to dinner at the Olive Garden. On the way home my car died going up a hill and I couldn't get it started. A cop had to block traffic the other way, we pushed the car so it was going downhill and had to pop the clutch to get it going. By now, my awful day had me in tears. We manage to get home and I walk into the party. "SURPRISE" is right, the girl who got me kicked off of the team is at my party. Long story short. Suckiest birthday ever, made worse by the fact that I was a dramatic teenager.

5 years later, I turned 21 in the city where everyone should turn 21, Las Vegas! A bunch of my friends from work decided to drive up with us, so we were rolling 10 deep in the casino. I was so sassy with my burgundy bob! I can't remember how many shots I ingested, exactly, but I managed to not get sick. I wish I could say the same for my friend who puked at the Black Jack table. I was so mortified that we grabbed our chips and cashed out! I did win $250 bucks on a slot machine and was the star of a song at the NY NY dueling piano bar.

 

 

On my 26th birthday, the Red Sox broke the 86 year curse and won the World Series. My hubby is convinced I broke the curse, and who am I to argue with his logic? My 30th birthday was spent watching Coldplay live with my bestie Joelle. I have some fun plans for my 35th birthday so stay tuned! I love birthdays. I think it is like having your own holiday. It is your day, the day you came into the world. I don't think I will ever stop wanting to celebrate or at least acknowledge it, no matter how old I get! 

How comfort food got its name

Week 3 in the Me before Mom series, hosted by Carla at All of Me Now, asks the question:

What was your favorite home cooked meal as a kid? Did you help make it? How did it make you feel? Share the scents, sights, and flavors.

My mom found out she had MS when I was 8 years old. She had to go on disability when it got too difficult for her to work. I think she felt guilty about her illness and how it affected my brother and I. She was the most loving parent and, though we had very little money, she always made sure we had home cooked meals. When we celebrated, we got home baked sweet treats. When we were sad or had a particularly rough day, she would make us our favorite meal. This is probably why I associate food with comfort. It was the one thing she could control when her body would not always cooperate.

My mom put a big focus on us eating dinner as a family. Even though our family was just me, my mother, and my brother, we ate together almost every night. No eating in front of the TV, no distractions, just dinner together where we would talk about our day and things that were going on in our lives. As an adult I look back on our dinners together and am glad she didn't let us chomp mindlessly to some show. I now make that a priority in our house and the only food eaten in front of a TV is on football days!

My mom was originally from Indiana. She grew up with all-American meals and we had much of the same. I can pretty much recite our menu staples: Fried Chicken, Spaghetti with Ragu and garlic bread, Polish sausage (always dipped in a combo of ketchup and mustard) and fried potatoes, Americanized ground beef tacos, and my favorite, meatloaf with mashed potatoes and canned corn. While I try to make healthier, more diverse meals for my family, I still make that meatloaf meal. it is not some fancy multi ingredient meatloaf. It is the recipe on the back of the Lipton onion soup mix and I love it...and so do my kids. The only thing I hated about that meal was the "combo". My brother, like all little brothers, lived to torture me. I was a weirdo special and didn't like my food to touch. My brother knew this and would purposely try to gross me out by making his combos. On meatloaf night a combo would be taking his piece of wheat bread, buttering it, layering on meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn, and ketchup and making sure I knew how much he was enjoying it as he ate. Bleh. Thankfully, I have moved past my food issues because my kids make combo bites of that meal now, minus the wheat bread.

While times have changed and I have grown up, certain meals can always bring me back to my childhood. I cherish these memories and hope I am building some for my own kids.

A room of my own

This week's installment in the "Me before Mom" series asks the question, "What did your childhood bedroom look like? Give a tour. How did it change as you matured?”

I would love to say I had the same room, in the same house, for all of my childhood, but my reality was quite different. My parents divorced when I was 3 years old, so I always had 2 rooms no matter where we lived. The earliest room I can recall was the one I shared with my brother in our 2 bedroom, light pink house, with the giant stone front porch. We moved in when I was 6 and it was the first house I remember calling home. Our room had light brown, not-long-enough-to-be-called-shag-but-close-enough carpet, a bunk bed in the far left corner, a dresser on the right wall, and a window that looked out to the street, but my favorite space in the room was the closet. The closet was fairly large and all white. When you walked in, it had two rods on the left side for hanging clothes, and a built in dresser with 3 large drawers on the right. There was a small rectangular window high up toward the ceiling and a light with a pull chain. On top of the built-in was the space I would go to dream. It was a little higher than I was tall at the time and I would climb up there every day. I had pillows set up and I would sit in the closet and read or listen to "A Very Merry Unbirthday" on my fisher price record player. That spot is where I memorized my first poem for recitation (The Village Blacksmith, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which I still remember) and where I cried when, at 8 years old, my mom found out that she had Multiple Sclerosis.
 

Some other snap shots that I have in my memory of that room were: my mom singing to me and playing with my hair as I fell asleep, sleeping on the bottom bunk because I somehow managed to fall out of the top bunk...and not even wake up, and meeting my maternal grandfather for the first and last time. While I didn't exactly enjoy sharing a room with my brother, I loved our room in that house and was sad to move.

I would have to say that my favorite bedroom growing up was my room throughout high school. My mom let me have the master bedroom in our house after she got tired of my brother and me almost killing each other every day fighting over the bathroom. I had my own bathroom, mirrored closet doors, a pop-out bay window seat, and more crap under my bed than should have been humanly possible. I had moved on from my middle school obsession with The New Kids on the Block, so my posters were removed and the ridiculous neon NKOTB bedspread, that adorned my bed for 3 years, was replaced with a hunter green one with a southwest theme. I had a dream catcher hanging from my ceiling and a framed picture of a Native American girl on one wall and a wolf on the other. My favorite thing about that room was the bay window seat. We lived in the dessert and had frequent electrical storms. I could watch the lightning for hours. I guess when I reflect on my favorite rooms, the thing I liked the best was that both had a special spot to think, read, and just be me.

I had 9 bedrooms from birth to high school graduation. The first (that I can remember) and last were my favorites, and in homes I lived in the longest. I hope my children have fond memories of their bedrooms...and far fewer of them than I did.