Sperk*: birthday

Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

A Very Informal Wednesday's Woman

It’s my birthday!

I love birthdays—celebrating the anniversary of the day of my arrival onto the planet as a being no longer requiring life support from her mother’s womb. It’s an important day. It means this: I am meant to be here. And for that reason alone, I should live well, celebrate life, contemplate making it better, take action, and so on.

As a birthday present for myself, I am quitting smoking. Smoking is gross. It kills. It’s socially unacceptable, which makes me a shameful outcast. It’s a vice I use to stuff feelings and escape. It’s … well…

Heart Disease is the number one killer of women in America.

It’s Wednesday!

I thought about honoring myself for Wednesday’s Woman because it’s my birthday. My judgmental inner-coach told me that would seem very prideful and vain.

On second thought, maybe not.

Hmmm….

Today’s Wednesday’s Woman is every woman who has ever stopped smoking!

For more interesting reading, check out last week’s Wednesday’s Woman, by Anna Mahler, spotlighting Christy Turlington Burns who is a former smoker and founder of Smoking is Ugly.

Another interesting read about women and hot off the press is from Forbes: The World's 100 Most Powerful Women 2012.

I didn’t make the list. But Forbes hasn't figured out just how powerful I am. I will give them a few years.

Enjoy your day!

Wednesday's Woman is a weekly feature spotlighting women who are positive role models for our daughters and the world. . .

photo credit: ollipitkanen via photo pin cc

Monday, July 23, 2012

10 Things Birthday

My birthday has always been my favorite day of the year. Even if the day did not turn out as planned or expected, I would still walk around with this strange sort of “awe” floating around my brain. I was in awe that I was born.

Becoming a mother made birthdays even better. I loved celebrating the birth of my girls with themed parties, coordinating every detail, even the colors of the M & M’s. I spent hours finding the perfect activities, biggest balloons, and most unique party favors. It was exhausting. However, I wanted my daughters to understand just how incredible it was that they were born. I wanted them to know they should be celebrated. And all the commotion kept me from focusing on the fact that each time they had a birthday, they were a year closer to leaving home.

Getting older comes with some fears, but on my birthday, I still am in awe of being born. And every year I am a little more astonished by how deeply precious life is. I am more respectful of how swiftly time seems to pass.

My youngest daughter soon turns 12. I wanted to coordinate party favors, balloons, and decorations to the eVite she enthusiastically created on her own. Together, I wanted for us to create lovely handmade gift bags and search for the perfect items to go in them. But she wasn’t interested.

“Mom, we can just get some candy and put it in bags.”

The things I used to count on providing me with an opportunity to spend quality fun-time with the girls are changing. They are growing into young women. They are uncovering their own understanding of what it means to grow up. They are making their own decisions on how to celebrate.

Even so, there are things that when I see them, I think birthday. I think life. I think celebration. These will never change.

Today for Monday Listicles, I honor those things that, for me, have come to mean Birthday.

1. Balloons