Age Is INDEED Just a Number Hodgepodge

I'm joining up with the Wednesday Hodgepodge group! Joyce comes up with the questions/prompts and we answer!

1. Tell me something you remember (or if you're not there yet, something you look forward to) about being 35. Wow . . .that is a long time ago. I wish I had some of our pictures to share but I would probably fall down into the “well” of looking at pictures and never write the post. Laura and Glenn were born when I was 28 so I guess they turned 7 that year. We were deep in the trenches of raising children.

2. Last time you 'burned the candle at both ends'? I feel like I’ve been doing that lately since I get up early to exercise and get ready to go to work and then I’m trying to study at night. On the nights Mark stays with his mom or is at the farm, I have a tendency to get up even earlier and go to be later.

3. Are you someone with the 'gift of gab'? Elaborate (which shouldn't be a problem if you answered yes teehee).  Oh my goodness, yes! I can talk to a brick wall. On Monday I was picking up take-outs for lunch and another lady, a total stranger, and I had to wait for 15 minutes. I don’t know her name, but I know so much about her! Hahaha! I’m also the person who goes through the line at a place like Walmart and the cashier tells me their life story. When I was growing up, I was a straight A student EXCEPT FOR CONDUCT. One time I received a C in Conduct with a note, “talks too much.” My daddy said, in a long, slow, drawn out, slightly raised voice, “It seems to me that someone as smart as you should be able to keep her mouth shut.” That sentence alone should tell you that I talk too much.

4. Do you request a special meal on your birthday, and if so tell us what that meal is? Do you want the same kind of cake year after year or will any flavor work? Do you want cake at all? Growing up were birthdays a big deal in your house? Are they a big deal now? My birthday is next week, and I have requested fruit rather than a cake. Last year, I had two watermelon cakes!! When my mother-in-law, who is almost 98, was still able to cook Sunday lunch (which is when we celebrate all family birthdays), I used to ask for either Leg of Lamb (then it got too expensive) or roast beef and a German Chocolate Cake. These days I don’t eat cake anymore. I think we might have roast beef for Sunday lunch soon to celebrate. I only had one party that I remember when I was growing up and it was a Sweet Sixteen party and it was the year after my mom died and some family friends did a surprise party for me. We used to have birthday cake and a few presents, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. I tried to make birthdays special for our kids. We hosted lots of birthday parties over the years. I’ve shared this before but my mom died right after her 50^th birthday. I feel like every day since my 50^th (we had a HUGE party for my 50^th) is a gift.

This is one of our German Chocolate
Cakes - I made it several years ago.
We use my mother-in-law's recipe and
it is THE BEST German Chocolate
Cake!

5. 'Age is just a number.'..agree or disagree? Tell us why. I do agree that age is just a number. I will be 65 next week and I don’t feel a day older than 50. I work with a lot of younger folks and sometimes I forget that I’m not their age.

6. Insert your own random thought here. I love the length of the days right now. We get up at 5:00 and it is almost daylight at that time. It doesn’t get dark until around 8:00 p.m. I love it!