Thirty, Flirty, and Thriving

30. I have been dreading this number for some time. Three decades have come and gone and now I am thirty. I reckon, (I can say words like that now) that it's really not that old in the grand scheme of things... but it sure feels old.

My actual birthday pretty much stunk... I was up all night with sick, puking, coughing kids on the eve of my birthday. The morning of my birthday, I woke up, only to find myself desperately under slept, cranky, and also sick. We were visiting family and friends in Arizona, so I put on my happy face and just tried to survive the day. Ryan had an important assignment that was due that night and he ended up working on it a lot longer than he planned... pretty much all day. The best gift of the day came around 11pm when I downed a couple NyQuil and finally got to go to bed... on an air mattress. I am not huge on birthdays, so it really wasn't a big deal... but it didn't go down as one of my favorite days.

This last weekend, my friends announced a three day belated celebration for my birthday. I don't like to be the center of attention, so I was a little embarrassed. Each day, for three days, they were going to present me with ten gifts. First thing each morning I opened ten gifts... some fun, some silly, some sentimental, all meaningful. One of the gifts each day was a letter from my hubby describing a decade of my life. The letters were so sweet and funny and usually brought me to tears.

I felt so loved and so very, very blessed... to be surrounded by such wonderful people. After tucking my kids into bed tonight it hit me how good life is. It is chaotic, we don't see as much of Ryan as we would like to, and all to often I feel like I am coasting in survival mode. But I am happy. There is so much love in my life and joy comes in little unexpected ways. I think thirty will be good.