What 40 means to me..

I turn 40 today.  Turning 21 wasn’t much of a milestone for me.  Turning 29 had meaning because that was the age in which my father always implied he was when asked about his age.  Turning 35 was monumental because I was bearing children and was considered of “advanced maternal age”.  Just hearing a doctor call you that is enough to make you squirm a bit.

But, today, today I am 40.  I have many goals that I had hoped to accomplish before I tuned 40 and in most cases, I can honestly say that I did just that.  And, you know what, it is my birthday so I’m not even going to talk about the stuff left behind.  I’m moving forward…straight forward. 

Here’s some photos that remind me of the good times in my life, I’ll try to be brief with the caption as I know how I get windy some times.

This is one of the first photos of me that I can find.  I can’t seem to locate any infant photos but since I walked at 8 months of age, I think this photo probably occurred when I was in the 10 month old range.  Check out the butterball…and the bikini…

This was made in my grandparents yard.  You can see an old house in the background, that is actually the house of my uncle and it still stands.  I live about 100 yards behind that house now.

Moving right along, I find myself a little bit older and sitting on the beach… I suspect this was merely the next summer, so approximately….22 months old…

Since I’m on the road, I don’t have access to any photos in between the one above and the following photo that was made in the Spring of 1986, shortly before I graduated high school…

And, then, the rest of these are in as close of an order as I can remember, I’ll try to at least label a year on them…

I’m not sure here, 1987, or maybe 1988.

The photo I used for my resume’s when I graduated college…so 1991′ish, maybe January of 1992.

The summer after my first divorce…

My faculty photo for the first year I taught school, 1992-1993

This was in the summer of 1992

Looks like I had not completely out grown the big hair phase in 1995.

My mom and I, 1997

Teaching Pre-K in Georgia 1998

Showing my maturity 1999.

Showing my immaturity in 1999.

Boy Genius and I shortly after we met.  We rode all day..my first time ever on a motorcycle was an 8 hour ride…color me stupid.

Skipping ahead to 2002

Getting Married, 2002

2002 Maternity Photos – Pregnant with Ditto-boy

Christmas 2003

Christmas 2006

 
Christmas 2007

Vacation, September 2008

I will make one more this afternoon after I shower for posterity sake….one where I look a little better hopefully…but you know, there’s only so much you can hope for.

If you want to see the other Birthday posts, just follow the links.