I think it's time for a list

I have a birthday coming up, in October.  October is going to be crazy busy, like things every weekend, so I'm not waiting to do it on my birthday. And,  I'm not going to force you to read a list that includes one thing for every year I am old, because that would be a loooooooooooooooooooong list.  No, I won't subject you to that :)  I'll make it shorter.  But I've been feeling like it's time to make a list of things. It will be random, because I don't have a subject in mind, but here we go!

1-My college class is having it's 30th reunion in October. 30th!!! I am old.  That is weird. It also means that my high school class will be having a 35th reunion next year.  THAT is even weirder.

2-I don't feel any older than I did when I was in my 20's.  I remember (when I was in my 20's) my dad telling me that exact thing -- that he didn't feel any older inside, just his body.  I remember thinking "uhhh, yeah, suuuuuuure dad."  Now I know just what he meant.

3-When I was a little girl my dog, Princess Anne Burns, had puppies.  We named them Duchess, John John and . . . I can't remember the third ones name.  My friend Tricia and I took one of them, Duchess I think, on a bike ride with us.  We put her in the bike basket on the front of Tricia's bike. She fell out.

4-I had a purple stingray bicycle with a banana seat.  Tricia had a three speed traditional bike.  She liked riding mine and I liked riding hers.  Weird.  Mine was a one speed which I thought was lame.  My brother had a gold sting ray with a metallic banana seat and THREE SPEEDS.  Wish I still had that purple bike!  Oh, and it had a white plastic basket on the front with plastic flowers on it.

5-I walked or rode my bike to elementary school all year long -- rain, snow, etc.  I don't ever remember getting a ride.

6-I also wore pants under my skirt in the winter time.  Everyone did.  Girls had to wear dresses or skirts to school ALWAYS, no pants.  We had to take the pants off when we got to school and then we could put them back on at recess.

7-I remember when the dress code changed and we could wear pants (not jeans) to school.   I was in 6th grade.

8-My first apartment was the upstairs of a small house in Hesston.  I lived above one of the local police officers.  He had a small child and once they called and asked me to turn down my music.

9-I took a group of 8 teenagers to Mexico on a Girl Scout trip when I was a young adult.  We lost two of the girls in Mexico City.  We found them.

10-Our tour guide took us around Mexico City in two vans.  One of them was an old VW bus and the side door wouldn't close so he had to buckle it closed with a belt.  Seriously.

11-The guards at the Casa de Cambio's (the places where we exchanged our money) had big machine guns.  Well, that's what they looked like to me. They were big guns.  It freaked me totally out.

12-I was in active in 4-h when I was young and as a teenager was very involved at the county level, participating in trips to Chicago, Kansas City and Washington D.C./New York City.

13-Our county 4-h had a pageant at the county fair each summer where we sang and put on skits.  I did an Edith Ann skit (based on a Lily Tomlin character) and performed it at the State Fair too.

14-After our meetings and practices we always went to Dairy Stripe (the local version of Dairy Queen) and they would give me free ice cream cookies in my ice cream cone if I would do Edith Ann for them. I was like a local celebrity (not really).

15-When my kids were little, there were some books that I would read to them at bedtime that made me cry every time I read them.  On the Day You Were Born and Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge, to name two.

16-I like to make my Christmas gifts.  Pinterest is like a dream come true for me.

17-I also tend to be a big planner and not do so great with follow through.

18-When I was in college and right after, my family teased me about always giving unfinished Christmas gifts.

19-I have good intentions, almost always.

20-My mom used to say "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

21-Now I feel bad about having good intentions.

22-I think the majority of people in the world are good people.

23-I think it's possible for people to get along.

24-Sometimes it's really hard to get along, even with the people I love the most in the world.

25-When I was a kid, my dad made hundreds of pounds of peanut brittle every Christmas season and sold it. He was known far and wide (in central Iowa) as making the best peanut brittle.

26-I wish I'd have paid more attention to how he made it and let him teach me his method.

27-When I was 11 or 12 my family moved to the country.  Our house was on an inactive farm, but there was a barn and outbuildings.  I loved to lay on top of an abandoned hog feeder and watch the sun set.

28-I also liked to jump up and down on a fence that had fallen down across a big gulch.  I ended up falling and cutting my knee while "jumping on the fence" and had to get stitches.

29-Once I also fell off a balcony that was being built on my baby-sitters house and sprained my ankle.  I had to use crutches.

30-My babysitters son Jimmy would put me in the wagon and pull me all around their property.  He would take me out far from the house and then leave me.

I think 30 is enough, don't you?  Enough about me.  I just went with my train of thought.  Sorry if I repeated myself (I'm old, you know).