~and it's only a number~

Today I am 21,800 days old.  
Just for the record.

It's only a number, albeit a pretty hefty one in size, but it represents the days I have already been blessed with here on this earth.  I couldn't give you an exact detailed account of how I have spent them all but I have been busy. Very busy.

This is the summer of my 60th year and in the last few months of enjoying life at age 59 I have been given a whole lot of time to pause and reflect upon it all.  In August of 2014, I came up with my list of "60 things to do before I turned 60" fully intending to get them all done before the end of this year.  At present I am coming up short on having at least 50% of them done yet I intend to keep trying.  If I don't get them all done by my birthday then I hope that I got the most important of them finished.  The rest were probably never meant to be in the first place.  I just had to write them down to realize it.

Several of the remaining ones will need to be taken care of back in Kansas and since I will make  a journey back there before school begins in mid August, it will be the perfect time to do so.  I would love to make the trip over to the Harvey County West park near my old home in Burrton, KS to walk down the swinging bridge again (number 14) .  If you have never walked across one, you really need to do it once before you are gone from the earth.  When we were very little, our family lived on a farm nearby and sometimes on the weekends our dad would take us there so we could play on the playground equipment.  Looking back now, it might seem like a little thing to some people but to the 6-year old girl I used to be it meant the world.  

I hope to be able to have the chance to make another pair of pillowcases with my friend Stephanie from back home in Hutchinson while I am there (number 25).  She taught me how to make my very first pair a few days before Mike and I got married back in May of 2013.  That young woman was so patient and kind as she taught me the process of turning a couple of yards of material into a pair of pillowslips.  We had fun and laughed all the while.  At age 57, it was my first attempt ever at sewing something and when they were done I realized just how much fun I'd been missing out on all of my life.  I'll never be the accomplished seamstress that some women are but that's ok.  I know that at least I have now tried it.

They were fun to make that day and a sign to me that it is never too late to try and learn something new.  

And if I am lucky, really lucky, I will be able to cross off number 7 from that list by going power parachuting just outside the city of Hutchinson at a great spot just south of town.  I have gone twice now, the last time on the occasion of my 50th birthday and what better time than to go again but in the summertime of my 60th?  There is something so very peaceful about being up in the air like that and just about as close as the heavens that I will ever witness here on earth.  I tried it for the first time as a totally last minute idea and once I was airborne I realized just how much fun it truly is.  I'm kinda/sorta afraid of heights so go figure how something like power parachuting appeals to my sense of adventure.  

August of 2005, right before I turned 50 in "the land of where you can see forever".

I'm actually kind of looking forward to turning 60 in just a few months more and I accept each birthday that arrives for me with a grateful heart.   I embrace each passing year on behalf of all of the good folks that never made there and I give thanks.

In the very least of things, I do give thanks.