Whatever's meant to be will work out perfectly...

So I went to Google looking for the Olympic thing:

But instead, I found this:

Google said Happy Birthday to me!

I know that Google is telling me Happy Birthday because I'm logged in somewhere or other...but it's a little, um, freaky... The machines are poised to take over. We are almost in the land of Terminator and The Matrix, I know it. The other day, I went to send an email at work, and my computer very helpfully told me I forgot to attach my spreadsheet.

They are alive.

So, for my birthday tonight we went out to eat, and my birthday party is on Sunday; tomorrow night Dwayne is making me dinner, because he's perfect and wonderful. He is in pretty bad shape now, and pretty confined to the wheelchair and in very low spirits. He is in constant pain, yet apologizing to me because he can't help. 

Doesn't he know he's my hero?

I have much to say, but not the will...my headache has been hanging on for a good long while this time around. At this point, who cares? Migraines are just a given...like the SNOW, and the COLD; and never going away!

Ahem.

Still celebrating my tenth anniversary of blogging, here's a birthday throwback...

Sunday, February 6, 2005:

Before I left for Germany, when I was ten years old, my family had an early birthday party for my brother and me…who knew when we would be home again? My grandmother decorated a huge cake, with one side of it with Smurfs (for me J ), and the other side of it with a UK wildcat (for my brother)…

We got lots and lots of presents that day. One of my presents was a tape recorder…one of those huge black and silver things… On that day, with my family all together for the last time in what would be years, I made all of them speak into the recorder and record a special message for me.

I took that tape with their special message with me to Germany, where I kept it for all three years I was there, and whenever I was desperately homesick for my family I would play it…

The message was simple: It was my mom, my brother, my grandma, my grandpa, my aunt, my great-aunt…everybody recorded the same thing… 

"I love you, Michelle…"
"I love you, Michelle…"
"I love you, Michelle…"

I no longer have the tape, but I can still hear it, in my head…

Today, my family had an early birthday party for me (my birthday is actually Monday)…They called me into the kitchen, and I walked in to the crowd of people, my mom, my grandparents, my brother and sister-in-law and nephew, my daughter, my aunts, my boyfriend…

I knelt down to blow out the candles on my cake…

And I realized that all the people that had left me the messages on my tape so long ago were still right here…

I nearly cried as I realized how blessed I was, that over twenty years later, I’m still a member of this wonderful, sometimes maddening, always loving family,

And they were able to tell me again, today, that they loved me…

Instead of a wish for something I didn’t have, this year, before blowing out the candles, I just thanked God…for everything.