They say it's your birthday!

As most of you know who read my blog or see me on Facebook, today's my birthday. It's really such a non-event to me. When you get past a certain age, it's not so much fun. Then again, I have to think of my friend Kim. She passed away yesterday after a 13 month battle with cancer. She would not have minded having many, many more birthdays. Being alive would have outweighed growing older. I can't believe she's gone. I'm very fortunate to be mostly healthy and mostly happy and mostly optimistic and mostly energetic. As long as I'm mostly counting my blessings, I'm mostly very fortunate.

The trip from Smithfield, NC to North Myrtle Beach, SC was easy. We were on 1-95 for about 40 miles. The rest of the trip was on secondary roads, and scenic. I love scenic. Lots of old barns. Mobile homes. Lots of pine trees. I Googled NC pine trees and found that they're the state tree, generally. I especially like the Longleaf Pines, and tried to find a place to pull over so I could pull out a sapling. I'd love to have one growing in my back yard. No luck. The link has some really fascinating information, if you're into nature. I'm into nature. We went through Tar Heel, NC. It's a tiny little town with a famous name. The trip was about 3 hours, and we ended by hanging out at a Starbucks while waiting for check-in. The management was nice enough to let us into our condo hours early. My sister Ilene and her son and his friend arrived at the same time! We worked hard and unpacked and settled in. The kids settled in without unpacking. Go figure.

There was a full moon over the ocean last night. It was beautiful.

My sister and I went to a Walmart Supercenter and did all the grocery shopping this morning. I came home to find many birthday wishes on Facebook. Birthday notifications is a nice FB feature. Emily gave me my gift a few days ago: a beautiful necklace with a hummingbird charm. Rob sent me flowers. Ilene gave me a birthday mug and a box of Jelly Bellys. All great, thoughtful gifts. My parents gave me money. So far I've bought my iPhone case with it.

We spent a few hours on the beach today. Emily and Phil took a long, long walk and came back with a dead stingray. It was bleeding. Kind of like a cat bringing back a newly-killed bird. Yuck.

Jonathan and his friend walked to the fancy resort down the beach and enjoyed the lazy river and many fancy pools. I've done that before and might do it again while we're here. The weather was nice for a few hours today, then the thunder started grumbling. We decided to move to the balcony, and hours later, we're still here. It's been drizzling. People are still out. In the ocean. Outdoor pools. Playing Frisbee and soccer. I dropped the kids off at Barefoot Landing. I took my mom's advice and am 'celebrating' my birthday with a glass of Arbor Mist 'wine'.

It's pouring now. Thundering and lightning. I'm still on the balcony. I think I'll close for now and shower. I'm sticky and salty and my hair feels like straw.