It's really just hitting me now

[dimmzy]

First, CONGRATULATIONS!!

Second, you are LOVED! That in itself is an accomplishment.

Third, I think 40 is actually the toughest birthday. When I turned 40, a sage told me, the 40s are a tough time of transition. Fun begins at 50! I found that to be true.

I hope you have fabulous ways to celebrate! If not, call me! I can round up a bored party in no time!!

Also, in a small way you changed my life. You generously shared with me (and the bored) your Kraft contest last winter and got me into contests (I just won $50 from AT&T yesterday!) Even better, I got a friend of mine into them too. This friend always thought she was unlucky and thanks to YOU, she has won FOUR contests and, I swear, it's changed her outlook on life a little bit! So, you never know how you have influenced others!!

You have a wonderful life, JBillygirl.

PS -- Isn't there a Kiwi named Jackson down in New Zealand, thanks to you? : )

[ulysses5019]

I can't believe I'm turning 40 at the end of this week. Usually I wouldn't announce something like that ahead of time, but this is a pretty big milestone, and I'm kinda freaking out a bit. I'm looking at my life right now, and I'm not satisfied with where I am. My God, I'm almost over the hill, and what have I made of myself? It doesn't feel like much. Sigh. End of self-pity session, I gotta think positive now somehow. Thanks for listening.

I had not even written my first full-length play by the time I turned 40. And believe me: I just turned 54 and do not feel in the least 'over the hill.' It will pass.

Frank

Sure it'll pass......and then you're on your way to 50.

[Rexer25]

This is what'll hit you hard. My baby girl Molly had her 7th birthday on Saturday. Annie and I announced her birth on Molly's first day, on whatever form of the bored was current then. 7. kinda freaks me out.

[gsabc]

This is what'll hit you hard. My baby girl Molly had her 7th birthday on Saturday. Annie and I announced her birth on Molly's first day, on whatever form of the bored was current then. 7. kinda freaks me out.

You think you're freaked out now?? Wait until she gets married and leaves the house.

[Rexer25]

This is what'll hit you hard. My baby girl Molly had her 7th birthday on Saturday. Annie and I announced her birth on Molly's first day, on whatever form of the bored was current then. 7. kinda freaks me out.

You think you're freaked out now?? Wait until she gets married and leaves the house.

I'm getting the freakouts in early. With 2 daughters about a year and a half apart in age, I can't afford freakouts when I'll really need them.

[Spock]

I will tell you what I tell all my friends when they turn(ed) 40.

Just remember on the day after your birthday-you will be closer in time to age 60 then you are to age 20. I hope this helps.

[ulysses5019]

40? Strike up the band! I've got 3,000 posts! The same as my Sploofus ranking this month!

[Catfish]

Having been 40 for 16 years now, I can testify that 40 has been the best year of my life. Have a wonderful birthday, Jess. You are fabulous.
Love,

[Snaxx]

40? Strike up the band! I've got 3,000 posts! The same as my Sploofus ranking this month!

Cool, and they can use their musical instruments on Idol nowadays!




.

[ulysses5019]

40? Strike up the band! I've got 3,000 posts! The same as my Sploofus ranking this month!

Cool, and they can use their musical instruments on Idol nowadays!




.

Squirrels can now be on Idol? how old do they have to be?

[ulysses5019]

Some people get Nigerian spam. I get You're getting older spam.

'Hey Dad' asked one of my kids asked the other day, 'What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?

' 'We didn't have fast food when I was growing up,' I
informed him. 'All the food was slow.'

'C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat ?'

'It was a place called 'at home,'' I explained.
'Grandma cooked every day and when Grandpa got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.'

By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he
was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table. But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it:

Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore Levis, set
foot on a golf course, traveled out of the country or had a credit card. In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears AND Roebuck. Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died.

My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow). We didn't have a television in our house until I was 11, but my grandparents had one before that. It was, of course, black and white, but they bought a piece of colored plastic to cover the screen. The top third was blue, like the sky, and the bottom third was green, like grass. The middle
third was red. It was perfect for programs that had scenes of fire trucks riding across someone's lawn on a sunny day. Some people had a lens taped to the front of the TV to make the picture look larger.

I was 13 before I tasted my first pizza, it was called 'pizza
pie.' When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It's still the best pizza I ever had.

We didn't have a car until I was 15. Before that, the only
car in our family was my grandfather's Ford. He called it a
'machine.'

I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the
house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line.

Pizzas were not delivered to our home. But milk was.

All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered
newspapers. I delivered a newspaper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which I got to keep 2 cents. I had to get up at 4 AM every morning.. On Saturday, I had to collect the 42 cents from my customers. My favorite customers were the ones who gave me 50 cents and told me to keep the change. My least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day.

Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did
in the movies. Touching someone else's tongue with yours was called French kissing and they didn't do that in movies. I don't know what they did in French movies. French movies were dirty and we weren't allowed to see them.

If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food,
you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren.. Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing.

Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it?


MEMORIES from a friend:

My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother's house (she died in
December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to 'sprinkle' clothes with because we didn't have steam irons. Man, I am old.

How many do you remember?

Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall.
Real ice boxes
Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.

Older Than Dirt Quiz:

Count all the ones that you remember, NOT the ones you were
told about! Your ratings at the bottom.


1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5. Coffee shops or diners with table side juke boxes
6 Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard
stoppers
7. Party lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (OLive-6933)
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H Green Stamps
16 Hi-fi's
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19 Blue flashbulb
20. Packards
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers

If you remembered 0-5 = You're still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older
If you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age,
If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt!

I might be older than dirt but those memories are the best
part of my life.

Don't forget to pass this along!!
Especially to all your really OLD friends....


'Senility Prayer'...God grant me..
The senility to forget the people I never liked;
The good fortune to run into the ones that I do,
And the eyesight to tell the difference.'

[Snaxx]

40? Strike up the band! I've got 3,000 posts! The same as my Sploofus ranking this month!

Cool, and they can use their musical instruments on Idol nowadays!




.

Squirrels can now be on Idol? how old do they have to be?

Gosh I dunno what 16 in squirrel years is, and left my calculator at work. And did littlebeast land 'em an agent and a record deal already?





.

[T_Bone0806]

Everytime I dread the thought of adding a number to my age, I remind myself that it's better than the alternative (not having any more birthdays, that is).

I think it's only natural on a milestone birthday to reflect on our accomplishments (or lack thereof). Let's face it, most of us can find instances where we've come up short (I never got to be a world famous rock star, for instance). But maybe we were just not meant to do these things (and maybe it was for our own good..I coulda wound up like Jim Croce...or Jimi Hendrix....then again, let's be real here, there was too much nerd in this boy to ever have seriously been a cool rock star..I lucked out with the whole new wave craze ). Point is..you HAVE done stuff...you HAVE accomplished things...maybe not everything you wanted to..but I doubt very seriously that your slate is blank. Hell, if you've made it to 40 and consider yourself a pretty decent human being, then you've accomplished a helluva lot more than a significant number of lowlives crawling across the globe.

DON'T SELL YOURSELF SHORT. I'm pretty confident that you have, and will, accomplish(ed) plenty to be proud of.

Make sure you pat yourself on the back and have a happy birthday!

[Snaxx]

I'm looking at my life right now, and I'm not satisfied with where I am.

Yeah, I had that feeling at a mere 30. Like "I got such a slow start in life, accomplished almost nothing in my 20s, and worst of all, how does a guy get to 30 without even having having one relationship in his life?" I've been quite a bit happier with my 30s, though no headway with the relationship thingie, maybe I'm accepting that it just isn't a top priority in my life. Maybe it is fitting that my current avatar is the Jordin Sparks song "One Step at a Time" as I am plodding along slowly, hopefully in the right direction.

I guess it depends on what you are not satisfied with, whether it is personally, professionally, or both, and how much power you have to change those things for the better. You have a lot of smarts and appear to have a lot of inner strength as well, and I'm sure you'll be able to take on some big challenges in the years ahead. Good luck!

Thanks for reminding me, I gotta come up with another birthday avatar as I did for SC, Hermillion, BBKing and Melly.





.

[T_Bone0806]

I'm looking at my life right now, and I'm not satisfied with where I am.

Seeing this line removed from the entire post, I was struck by a thought.

Not being satisfied with your current status is not necessarily a bad thing.
Still having goals to reach toward is, in fact, not a bad thing at all. One should never get too old to stop reaching for another rung on the ladder. Having more to accomplish/work toward will keep one from ever getting completely old. Complacency may be the greatest enemy.

Just remember that, for all we HAVEN'T done, there is a lot we HAVE. And as long as we're breathin', there's more that we CAN.

[takinover]

For much of the past year, I have been contemplating starting a thread asking how old does one have to be before it is considered "too late"? On one hand we all could do more to live life more fully, and on the other I think our society places too much emphasis on being a "prodigy".

[silvercamaro]

For much of the past year, I have been contemplating starting a thread asking how old does one have to be before it is considered "too late"?

In my case, I hope the answer is somewhere beyond 120.

I used to be a prodigy. That didn't pan out.

[ne1410s]

My "baby" sister turning 50 hit me harder than any of my own birthdays.