10 on the 10th: October 2022-All About Birthdays

Oh boy, how quickly the time is passing by! Another month has come and gone and we are already a third of the way through October which means it’s time for the next 10 on the 10th with Marsha of Marsha in the Middle, Leslie of Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After, and Gail of Is This Mutton? 

Each month, we are presented with 10 questions about a common theme and asked to share our answers in blog post form. This series is such a wonderful way to share more information about ourselves and to learn interesting new things about others. Anyone is invited to join and answer the questions. It is a great way to start new conversations and make meaningful connections with new people.

October is Marsha’s birth month so she chose 10 questions about birthdays for this month. I am all about celebrating birth months instead of just birthdays. But now that I think about it, why not celebrate our births and our lives every single day of the year?

Here are the questions with my answers…

1. What is your earliest birthday memory?

I don’t know if I actually remember this myself or if I just remember it based on stories and photographs but my earliest birthday memory would have to be the giant clown cake my mother made for each of us on our first birthdays. It consisted of about a dozen different round cakes placed to form the shape of a clown holding three large balloons and it was probably about three to four feet long. I do remember it covering almost the entire top of a full sized picnic table. One of the three balloon cakes was the “smash cake” that the birthday kid got to crawl through face first.

There is a photo somewhere of this cake with one year old me siting on the table next to it but I can’t find it! I called my sister to see if she had it and she knows the exact picture I am thinking of but she can’t find it either. I even searched online to find something similar and there is nothing there. My mother was a very talented cake designer and I don’t have a single picture of any of her cakes. (Insert sad face.)

2. What is your favorite birthday tradition?

My favorite birthday tradition is helping my kids choose creative birthday cakes each year. We don’t celebrate in any elaborate way, preferring to keep birthday parties simple and easy, but we do go all out on the cake.

Other than the Plants vs. Zombies cake which was made by a friend from a moms’ group I used to belong to, all of the other cakes were made by Monica of EuropeCakes.

3. How do you like to celebrate birthdays?

I like small intimate gatherings for birthdays with good food, great friends, and fun cake. As my kids are getting older, I am starting to prefer celebrating with exciting experiences like a short trip to an interesting destination or some other type of experience that the kids are interested in. When I was 35, however, I threw myself a big birthday bash at the bar where Jeff and I first met. I put an open invitation on Facebook and we had such a great turnout with old and new friends!

4. What is the best birthday gift you’ve ever received?

I cannot think of any one particularly special gift that stands out but I do love all of the beautiful gifts that my children have given to me over the years. I have never been a person who requests or expects gifts at all let alone elaborate expensive gifts and I appreciate every single gift anyone has ever given to me even if it is just a pair of socks or a plain donut!

5. What is the best birthday gift you have ever given?

I have been told that the best birthday gift I have ever given was having Archie a month early on my father-in-law’s birthday. My father-in-law predicted a May 1 birthday and I told him he was nuts because that was a full month early and, sure enough, he was right and he got his birthday grand baby!

6. If money were no object, what would be the very best way to celebrate your birthday?

If money (and time) were no object, I would love to go on a summer long cross country road trip. However, money and time are issues to consider, so we have started saving because we are planning a trip to the Netherlands to visit Nancy in 2024 to celebrate my 50th birthday. I do hope we can make this work but sometimes life gets in the way of even our most fabulous plans!

7. What is your favorite birthday treat?

Ever since I was a young child, I always requested a birthday dinner of mom’s meatloaf with instant mashed potatoes and pineapple upside cake. I have no idea why I preferred instant mashed potatoes over fresh ones, but kids are weird. Now for my birthday, I sometimes make meatloaf and mashed potatoes. And for the past few years, Jeff has been making my mom’s pineapple upside down cake for me. And it makes me cry joyful nostalgic tears every single time. In fact, he just made the cake this weekend for our traveling guests!

8. How long do you celebrate your birthday?

I am a big fan of birth month celebrations. Since Archie, Jeff, my father-in-law, my nephew, and I all have May birthdays, starting with Archie and Pap’s shared birthday on May 1 and ending with my birthday on May 30, it makes sense to celebrate all month long around here!

9. What is the best thing about your birthday?

My birthday is May 30 and I love that it is in the spring and generally very near the long Memorial Day weekend. It also always coincided with my graduation days. I remember my graduation ceremonies for high school, undergrad, and law school all happened on my birthday. For my law school graduation I wore a ribbon on my graduation gown that said “It’s My Birthday!” When I walked the stage for my diploma, the dean asked me if it was really my birthday. I couldn’t resist myself when I answered, “No, it’s not. I just thought it would be funny to wear this ribbon.” He looked at me a little confused with a raised eyebrow before he realized I was being sarcastic. Then he laughed out loud and handed me my diploma with a joyful congratulations and happy birthday!

10. What is your sign (zodiac, that is)?

I am a Gemini through and through. Twins, indeed. There are definitely two sides of me (actually there are more likely hundreds of sides of me). Jeff is also a Gemini (May 26) and Gemini-Gemini pairings can either be brilliant or disastrous. I am so happy that our Gemini union is the former. Archie is a Taurus (May 1) and Ralph is an Aries (March 21), making a very interesting and strong willed dynamic in my home!

Now it’s your turn to share! I would love to hear about your birthday celebrations and memories. If you write a post with your answers to the birthday questions, be sure to link it with Marsha, Leslie, or Gail!

Keeping it on the edge, 

Shelbee

Joining these Fabulous Link Parties.