Udderly Unbelievable

Today I am grateful for my siblings and our collective life experience. I am especially thinking of my sister Zita today on her milestone 60th birthday! Have a special day Zita! 

And I am thinking how this makes me one of only four siblings remaining younger than 60. How the heck did we get from sharing our "Waltons" benches at our kitchen table decades ago to pretty much all of us being eligible for senior discounts at restaurants now? How did we go from farm kids out sledding in the winter and playing ball in the summer, to grandparents watching our grandkids play ball and sled? 

Time passes. Lives are lived. We have been very fortunate. Thirteen siblings and twelve of us are plugging along still. Mary Jo made it to 61 before metastatic breast cancer ended her life. Dad was 74 when he died of a heart attack. Mom will turn 91 in just a few days. It is udderly unbelievable when I stop and think about the pace of the years. 

That is why I so enjoyed this thrift store find and the message I added to it before I enjoyed sending it to Zita along with a few other items to help her celebrate becoming the latest sexagenarian in the family. 

It's a nod and a throwback to those farm days and the Holstein dairy cows we milked, right down to their pinkish udders. I am so grateful for another birthday for another sibling and also for a short trip down memory lane, or should I say a short trip down the hill to the barn, as was the case on our farm.

Growing up on a farm with all of my siblings is something I continue to appreciate in new ways every year older I get. Older. Wiser. There's something to that. Onward!