Middle Age Mommy - Keeping It All Together

Here I sit, almost three months into my 47th year.  When did that happen?  I do not feel 47.  Let me rephrase that, I do not feel like what I think 47 should feel like.  I remember being much younger and thinking that the age I am now, was impossibly old.  I am not impossibly old.  Not yet.  If nature works in my favor and I steer clear of all disasters, both natural and man made, then I hope to live to be impossibly old.  In fact, I embrace it.  Let's face it, growing old is better than the alternative of not getting to grow old.  Right?  I say this flippantly, but I have a few friends and a couple of family members who never made it to the ripe old age of 47.  I seriously consider myself lucky. I think back on milestone birthdays - the obvious, 18, 21, 29, 40....and here I sit tonight, closer to 50 than 40.  When I turned eighteen, I was living in Boca Raton, Florida and a senior in high school.  I had been in F...

February 16th is a special day.  It marks the day that my son made his physical entrance into this world.  It is a date that I hold close to my heart.  I remember that day so well too.  Actually, it was the evening, as he was born close to 9:30 at night.  My parents, my sister and grandmother were all there.  I promised my grandmother that I would deliver Dominick on her birthday, and I made it with a couple hours to spare!  My son shares his birthday with my maternal grandmother, Dorothy Catching, or as we always called her, Mamaw.  Mamaw was a very special person in my world and I miss her every day.  She died on Thanksgiving day 2009 at the age of 84.  She was many things, rolled up into a little crazy ball of hillbilly wonderfulness.  She was a healer, a country cook of the highest caliber, and a good listener.  She could give you a hard time better than anyone.  If you have never heard the term Mamaw,let me explain....