Birthday Cake for Breakfast

I share a July 15 birthday with my granddaughter Riley.

She turned eight this year, and I turned sixty-three.

We celebrated on July 13 with a family cookout at a park and then we went swimming.

The candles didn't stay lit on our cakes, so we never blew them out (but we did sing "Happy Birthday").

We went swimming afterwards, but that was cut short with a storm (accompanied by thunder and lightning).

I had spent fourteen hours overnight in the ER earlier that week and did a second act after the party ended.

July 15 followed two all-nighters for me (both due to pain) and a celebration trip to Fox Valley Mall for Rebekah, Riley, and me. The day was bracketed by stressful doctors appointments on either end. The finale was quite the storm that night (and plenty storm coverage by The Herald-News editorial team the next day).

So we never cut into my cake until mid-week, due to circumstances and the fact the four of us who live together wanted to enjoy that cake together. So we did that one day, early in the morning, before everyone dashed off to work.

So what's the moral of the story here?

As I've previously mentioned, we've had a challenging few years of many emergencies and deaths. June and July have been especially intense, with a near constant feeling of hanging off a precipice.

More is in store for us, but we did get a much welcomed breather this weekend. So thankful!

So the point of this post is not to whine, but to maybe offer some hope for dark times.

"This too shall pass" is really true (I am currently not in pain).

Don't get hung up when plans don't work out according to our plans. Make other plans. Yes, really.

Storms will come, but the sun will come out again. (It's raining today, but the sun shone this past weekend).

Circumstances will sometimes rule the day. But every once in a while, rule the circumstances, just to show circumstances who's really boss.

There's nothing wrong with having cake for breakfast.