Today is my sweet husband Donnie’s 44th birthday.

Forty-four. Wow. That sounds like such a big number. Even ten years ago, anything beyond 40 just sounded…old.

It’s funny how, now that he and I are both approaching our mid-forties, it doesn’t seem old at all. Because we were talking, and had to agree: we still feel like the same people we were twenty years ago.

Oh, we’re more mature. I like the way that we don’t worry so much over all the little things that used to bug us back then. I like how God has shown us through the years to extend grace to others, including ourselves. I can’t say I was very gracious in my twenties. Everything was about me. Everything seemed like a BIG DEAL.

I behaved as though everything was a BIG DEAL. Now most of those things that worried me so seem so small.

But the essence of who we are is still the same as twenty years ago. He still gets up early, raring to go each day. He’s always loved Volkswagens and fixing things and watching TV. I still stay up way later than I should, and I’m still the artsy, crafty, motherly person I’ve always been.

Together, I think we’re still a pretty good match.

One thing I become acutely aware of with each passing year, and that is how fast each year passes by. Here we are in late July—it’s already back-to-school time. Then it’s Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas and a whole new year will be upon us when I swear it feels like this one just began!

My baby will be one year old in two months, my middle son is starting third grade, and my oldest will be a teenager in January.

The days are long, but the years are so short. So very, very short.

Note that I didn’t mention my birthday, which is coming up far too soon for me. I know they say age is just what you make of it, but I still can’t grasp the fact that I’m over 40, no matter how loudly my aches and pains announce that to me each morning.

Donnie and I laugh together over our creaks and aches that we didn’t have a decade ago. We talk about how we need to get fit so we can keep up with this house full of boys. Maybe one day soon, we’ll move beyond talk and actually do it!

Birthdays. The day we celebrate the arrival of the people we love. We give them gifts, but they are really God’s gift to us.

If you sense a theme in my answers this week, you’re right. Baby-induced sleep deprivation is warping my mind! LOL

1. I feel like I might never know what it’s like to be well-rested again.

2. I would need to sleep for a month to catch up.

3. Do the right thing. Especially when you don’t want to.

4. You are completely unique.  Just like everyone else.

5. It’s hard to know how much other people think about you. But however much you think they do, in reality, it’s probably far less. (Something I’m trying to instill in my almost-teenaged son, who is entering that phase of life where he’s convinced that everyone is looking at him and judging him somehow.)

6. It seems that whatever my husband does, my sons follow suit.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to going to bed early, tomorrow my plans include sleeping in and Sunday, I want to spend the day in bed, but I can’t, because it’s my wonderful husband’s birthday and we are going to celebrate him!

For more Friday Fill-ins, click here.

If you’ve ever seen the 1990′s TV show, Touched by an Angel, you have a visual reference for what life has felt like the past few days.

It’s been a while since I saw that show, but it seems like there was usually one angel assigned to a case. Then as the story developed, sometimes other angels came onto the scene. But remember how the Angel of Death showed up shortly before someone died? You knew it was coming, but when you saw him appear, it always made you kind of go, “Oh no—go away!”

That is how it’s felt here, across the street from my dying grandmother. It’s as if I feel the angels starting to congregate around her house. I can’t see them—though I do know people who have seen angels, and I believe them—but it’s like I’m just aware of a spiritual shift in the atmosphere surrounding her house, if that makes any sense.

I had a dream that I went to visit my grandmother, but instead of being at home, she was in another building, almost like a big, gaudily-decorated retirement home that looked like a cross between a day care center and an aquarium. I dreaded going that day, because I knew she was close to death—I had to walk forever it seemed, through these long, winding hallways and tunnels, peeking into different rooms and starting to feel panicky because I couldn’t find her.

But finally, I walked into a room painted brilliant blue, with lots of windows and sunlight pouring in, and there, kicked back on a purple chaise lounge was my grandmother, and on a red chair next to her, her sister, Ruby. They were dressed in white Capri pants and summer blouses, barefoot, with their fingernails and toenails painted red. And they were laughing their heads off. My grandfather was in the corner of the room, chuckling softly at them and shaking his head as he often did over other people’s silliness. The whole feeling of the room was pure joy.

And I didn’t know what to make of it. It wasn’t what I was expecting to find. Because Ruby has been dead for years, and my grandfather died over a decade ago. And my grandmother wasn’t sick or frail, but chubby and healthy like she was when I was 20. But when they saw me standing there, they smiled, welcomed and hugged me, and I remember feeling silly for expecting something bad when clearly, all was well.

I smiled when I woke up. And I smiled again when I heard that my grandmother has been dreaming about Ruby every night.

The past few days, when I’ve gone to visit, her face is so pale gray—I cannot get used to seeing her that color. But when she sees me, or one of my kids, her soft brown eyes light up with pure joy and it’s all I can do to not start bawling that very moment.

Because that look is what I saw when she greeted me in my dream. And I know that when my time comes, when I walk into heaven to be with her again, that is exactly what I’m going to see.

Jonah was wearing my favorite cloth diaper cover yesterday, so I tried to snap some pics of him wearing it.

It’s a WiggleWormBottoms diaper cover, and the name sure suits my wiggle worm, as you can see in these pics.

I thought it would be cute to try to capture him sitting next to the giant whale stuffed animal on the daybed in his room. I barely caught him before he lunged away.

For more Straight Out Of the Camera posts, click here.

1. This is what life does. It lets you start over again tomorrow, fresh, with no mistakes in it–yet.

2. Why can’t some people just relax and appreciate the moment?

3. Upon reflection, my reflection in the mirror is sporting a few new wrinkles. And let’s not talk about those gray roots.

4. I’ve been waiting for this particular brand of peace for quite a long time.

5. Later, you wake up–and wish you’d have gone to bed earlier.

6. Last week, I got to go to the far and boundless sea. I miss it.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to finishing the grocery shopping, tomorrow my plans include cleaning, decluttering and visiting with family, and Sunday, I want to go to church, then enjoy the dinner I’m cooking for extended family, featuring many of my grandmother’s favorites: fried squash, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, black eyed peas, banana pudding, and more!

For more Friday Fill-ins, click here.