Number 84

Hubby got home last night from his trip to China. He is home today recovering and getting some work done from home. He's a busy guy.

Today is my mother in law's 84th birthday. I spoke with her on the phone Tuesday night and she was telling me how beautiful the flowers are that we sent to her. I already gave her subscriptions to a couple of her favorite magazines, Southern Living and Paula Deen's magazine, so she's a happy woman.

My mother in law is one healthy woman. How lucky is she? She doesn't take any meds at all. She takes vitamins and supplements and that's it. She is still working. She retired last year from her work in real estate and that lasted about 7 or 8 months. She's back in the game and doing open houses on weekends for a realtor for a monthly salary.

She is back playing bridge - she is at master's level - and has a new beau, to whom she is re-teaching the game. She continues to be a voracious reader and works her word jumbles every morning. She continues to travel across the country, whether it is to visit us here in Houston, to the Seattle area to visit her other son, or to south Georgia to visit her hometown and her family there. She goes to Florida each winter for a bit with an old friend.

She is an actress and last year continued to pass out her head shots to do commercials and extra work in movies. As a younger woman, she had a cooking show on the local tv station in Indiana where she has lived since marrying my father in law, barely out of her teens. They met while she was a student in college in New Orleans and he was on leave from the war, passing through town, during WWII.

She has lived in Bloomington, Indiana since marrying him. She has the same circle of girlfriends as she always did, so her friendships are in the range of 60 years or so with many of them. They all get together on New Year's Eve and have a slumber party so they can drink champagne and not worry about getting home. A majority of them have a standing weekly date for lunch.

I want to go out the same way.