someone in that above photo is having a birthday today...

someone who manages to have a smile on her face even when holding a screaming grandchild.

someone who has been a friend, a mentor, a pursuer of truth, a home decorator, a book loaner and borrower, a book club guru, a co-conspiriter, and a breakfast/brunch/lunch pal to me for a number of years now. how in the world can she be all those things to me and still an amazing mom and wife? well, she does it all and makes it look fun-ish. she is also an amazing writer and has a much funnier blog than i do (which irks me to no end). but then she has three times the # of children and three times the amount of craziness in her life.

she also has amazing kids (ALL of them are amazing, all in different and wonderful ways). and two of her grown daughters have blogs. she raises daughter who blog. and not the “let me tell you how much my mother messed me up” blogs (which will certainly be the theme of any of my grown children’s blogs someday...)

one daughter blogs here... and the other one blogs here... 

i could list her accomplishments, write endlessly of the bits of her wisdom that she has drizzled into my life, tell of her honesty, her openness, or recount the way she always leads me to the the One Answer that is Enough. 

but mostly i want to tell you how we laugh together. laugh and laugh and laugh. like two crazy middle aged woman who haven’t gotten the medication they need. we embarrass our kids with our laughter and how we think EVERYthing the other person says is the funniest thing we have ever heard. and the looks on our embarrassed kids’ faces... well, it makes us laugh harder. we laugh with each other, at each other, and in spite of the circumstances... we find the pony in the pile of... well, you know.

so happy birthday to my joyful friend. i can’t wait to spend eternity laughing with you. in a place of utter perfection (no chores and lots of chocolate) with the God who created laughter and friendship...

Among those whom I like or admire, 

I can find no common denominator, 

but among those whom I love, I can: 

all of them make me laugh. 

{w.h. auden}