My birthday today. I turned 41.
It was our regular hectic Tuesday family schedule, however.
At work someone brought me a 6-pack of cupcakes, which was awkward because there are 9 people in the department. Luckily, after lunch,when I passed the cupcakes around most people didn't want one. She also put a Happy Birthday mylar balloon on my desk, so everyone walking by came over for a while to say Happy Birthday.
When I was in Colorado the previous week a co worker emailed me and two former co workers and arranged the 4 of us to go out for lunch on my birthday, which was very nice. A few years ago, the 4 of us went out together on each of our birthdays. I missed those guys (ok female guys), so it was great to see them again.
At home, my daughter had guitar lessons 4:30 - 5:00 , my son had Scouts at 7:00 pm, but my husband had to take him, because I teach ESL on Tuesday nights now, 7:00 to 8:30.
My current ESL class is 4 ladies, 2 from Africa and one from Central America, and a 4th one who has yet to show up, I've never met her, but she's officially enrolled. They're all very proficient in English, so the course is officialy "English Conversation" where we can sit around and just talk for 90 minutes, but I need to correct grammer and pronunciation, and I try to introduce new vocabulary.
I always say the immigrant population of New Brighton is entirly different than the ESL students that I used to teach in St Paul before my kids were born. In New Brighton, my students are often wives of foreign-born university professors (as is one of my current students) or recently arrived cousins of familes who have already been in Minnesota for a generation or 2, so they walk right in to mainstream middle class America when they get here. My two students from Africa, both women who must be about 30 years old, complained that their lives in America are much harder because they have to do all their own housework. Back at their parents' houses in Africa, their mothers had servants!
So we had about 90 minutes together as a family that night. Typical Tuesday. I had bought crab at the grocery store, earlier that day, so I made it for myself, along with the chicken patties I made everyone else, for dinner. I'm the only one who likes crab, but I love it! My husband picked up a cake with mini candy bars around the margins of it, yum! And he got me an MTV nostalgia DVD. Looks great, I think I will watch it this week end !
I really do feel like I went from being a "recent college graduate" to being "pre-menopausal" with no in-between part. I guess that's the beauty of an extremely extended adolescence.
It was our regular hectic Tuesday family schedule, however.
At work someone brought me a 6-pack of cupcakes, which was awkward because there are 9 people in the department. Luckily, after lunch,when I passed the cupcakes around most people didn't want one. She also put a Happy Birthday mylar balloon on my desk, so everyone walking by came over for a while to say Happy Birthday.
When I was in Colorado the previous week a co worker emailed me and two former co workers and arranged the 4 of us to go out for lunch on my birthday, which was very nice. A few years ago, the 4 of us went out together on each of our birthdays. I missed those guys (ok female guys), so it was great to see them again.
At home, my daughter had guitar lessons 4:30 - 5:00 , my son had Scouts at 7:00 pm, but my husband had to take him, because I teach ESL on Tuesday nights now, 7:00 to 8:30.
My current ESL class is 4 ladies, 2 from Africa and one from Central America, and a 4th one who has yet to show up, I've never met her, but she's officially enrolled. They're all very proficient in English, so the course is officialy "English Conversation" where we can sit around and just talk for 90 minutes, but I need to correct grammer and pronunciation, and I try to introduce new vocabulary.
I always say the immigrant population of New Brighton is entirly different than the ESL students that I used to teach in St Paul before my kids were born. In New Brighton, my students are often wives of foreign-born university professors (as is one of my current students) or recently arrived cousins of familes who have already been in Minnesota for a generation or 2, so they walk right in to mainstream middle class America when they get here. My two students from Africa, both women who must be about 30 years old, complained that their lives in America are much harder because they have to do all their own housework. Back at their parents' houses in Africa, their mothers had servants!
So we had about 90 minutes together as a family that night. Typical Tuesday. I had bought crab at the grocery store, earlier that day, so I made it for myself, along with the chicken patties I made everyone else, for dinner. I'm the only one who likes crab, but I love it! My husband picked up a cake with mini candy bars around the margins of it, yum! And he got me an MTV nostalgia DVD. Looks great, I think I will watch it this week end !
I really do feel like I went from being a "recent college graduate" to being "pre-menopausal" with no in-between part. I guess that's the beauty of an extremely extended adolescence.
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