I told Audrey: It's a great privilege to turn forty
On March twenty-fifth (this past, haha) we all met in Asheville, North Carolina, for a double birthday party.
The only one absent was our Joel, who is a pastor and does not take off on Saturdays (for it was a Saturday).
Instead, he visits church members and potential visitors and prepares for Sunday.
But everyone else was there -- even Andrew and Brittany and Ember.
Audrey, Dagny, Chad, Erica, and Rhett had driven from Columbia that morning, as had TG and I.
Stephanie, Melanie, Allissa, and Little Andrew came from Lenoir. They brought their adorable puppy, Piper.
We were prepared to party
The occasion was the birthdays of our Audrey, who turned forty, and our Andrew, who turned thirty-four.
They were born exactly six years and one week apart.
This particular weekend fell right in the middle of their two birthdays, so it was the ideal day to meet.
We had found the ideal place, too. After deciding on Asheville as a doable distance for everyone to drive, I did some research and narrowed down our choices of parks in the area to the French Broad River Park.
It has a beautiful gazebo with just the right number of picnic tables for our party. There were two grills on its edge, and the restrooms were nearby. The scenic French Broad River flowed about thirty yards away.
I had several conversations with an exceptionally kind and courteous lady named Nora at the parks department, in the process of making my selection. She could not have been more helpful.
My apple pie baked beans got a grill all to themselves
As for that gazebo, we claimed it by all pitching in to pay the cost -- very reasonable -- although it is first come, first served for free if you want to take a chance that it will be available when you arrive.
We didn't want to take that chance so we paid our money to reserve the space, and I started planning.
The weather on the day was gorgeous, just warm enough, just cool enough, if a trifle more windy than I prefer.
Of course there were hamburgers and hot dogs. In addition, I had brought apple pie baked beans and potato salad and corn chips with plenty of salsa.
I had made a Mexican Chocolate Loaf Cake with powdered sugar sieved on top, and a Vanilla Pound Cake drizzled with amaretto icing.
It was a tad too windy but we made do although we did lose a few of those balloons
Stephanie had brought Watergate Salad and Erica contributed even more chips and dip.
I had made two huge thermoses of hot coffee, and we even had heavy cream and an assortment of mugs from home to drink it from.
I had also baked all week so I could bring fresh homemade bread for each of the families to take home. Like a party favor. I asked myself, what kind of party favor would I like? And bread sprang to mind, so bread it was.
When we got to the park and found our gazebo in the late morning, I started setting everything up and TG got the grills going.
Pretty soon everyone was there, and the kids were enjoying running around in the sunshine on the plenteous grass, and going down to the decking built out over the river.
Piper was prepared to party too but she wanted out of her crate
The park is only about ten miles from Olivette, where Andrew and Brittany were married five years ago.
We were pretty excited about celebrating Audrey's fortieth birthday, because that's a milestone.
I had encouraged everyone to get her what she really wanted: An assortment of higher-end stackable beaded bracelets that are so popular right now.
The girls all enjoyed conferring and sending links back and forth amongst themselves and to me, while deciding on which ones to get her.
TG and I took advantage of a January sale at Swarovski online, and bought her a ring and a necklace.
Melanie is in the habit of sitting off to the side and observing the action
She loves jewelry. We all do.
As for Andrew, I took a chance on a new bottle of cologne for him.
It all started when I got to talking to a new friend at church several months ago. In short order, we bonded over the subject of perfume.
We both love perfumes. Her name is Susan and, like me, she has older children. Her son, though in his early twenties, still lives at home and she told me that, as a young single working man can do, he'd treated himself to a bottle of Creed Aventus.
I was impressed because I know how expensive Creed fragrances are. I wanted to get TG some for his seventieth birthday but I quite literally could not afford it.
Ember gets right in the middle of things
Susan told me that likewise, she had wanted to get some Creed Aventus for her husband, after smelling it on her son.
But they quite literally could not afford it, either.
So she said, they ventured out into the unknown, took a chance, and bought a bottle of Fragrace Club Inspired by Aventus. On Amazon.
A knockoff, as it were.
I was intrigued and said so. Susan offered to bring me samples of each.
I had to bring everything but the kitchen sink with me
Sure enough, she did that, and I opened two baggies -- one containing a a large card spritzed generously with the real Creed Aventus, cadged from her son, and a spritz of her husband's Inspired by Aventus (which costs ten times less) on another card -- one at a time, and sniffed with eager enthusiasm.
Heavenly. Both of them.
But it gets better. Not only were the two fragrances nearly identical, but I almost thought that I liked the Inspired by Aventus better than the actual Creed Aventus.
I'm not sure that I could, even now, tell the difference between them.
For several weeks I kept opening those baggies and sniffing those two cards, thinking something in the back of my mind but afraid to really invite it to the front of my mind, where it may have led to action.
My MacKenzie-Childs enameled bowl travels well
As in, the purchase of a bottle of Inspired by Aventus for my son Andrew's thirty-fourth birthday.
Why would that be such a big deal, involving so much thought? You may be asking.
Because after the inevitable Axe Body Spray phase that hordes of young men went through if they were teens in the early aughts, Andrew, when he went away to the military and to college, began wearing Liz Claiborne Curve.
And never stopped. You might say it is his signature fragrance. It's inexpensive but it smells wonderful on him.
So even though my investment in a bottle of Inspired by Aventus for him may not have been a big one, it was still his birthday present and I didn't want to get it wrong.
There was plenty of hot coffee with cream, and real mugs to drink it from
When he opened it, there under the gazebo at French Broad River Park, a few days before his birthday, I was anxious.
Let me tell you why I got you that, I said. And I told him that to me, while Liz Claiborne Curve smells very good on him and is so strongly associated with him that it IS him, I felt during all those weeks of sniffing Inspired by Aventus that it was even more him.
I told him that to me, Inspired by Aventus (and the real Aventus too, if I'm being brutally if not frugally honest) smells like grown-up Andrew.
That when I smell it, it brings to mind adventure and aviation and a handsome family man who is smart and strong enough to pilot the KC-135 Stratotanker but gentle enough to play dolls with his three-year-old daughter, and take her outside and make a fire and teach her how to roast marshmallows.
Audrey was thrilled with the bracelets her siblings chose for her
Anyway I was so distracted while watching him open his gift and waiting for the moment that he sprayed it and sniffed it -- and that Brittany did the same, because let's face it, she had to like it too in order for the present to be a success -- that I forgot to take a picture of him.
He loves -- LOVES -- Inspired by Aventus. His wife does too. Andrew has called a few times since then to tell me that he's wild about it, and will likely never go back to wearing Liz Claiborne Curve. At least not after he finishes his current bottle.
I'm hoping that when he turns forty, I can afford to get him a bottle of the real Creed Aventus.
Meanwhile I need to get TG some of that fake stuff (maybe for Father's Day) because when Andrew sprayed it into the air at the party, I got a whiff and was reminded of how truly magical it is. Off the charts, as a matter of fact. Spectacular and marvelous.
This was only one of our food-laden picnic tables
Worth every cent although it certainly did not break the bank.
So it was that, festivities concluded, we all packed up and left for home at around four o'clock, full and happy and tired. The birthday honorees loved their presents and that was the best part.
The children were tired out from playing, but in a good way. Maybe Rhett would sleep on the two-hour drive home (he didn't).
At the time of that party we had already embarked on a remodel of our bedroom and master bath.
It took seven weeks total and it was harrowing, but it's done now and it looks rather beautiful, but I hope I never have to do that again.
A few weeks after that party, we had a party for Allissa's fifteenth birthday. I'll tell you about that next week.
There was cake and plenty of it
I would promise to do it later this week, but I have to go to Greenville for a few days. When I get back, it will be time to prepare for our Mother's Day celebrations.
My beloved sister, Kay (fifteen months older than me), who survived breast cancer nearly ten years ago, has now been diagnosed with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.
We are brokenhearted because that's scary and potentially devastating, but the report is guardedly optimistic and we are counting on her receiving excellent care as she did before.
I haven't see Kay since her birthday in December (she's in that post; you just have to scroll down), so I'm going to Greenville to hang out with her and provide whatever support and assistance I can.
I'm not going empty handed. Today I made a huge pot of potato corn chowder, four loaves of homemade bread (two for Kay and two for Henry) and another one of those vanilla pound cakes drizzled with amaretto icing.
It's always a hit. I'll take everything with me and get there in time for lunch on Wednesday.
On your birthday and every day, I wish you all the precious gifts
I've also got a Mother's Day gift to leave with Kay.
Please pray that the Lord in His wisdom will guide my sister's doctors in the best course of action to help her.
For he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. (Job 23:10)
And that is all for now.
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Happy Tuesday
