They say it's your birthday

In reading Jen’s account of Alison’s birthday party, she said that both she and Ben remembered their fifth birthdays, which is why they had a party for Alison this year. That got me thinking back to the earliest birthday I remember, and for me it’s a really good memory.

I think it was the year I turned four, although it could have been my fifth birthday. My mother was divorced and we didn’t live near any extended family. She was on her own with two small children (my brother is 11 months younger than I am), so celebrations tended to be smaller.

Anyway, that year we went to some small dark pizza restaurant for my birthday. I remember being pretty excited by eating out and getting to have pizza. Plus I got a cowgirl outfit for my birthday. I still remember how happy I felt over that gift. And then I heard the happy birthday song playing over the restaurant’s speakers. I remember asking my mom if that was for me and when she said yes, I just glowed with pride. All in all, that was a great birthday.

In later years, we moved to having the birthday child pick out dinner at home (I picked spare ribs for years and now can hardly stand looking at them; my brother always picked tacos and Orange Crush). And I remember my 13^th birthday when my mother made me a really cool teen queen cake, complete with a 3-D crown. But still, that fourth birthday stands out in my memory.

What about you? Do you have favorite memories of childhood birthdays?

Walk with me

The first summer after we bought our lovely old home in Kansas City, we went to a lot of estate sales in our neighborhood. Keep in mind that the homes were all built around the turn of the last century (ours was built in 1905) and many of the homeowners were the second set to own the homes. So it makes sense that they were beginning to shuffle off.

Most of those sales were unremarkable and just filled with the odds and ends of a long life. Mostly we glimpsed the way the houses looked before people started updating them or modernizing them. We wanted to stay true to the era of our own home so we loved seeing these houses.

One estate sale was different. Eva Brancato had been a war bride from England and she’d outlived her husband by many years. I have no idea if he left her with a pension, but she was able to keep her home and it was in decent shape. She’d also had a sewing business and one table was full of her equipment and supplies. I wasn’t in the market for more machines or anything, and her fabric was pretty old and not to my taste. But her sewing basket with scissors, needles, thread etc were there, along with two zip lock baggies full of interesting buttons and trims. I bought all three of those items and still have some of those things today.

When Kent and I were in Oklahoma two years ago, his mother Ardis let me go through all of her notions for any I might use. So this picture shows some exceptionally cool buttons from Ardis, a couple of shoe buckles from her too, and also Eva’s sewing label and Ardis’ sewing label (I have a sewing label too but mine is small and says By edj in blue like that).

People have sewn their own clothing forever; I know my fiddle farting around is nothing new and isn’t ground-breaking in terms of clever sewing or exceptionally well-designed patterns. But I do like feeling connected to the women who’ve sewn before me. My Mana (mother’s mother) sewed a lot, my own mother made lots of our clothing when I was growing up, and she still creates artisan quilts today. Kent’s told me about how much his mother, Ardis, sewed—not only clothing but a lot of crafts too. Then there’s Eva, this woman I never met, who supported herself through her sewing. It’s like being a member of a very old, very well-established club.