Mosaic Monday #118: Another Revolution Around the Sun

Hello, my dear readers.  I am grateful to report that this week I have celebrated another revolution around the sun.  No, no need to know how many that makes!!!  (And those of who you do know, no need to share my secret in the comments!!!)

Once again, greetings from far and wide have blessed me - don't we all need at least one day a year to be in the spotlight and to be spoiled?  Family, former work colleagues, former and current neighbors - each wish for a happy birthday was a little ray of sunshine, adding up to a whole lot of warmth!  And these days, salutations come in so many forms - e-cards, FaceBook comments, email, texts and even cards that come via the US Postal Service!!!

It's even better when the celebration extends either side of the day itself.  Why limit the fun to just one 24-hour period, when it can last a week or two?  Cards began arriving a week before my birthday, and my Dear Neighbor Friend showered me with gifts four days early.   She gave me enough cinnamon rolls to feed an army; a wise move given that #1 Son and Spousal Unit have access!  You might recognize the moose bar of soap - it was in my 1/24/2021 post.  So thoughtful to get it for me - she knows I ADORE moose!  The slim box with "Thank You" on the front contains printable card stock and envelopes - perfect for the card-making I love to do!  And the Nature Valley granola bars are "payback, with interest" on one that I gave her a while back.  We had a good laugh over that one!!!

Around the time of my birthday, I can also be fairly expansive in my definition of "gifts".  A couple of days before my special day, a deer began to pass through the "back yard", pausing under the birdfeeders to snack on fallen sunflower seeds.  Yep, that display is just for me!!!

I can ski for hours in cold temperatures, but when we get home, there is no substitute for a fire and a warming cocktail for me/a bourbon for Spousal Unit!

We've had quite a bit of snow lately (good news around these parts) and that "gift" meant I needed to pull out my snowshoes for the first time this winter.  The 'shoes have special meaning for me since they were one of my retirement surprises from my team four years ago.  What a joy to climb the hills, to gain a new vantage point, to see pure white snow broken only by my tracks.

My birthday began as it should, with breakfast in bed!  Later, I moved to the great room and alternated between stitching and gazing out the window.  Spousal Unit and #1 Son indulged me by joining in a snowshoeing venture around the back forty.  (In the collage below, Spousal Unit and I are standing on the ice in front of the beaver lodge.)

When we returned to the house, I stopped to fill up the birdfeeders, and asked Spousal Unit to snap some shots while I fed a few by hand.  The mountain chickadees are fearless, and the black-capped chickadees are starting to get into the game.  The nuthatches wait patiently among the aspens.  Here I am with a black-capped chickadee.

By the time I got inside, the boys had placed cards and gifts around my spot at the table, and lit the candles on my cake.  I had to puff a couple of times to get all the candles out!  Oh, that carrot cake sure hit the spot after our walk in the woods.

Not pictured below is a certificate for a massage, and a new trail cam that is on back order.  I am quite thrilled about this trail cam, which will allow me to retrieve photos remotely!  I will have so many more options for placement of the camera - watch this space for (more) exciting wildlife photos!  Oh, and we decided to call the latest addition to my moose collection "Lord Mountbatten".

We played a few rounds of Rummikub, and then we ate a home-made version of Skyline Chili, my requested birthday meal.  Can you say food coma?

I could go on and on through time, counting my many gifts, but even I have to close this birthday chapter, for now.  What better way than to come full circle to my DNF, and our cross-country skiing excursion, the day after my birthday?

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While I have been busy celebrating another year of life, many others have not been so blessed.  As of the date of this post, 496,208 US residents have died from COVID, and the world has lost more than 2.3 million souls to the pandemic.    Closer to home, I recently became aware of the suicide of a 24-year-old man who was the brother of an Olympian from Whitefish, Montana.  Back in November, a 27-year-old woman attempted suicide by crashing her car at a high rate of speed into the train depot in Whitefish.  Unfortunately, I could go on.  According to the CDC, in 2018, suicide was the second leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 10 and 34 in the US; there were more than 2.5 times the number of suicides as homicides.   Stay close to those you love; if you think someone is in crisis, or you need to talk to someone, in the US you can call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK(2855), 24 hours a day 7 days a week.  

Mosaic Monday

Welcome to Mosaic Monday, a weekly meme where we get together to share our photo mosaics and collages.

Please include at least one photo mosaic/collage in your post.

The link will be open from 1 p.m. Sunday until 11 p.m. Tuesday (U.S. Mountain time). 

Remember to add the link to your Mosaic Monday post and not the one to your blog. 

Please link back to this post so that your readers will be able to visit and enjoy more wonderful mosaics; taking the MM blog button from my sidebar is an easy way to link back. 

As host I will visit every participant and leave a comment so that you know I stopped by. 

Please try and visit as many other blogs as you can, especially those that join in later, so that everyone's creativity can be appreciated fully. 

Thank you for joining in today and sharing your mosaics with us. 

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