Picture this: Two crabs

This post linked to 5 Minutes for Mom and Wordless Wednesday.

Today's question:

In what ways does your personality match the supposed traits of your astrological sign?

Numbers that make up a life

The month of June is filled with dates of importance to my family, everything from birthdays to anniversaries to dates of gatherings and more.

Though many dates to remember and numbers to commemorate are marked on my June calendar, they're but a fraction of the dates that matter to me, to my family, just a few of the numbers that have made me who I am, for better or for worse.

Significant numbers — not all dates — roll easily off the top of my head and remind me where I came from, what I've gone through, what I have to be thankful for.

3.2

6.27

 3.10

6.19

8.18

6.10

3315

12.14

7.14

2129

7.9

8.3

1948

4.24

5.13

4396

6.22

11.16

1225

6.18

12.5

7.25

6.1

Jim is a numbers person. He works with numbers in his job. And he works with numbers outside of his job, too, manipulating them by adding, subtracting, dividing by a certain one to achieve another certain one that when added to two or three other meaningful digits result in the magical set of numbers that will, say, be the winning lottery numbers, the numbers that will add a six-figure number to the list above.

It hasn't happened yet, but who's to say it won't. Jim knows numbers, plays with them, finds comfort and answers in them.

I am not a numbers person. What I find in them, though, is this: When adding together all those I've listed above plus many others that don't roll so easily off the top of my head, the tip of my tongue, I come up with one — one lovely and amazing life that would not be the same if I were to subtract even just one single digit.

They're the numbers that count for this non-numbers person.

Today's question:

What are a few of the numbers that make up your life?

Bunches o' birthdays

In the past month, my family and I have celebrated four birthdays. Mac and Bubby each have a birthday at the beginning of June, which we celebrated with a patio party—including water balloons and hot dogs—during their recent visit. Then my birthday took place at the end of June while my grandsons were still here, and Andrea's birthday was this past Monday.

Because we were doing a combo celebration of Mac's and Bubby's birthdays—they had celebrated with individual birthday parties at home—I created a combo cake. Both boys, like their PawDad, love, love, love M&Ms, so an M&M cake it had to be. I topped the M&M bedecked cake with a celebratory banner that said "Happy Birthday, <Bubby's real name>!" on one side and "Happy Birthday, <Mac's real name>!" on the other. Then I stuck in the appropriate numeral candle for each, and it did the double duty I had hoped, honoring them both and giving each their own candle to blow out from their own side of the cake.

Brianna did the honors supplying the cake for the other two celebrations—a delicious candy-topped ice cream cake for my big day, and homemade Sour Patch cupcakes, per Andrea's request, for Andie's birthday. I'm considering cake ideas to return the favor to Brianna when her birthday rolls around mid August.

All in all, our month filled with bunches o' birthdays was bunches o' fun.

Today's question:

What season has the most birthdays in your family?

This post has been linked to Mosaic Monday.