"I turned the computer on all by myself."

My niece made the above statement to me Saturday. She was so proud. To be honest, I was proud, too.
It means that we should be able to communciate with each other more frequently.
The thing is, my niece is my age....
Now, I would tell you how old she is or will be on July 13, but that would mean that I would have to reveal my age.
I am not doing that!!!
I will tell you that she is two months and a day younger than me.
I'm the last of the second generation within my family. She is the first of the third. She is my sister's and her husband's oldest child and my parents' first grandchild.
The cool thing about her is that we are friends and relatives. We can go for months (and we do) without talking to each other. Yet, when ever we do talk again, there is never that odd silence where you have to search for something else to say. From the moment we say "Hello", we know that it could be a marathon conversation.
I love that. I love her. And I love that she loves, respect and appreicates me.
It makes me love her and her family even more and it makes me want her to be happy.
In all the years that we've known each other, and I would guess that is all of our lives,(LOL) I don't remember her saying or hinting at something negative about me.
Man, I love that.
She is also very pretty, as you can tell by the above photo. Which one is she? She's the one in the back with the big smile.
And I've always thought that she has some of the cutest legs, which of course you can't see in that photo - muscular yet femimine. I don't remember when they got that way, but they are like that now.
Though I have 33 nieces and nephews, 30 great-nieces and nephews and one great-great nephew, I have only one who refuses and I mean refuses to call me "Aunt Cynt."

"I can't call you aunt. That just seems wierd." she once said when we were real young and I was determined to get all of them to call me aunt cynt. (Can anyone say power trip?? LOL).

Plus, the aunt-niece thing would have taken too much explanation when we were kids.

So we often introduced each other as "cousin" back in the day or let folks assume what they wanted.

My niece "Shar" as I call her, used to be so shy. She was always a smart, stylish girl, but she used to be so shy, quiet and reserved.

No one who knows her now would believe that!!!!!

My mom kept Shar, and her sister, Laura, (who is one year younger than us) one summer when we really young. Well, they visited a lot of summers, but this was one of those summers from ..... Well you know???
I stuck a nail in my toe and it actually came out the other side. Shar got her arm caught in one of those old, fashioned wringer washing machine. I know something happened to Laura that summer, too, but I can't remember what right now.
I used to love hanging out with Shar, Laura and their klan. I spent a lot of summer as a kid with them and have spent some time with them in adulthood. I hung out at Laura's house in October and we just laughed.
Both Laura and Shar (I've often wondered why when I refer to both of them, I always put Laura's name first though she is the youngest. Must be an alphabet thing in my head) have kids now. I can't get over how grown up their children are now.
Anyway, I am so happy that Shar doesn't need her children to help her turn on the computer anymore. Hopefully, we can keep in touch with each other a little more frequently.
And Shar, if you are reading this, I expect you to comment.
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