Today is my mother’s 90th birthday. Christmas Eve birthdays sometimes get lost in the holiday rush but she never lets us forget! She is housebound and is confined to her wheelchair but she enjoys life, and treasures every day she can be in her own home. Her house is small and well guarded by two large attack cats, but all her children and as many of her stepchildren and grandchildren as possible will be stopping by to visit with her sometime this weekend. She asked me this week what kind of “spiel” I would be putting in the paper for her. She is just now learning about the picture and request for a card shower I had published last Saturday. All week she has been calling and asking why she is getting birthday cards from people she doesn’t know or remember! We have talked in recent months more about her childhood and days gone by. She was born and raised on a farm in Laclede County. She loved to read and on rainy days she would climb up into the barn loft with her books to