My birthday yesterday was glorious. Nothing terribly exciting happened other than that I ate so much delicious food, which is really the whole point of a birthday. And I got some lovely presents and laughed a lot.
The birds seemed especially chirpy, the clouds were extra billowy and the wildflowers looked gorgeous. I shall assume it was all for me. April is the best month for a birthday!
Last year I made this pin for my friend Tamara. She’s very modest about her birthday so I thought it would be perfect to announce it to everyone. She loaned the pin to me yesterday. And not coincidentally I was offered free dessert twice. (Of course I said yes!) Although I did spend the first couple of hours replying in an amazed voice, “how did you know???” until I remembered that I was wearing a giant ribbon announcing the fact.
My sister made me the cutest little herb garden set. She claims not to be crafty at all but look how adorable this is! I can hardly wait for the seeds to bloom.
Did any of you read The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother? The author is an overbearing perfectionist who, for her birthday, receives some handmade cards from her elementary-school-aged daughters. She decides that the cards aren’t good enough and that her children haven’t put enough thought into them so she throws the cards back at the girls and demands that they redo them. Yikes! Who wants a gift that has to be forced and coerced (her, apparently). My kids did a lovely job with the cardmaking so there was no need for me to toss them back in their faces, lucky them!
You should wish me a happy birthday. I want to have lots of comments because today I turn the not so magical age of 41. You can do that for me, can’t you? Especially all the foreign readers; you are very tight-lipped.
It used to be that I’d wait around for people to make my birthdays spectacular. Like everyone was just wracking their brains trying to think of ways to celebrate my birthday. But this is the thing I didn’t really understand: nobody cares about my birthday even remotely as much as I do. (And I care about it a lot.) I lucked out by having an amazing husband who almost always plans a fantastic birthday for me but it’s usually in the evening. The daytime is for friends, relatives or whoever happens to be around.
Now I just plan what I want to do and invite everybody along. And guess what? It’s a lot funner than sitting around getting my feelings hurt because my friends can’t read my mind.
So happy birthday to me! Donuts, BBQ and much sugar will be consumed.
It is March 10th. I have one exactly more month of being 30-something. I never in my wildest teenage dreams imagined being this old. I could see myself being 26 and after that things seemed grey and hopeless.* I’m actually a teeny smidge excited. Mostly because I think I look pretty good for 40. I don’t know what all the women who lie about being younger are thinking. I’ve found that if you say you are older than you look, people really slather on the compliments, Which would you rather have?
I am 39 and that’s what I tell people:
Response:
“you’re almost 40? No way! You look fantastic!”
I am 39 and tell people I’m 32:
Response: “Really?”
[thinking: "Boy, she looks terrible for her age."]
I’m going on cruise for my birthday with a bunch of my girlfriends. I’m trying to lose 20 lbs. in the next 30 days but I have the niggling feeling that I might not be successful. Not that it matters because I plan on eating A LOT over my birthday and gaining it all back.
*I wish I could tell my teenage self, who felt so unattractive and untalented, that at 40 I would totally be hitting my stride. Late bloomer, I guess.
It’s my birthday today.
That’s all.
(This is Ada’s birthday cake, but it’s as close as I’m going to get to someone making me one.)
You guys, not only is it my birthday today (I’m turning . . . well, let’s just say that 40 is much closer than I’d like), but I can finally have loads and loads of sweets after my Lenten promise to abstain. I’m aiming for some sort of sugar-induced coma.
I’m also aiming for complete laziness and a “get out of jail free” card for everything unpleasant. My mother is in town and I can usually guilt her into doing all the yucky stuff on my birthday.
Do I even have to tell you what I want for my birthday? Comments, of course!
Mister already gave me an amazing present, which I will blog about tomorrow when I have pictures ready to upload.
I haven’t wanted to say anything about this before, because I thought if I mentioned it I would fall off the wagon (kind of like the boy who cried wolf), but I’ve been off sugar for about four weeks now. If you’ve learned anything about me it’s that sugar is a huge part of my life. As a matter of fact I would call it a part of my actual being. Like sarcasm or humor at inappropriate times. But my weight loss has been at a standstill for quite some time and I have had to face facts: sugar and I are not the best of friends anymore. Nor am I friends with the deep fryer. (Unless things are fried in Olestra. I don’t care what that stuff is, I love it. So what if it give me the runs. That’s a bonus in my book!)
I actually promised God that I would not eat sweets or fried foods until my birthday (This Friday! Mark your calendars!) And I’ve been pretty good. Really good as a matter of fact. I’ve lost at least one pound per week. Even though I fell off the wagon on Saturday at the Round Top Antiques Fair. I mean who could say no to this bit o’ Texas?*
(That’s me with my friend Jay from Utah who was in Texas last week. We met up at the antiques fair and had a rip roaring good time as only mothers who are spending the whole day without children can.)
This is how dedicated I am: I have had $70 worth of Easter candy sitting in my closet for two weeks. I haven’t eaten a single piece. I haven’t even opened a bag and inhaled.
I’m impressing myself tremendoulsy.
*Funnel Cakes make me weak in the knees. But only if they have cinnamon. Powdered sugar is a joke. FYI, the funnel cakes at the Utah State Fair do not come with cinnamon sugar. I may or may not have brought my own ziploc full of it to the fair each year.
My birthday is coming up notverysoon, but just to make sure I get something I truly love, I ordered some new dishes. Just so you know, I’m not one of those people who has several sets. (Like a girl I know who has twelve sets and swaps them out every month. She actually keeps her dining room table arranged like she will be sitting down to a dinner party at any moment–but I don’t think they do. Which means she has twelve collections of dishes that may or may not ever be used. That seems a bit excessive to me.) I have one set of Portmeirion dishes that I love and that’s it. They were pretty expensive but they’re totally classic and I hope to have them for quite some time.
However, I fell in love with some new plates a few months ago (shhh, don’t tell my old dishes!) I never make a big purchase on the spur of the moment. I’ve had buyers remorse much too often to be foolish (never buy living room furniture without going home to think about it first!) But I saw these plates back in November and I simply can’t get them out of my mind. They are a set of six, all different designs. Have I mentioned two or three hundred times how much I love pattern. They’re by Rosanna, who makes loads of darling dinnerware.
These dishes have never once come up on ebay. So I’ve been left to scour the internet every couple of weeks to see if they are on sale somewhere. And I lucked out. I found the dinner plates for 50% off at some website I’d never heard of (salad plates were sold out, darn it.) I placed my order, patting myself on the back for my sharp shopping skills.
Four days later I got my dishes and they were as cute as I remember. I inspected each one and then repacked them to put in my closet (I can’t use them until my birthday in April, remember!) Only I noticed something on one of the plates.
Food.
Not just crumbs.
Stinky greasy food.
Someone has used one of my plates! Revolting! I scoured it, to be sure.
I tried to email the company, but their email is down. And I’m not about to call them. Can you imagine that awkward conversation?
The happy ending to this tale is that while I was looking for a photo for this post, I found the salad plates on sale at a different website. Hopefully it’s a company where the employees don’t eat on the dishes before sending them.
I know (but maybe you don’t) that my birthday is sort of far away (April 10th, the most magical day in the universe). But it’s never too early to mention the thing I want the absolute most. Well, really what I want most is wood floors in my family room because right now we have crappy light beige carpet that leaves a mark if you even think about walking across it. But I’m guessing you don’t want to plop down a thousand or two dollars for my birthday.
This little wonder, though, is number two on my list: The Kitchenaid mixer attachement with built-in scrapers. The days of scraping your Kitchenaid bowl are OVER. At least they will be soon. Hopefully. Isn’t it such a fantastic idea? If you want your own, get one here.
($25-30 depending on your style of mixer. I have a 20-year-old plain Jane lame-0 hand-me-down tilt-head.)
