A happy birthday

Hi there, friends,

When I was sifting through Florida and wedding photos I stumbled across some photos from my 31st birthday a few weeks ago. I'd forgotten I'd taken them. Organizing photos is not one of my special gifts. (Neither is whistling, playing basketball, or keeping track of my car keys.) I have 17,000 photos on my computer and only 300 of them are organized in labeled albums. The rest just get lost in the bowels of PhotoLand, never to be seen again, or, to be seen one month later on my blog when I accidentally find them.

My birthday was on a Thursday smack dab in the middle of moving week, so festivities were pretty low key. I woke up for work and my housemate had a bag of birthday goodies waiting for me. At work, a former student dropped an encouraging card off at one of my classes, and the students in my class burst into a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday." That class and I enjoyed several particularly big belly laughs that morning. Later I discovered a number of people were praying my birthday would be especially full of laughter. These little things make birthdays sparkle.

After work a friend came over to help me move a desk. When he noticed how dirty my second-story windows were, he set to work cleaning them for me.

Clean windows are a terrific birthday gift.

For dinner, a couple girlfriends joined me for a picnic dinner in the park.

 We have a number of delightful parks here in north Orange County. The park pictured was the sweetest birthday spot, except for the geese that were determined to join our picnic. We took turns chasing them down the hill whilst waving our paper plates at their dumply little behinds. Unfortunately, I do not have pictures of this.

Also, dumply is not a word but it SHOULD be. How else are we supposed to describe geese behinds?

My friend Elizabeth, pictured below on the left, brought roses that look like peppermints. She also brought strawberries and cream for dessert. "It's a very British dessert," she explained. It's always a good idea to try to make your picnics as British as possible.

My diet is still quite restricted, so strawberries were the perfect birthday treat. 

Can you see the pink candle poking out of the middle strawberry?

My strawberry cake satisfied the little girl in me. 

 Conchie, the other of my picnicking friends, gave me the most beautiful scarf. I have it wrapped around my shoulders in the photo below.


The scarf is silky and filmy and I love it.

What a lovely way to begin my 32nd year. 

 I closed the day by Facetiming with family and opening gifts from them. My sister got me a variety of anti-aging creams. Not in a "you need these" sort of way, but in a "you've been wanting these for awhile and my doctor said these are the best creams around" kind of way. And so: my battle with gravity begins.

My sister also gave me this birthday card:

All of my single friends: whenever you find yourself struggling to answer people who ask you why you are still single, just  tell them, "Because I'm a magical unicorn pony."

Boom. You're welcome. 


Happy Monday, folk-a-roos.

Cheering for you, Skillets.

-Sarah

© by scj