My birthday weekend

Right.  So my birthday was this weekend, for those few of you who didn’t know.  It was on Friday.  Since I normally work from 7:30 to 11:30 on Fridays, I decided that I would take some vacation time and sleep in on my birthday.  Because I can.  It’s nice having an employer who actually cares enough to give vacation time.  I had a very enjoyable morning waking up in the light curled up next to my husband.  And then he got up and went into his office to start working.  I dozed for a while longer, enjoying the luxury of sleeping in while he got up for work.  It made for a nice change.

It was a mostly relaxing day.  I spent most of it cleaning house.  With colds hitting us both and Justin’s eye still bothering him and just general laziness all around, the house was a complete wreck.  We ran out of clean plate and cups on Thursday.  It’s a little embarrassing, especially because it’s just the two of us.  If we had children, that would be much more excusable.  But we don’t.  So I ran the dishwasher.  Emptied it.  Filled it again.  Ran it a day later when we finished filling it all the way.  And I vacuumed the floors and dusted surfaces.  By the time I was done, the house looked amazing.  I kept walking into the kitchen and exclaiming, “Just look at this beautiful house!” for the next three days.  I think I’ve gotten over it now.

So I cleaned house, which was wonderful.  And I opened presents from my folks and cards from my friends and relatives and a package from my friend Sara.  I talked with my sister and my mom on the telephone.  I went to the post office to mail a few books out.  It was a gorgeous sunny day and I enjoyed it thoroughly.  I missed a couple calls in the evening because I left my phone upstairs while we went down to eat dinner and curl up to watch “Dollhouse” on TV.  (Good show, by the way, and if you’re not watching you totally should, if only because I want Joss Whedon to have solid work again because WE LOVE HIM!  And Eliza Dushku and Amy Acker.  LOVE.)

Saturday, though, was really the day we celebrated my birthday.  We, once again, slept in gloriously late, enjoying the sunshine and warmth and mmmmm-goodness of just not getting up with an alarm really early in the morning.  We puttered around the house just doing random stuff until 3:30 or so when we went to the Nike outlet store in Tanger Outlets where Justin bought me a new pair of running shoes for my birthday.  I *LOVE* my new shoes.  My old shoes are probably three years old and the heal is worn away and there’s no support and they’re terrible, awful things.  These are whole and comfortable and supportive and oh, so wonderful!  And they have pink detailing on them which is adorable!  And totally matches the music player I bought because, you know, that totally matters!  *Nods*  (But the funniest thing is that Justin was going to buy me the music player for my birthday, and then I went and bought it for myself.  And then I got checks from my aunt and grandma and said, “I’m gonna buy some new shoes!” and Justin said, “NO!”)

After getting my fantastic new shoes, we went out to the Island and went mini-golfing.  I used to go mini-golfing with my grandparents over the summer when I was little, and it’s probably been a good 10 years since the last time I went.  Justin, poor man, is wearing an eye patch over his hurting eye.  Which means, obviously, that he has no depth perception.  We played two courses of 18 holes.  The first course, I beat him by something like 8.   The second course, he beat me by greater than 10.  With one eye.  This is definitely not my sport.  But lots of fun!

After getting my butt kicked, we went to Fudruckers for dinner.  Sadly, the Fudruckers on the Island doesn’t have tricked-out nachos, but the burgers and frings were still really delicious.  We actually had to rescue our meal from another couple who was about to walk off with it.  Let this be a lesson to all of you—check the name on the order before you walk off with it.  Or a grumpy lady will scowl at you and ask you to give back her burger.  And then be grumpy at you.  Grrrrrrrr.

Back home after diner because we were both so full and tired from the afternoon’s activities, we lounged around for a while.  I talked with my dad for a while, which is always enjoyable.  I popped in “The Last Mimzy” and watched that.  We made a cake while I was watching the movie.  We didn’t have 29 candles to put on it after we’d frosted it, so Justin took the candles that we had and cut several of them in half.  Just so he could make me blow out this massive flaming ball of fire over my cake.  With one blow, I’ll have you know.  He was mildly impressed.  I was highly amused as he plucked out the candles, several of which had burned down to level with the cake.

All in all, a really fantastic day.

Sunday was not nearly as lovely.  We got up with the alarm so we could get to church.  We got up, got ready, went down to the door, and sat on the steps looking at the door.  And decided that as long as the youth pastor wasn’t leaving that day, we were going back to bed.  We checked the online newsletter, found out that it’s next Sunday, and curled back up.

Not because we were that tired or that lazy.  But because our heads were pounding that painfully.  And we knew that the lights and the noise of the music and everything else just would make it worse.  So instead of inflicting even more pain on ourselves, we took some Advil and went back to bed until the Advil kicked in.  Closed the curtains and the shades to let in as little light as possible, moved as little as possible, and sat around the house for the day.  We watched a couple episodes of “Bones” together.  “Con Man in the Meth Lab” was really fantastic; one of the best episodes we’ve seen in a while.  Justin showed me where I could watch NCIS online and I watched several episodes on my own while he poked at his computer.

While waiting for the shows to cache, I dried and folded the laundry that Justin loaded in to the washing machine.  The laundry had started to resemble the kitchen in its messiness, so it took several loads to make it all the way though, but we did succeed in that.  I still need to do the ironing, and there weren’t enough whites to run that load, but we plowed down the mountain of laundry outside the bathroom and that’s impressive enough.

I also made a loaf of bread using a mix that I picked up.  Wheat free, so it’s kind of strange, but I was in the mood for bread without the energy to make it, so it was good enough.  Some butter on there, maybe a little cinnamon sugar, and it’s fantastic.
And that was my birthday weekend!  I forgot to set my alarm this morning after turning it off for Friday morning, so Justin woke me up this morning by saying, “Hon?  It’s 7:00!”  To which I whined, “Craaaaaap!” and flew out of bed and to the shower.  I’m supposed to be at work at 7:30, just for reference.  And *if* I don’t get stuck behind any trains on the 5 tracks I have to cross, it takes me about 20 minutes to get from home to the parking lot and another 5 to get from the parking lot to my desk.  So.  Not the best way to start the week.  But my hero husband made my lunch and turned on the kettle so I could have tea in the car and saw me out the door before going back upstairs to see about getting ready for his morning.

I promise I do intend to write about things other than just what I did on a given day.  It’s just that this is usually the easiest thing to write about and people generally seem interested to know.

But if I was to write about something else, like, for example, organizing?  What would ya’ll like to know?

For my next post, I intend to write about my list of 29 things to do before I’m 30. And follow-up on my list of 28 things to do before I’m 29.

Stay tuned!