Half Way to 70

You know you are old when you have to buy more than one box of candles to put on your cake. Luckily, I am not up to three boxes yet, but the actual chances of loading up a cake with over 48 candles are slim anyway based on the surface area of most cakes.

My birthday was yesterday. It was a good day. Lots of sunshine. You could hardly tell it was January. Except that it is most definitely still January. January has a way of making itself felt. In other ways besides weather.

I was up bright and early. My sweet family brought me breakfast in bed. Actually, they brought me THREE breakfasts in bed. I'm still not sure if they couldn't agree what to make, or if they figured I am ultra hungry at 6:30am. (Hard to see, but there were pancakes with syrup, a gourmet omelet complete with diced tomato on top, a yogurt parfait with granola and fruit, and a side of toast in case I got peckish. Next year I vote they spend the extra time folding laundry and then bring me a bowl of cereal.)

The girls made me lovely cards. They were all so sweet. I have to admit that I have a soft spot for Robyn's terrible spelling. I make fun of her all the time, but I think it is adorable. My favorite lines from her card were, thank you For everything Aspesily the food on the table and THanks alot For being Yoself. She made me this really cute design.

We didn't do a lot of presents this year since we are saving money to buy furniture (maybe). But Dad did spring for a little something. It came in the mail the day before and he wrapped it and wrote 'Very Fragile' on it. (Although if it came in the mail, it couldn't be that fragile.)

While my parents visited at Christmas, we played our usual card games. Many of the children are old enough to understand rules and participate now. We have been playing a lot of cards since then, and some of our decks are missing cards now (go figure). Two decks are especially important to me. My grandmother gave me cards with my name on them when I was young. I DON'T let the kids play with those decks. They ask, but the answer is always 'no', unless we are all playing together. I guess Tyler decided it was time to make another memorable deck.

So, the gift wasn't as fragile as described, but it was pretty darn awesome. Cards, designed by CazierTM.

They are still a bit stiff, but we will break them in quickly.

June also brought me home a biter. She has been making these triangle paper things for years now. We call them 'biters' because you put your fingers in one side and you can open and close them much like a small mouth. This personal one came with a poem just for me.

To: Mom
From: June

I am a Biter,
But I'm a special one.
I only bite people
Who I love.

So let me nip you,
Let me bite on your thumb.
And always know
It's you who I love.

I finished the day off by ordering pizza since I didn't want to cook. (My right as birthday girl.) But I did make my own cake. Officially the ugliest cake known to man. Really atrocious. It was a lemon blackberry cake. In my mind, I was imagining this bright yellow cake with beautiful purple swirls through it. Not so much. The recipe calls for you to mix the pie filling into the cake mix. It turned this really ugly brown color. And the mix didn't incorporate so well, so there were lots of little lumps of yellow powder throughout. I pulled it out of the oven and winced. If you were expecting a chocolate cake, no problem...but lemon blackberry?? So I covered it in candles so you could hardly see it.

Naturally, my small lung capacity was no match for 35 candles. I won't be getting my wish this year.

The good news is that the cake was actually really tasty. And super moist. If you can just get past the odd/wrong color, it is not too bad.

And so goes another birthday. Another year under my belt. All moving parts still seem to be in working order. (Minus the occasional back outage.) Here's hoping 35 is a smooth year.