My Birthday

Since I started blogging I've had four birthdays.  Two have been great, two have stunk. 

This years?  It completely rocked. 

To make up for last years Shawn promised me a fabulous one.  I don't need fabulous, but fun over stinky is always better. 

He'd taken Friday off to start the festivities.  He had things planned, but first I had to sell tickets for this years musical.  But before we got there he'd taken me to get a pedicure.  My favorite new color was no where to be found.  And with an obvious language barrier, it wasn't going to be found.  So I settled on another purple, that ended up being pink!  Dadgum it, I'd done it again.  But since Easter was two days away, I went with it.  2 minutes after my nails were done they brought the perfect color to me.  They'd found it.  If I wasn't in a rush to get to ticket sales, I would have insisted they re-do them. 

As soon as we were done selling tickets we went out to dinner, followed by shopping, a movie, and an overnight stay in a hotel.  We've never done that before.  I'm a huge fan of my own bed, and not a huge fan of hotels.  But this time I didn't mind.  Mom and Dad were in charge at home and I didn't have a care in the world.  After breakfast at Starbucks we headed home to pick up everyone and go to Macaroni Grill for lunch. 

I don't even want to know the amount of calories that I consumed in the three days of birthday festivities because it frightens me.  I could feel every single one of them hanging around me while running this morning.  Sure hope they fell off.

But then Shawn did the most fabulous thing of all.  He went to Wal-Mart for me to buy Easter groceries.  I have never been happier in my life.  And while he was out he bought me a second set of the new dishes my aunt had given me and got me a Starbucks gift card.  Then he came home and helped me prepare all the food for Easter.  I was such a happy girl. 

Completely overwhelmed, definately blessed, and happy. 

So this year was amazing.  I sure hope that doesn't mean next years will stink. 

Yikes.  I'll just keep reliving this one:c)

Thanks to the most amazing, most generous husband out there!  Love you hunny!

My Birthday

I said in a previous post that I was going to discuss why my birthdays suck. I was going to whine and complain, name names, and leave nothing out. But now it's been a week and I've moved on. I guess at this point in my life it's not about me anymore.

GASP!

I know we're all shocked. At this stage my life is lived for my girls and my family.

Growing up as an only child my birthday was almost a holiday. My mom would put it on the local bank sign and the world would revolve around me. I'd get flowers or balloons at school and that day we'd go eat at my favorite restaurant. When I got married I inherited a family that doesn't do birthdays up big. The first birthday I had as a Mrs. was spent at the Flying W Ranch in Colorado Springs, one of my favorite places on earth. The lead cowboy starting mentioning who all was there to celebrate their birthdays. I wasn't named. That's when it started.

This year I spent the day doing stuff for other people. The whole day. Oh, and getting yelled at a few times. I spent four hours sitting at my old high school across from the office. In the back of my mind I thought how wonderful it would be if I had balloons or flowers delivered to me. When that exact thing walked in the door I was almost teary. Then a cute 17 year old got them.
Sigh.

Oh well. At 11:15 that night I finally got to sit down and enjoy some ice cream. My birthday treat.

Okay, so I whined a little bit. But I'm sure you all understand.

Anyone else out there feel the same way?


And just so you don't throw a pity party for me, on Sunday evening I got to pick one of my favorite restaurants for dinner (my choice was based entirely on good french fries) and it was followed by Pink Swirls for dessert. (A live culture yogurt bar) I got all the gifts I'd asked for, crossed the finish line of a wonderful 5k that morning, took a three hour nap, and was surrounded by family that loved me. So maybe as you get older you just celebrate it when you can. Again...sigh....

Good Grief

Did anyone notice that in my last post about how busy I am I forgot to end the last sentence?

Yep, that's how crazy it is right now. I can't even finish a sentence.

Coming soon.

Why my birthdays suck.

Let me warn you now, it will involve whining.

But really, don't most of my posts include that??

Why I Am Stressed

What I'm currently working on:

*Tickets sales for the All School Musical which starts Thursday
*Fielding up to 20 calls a day from people who don't want to go buy tickets on the days they are being sold
*Having two children in the musical
*Doing hair and makeup for both girls Tuesday through Saturday because the makeup person is scary and mean and consistently late
*Taking pictures at all the dress rehearsals to sell on show nights
*Editing the 3000 pictures I've already taken to choose 100 to have printed and put on cds
*Heading up the 5th grade promotion for 107 students. I send out e-mails, notes, hold meetings, handle all the money, and coordinate all the days events and the parent volunteers
*Working on a fundraising auction. I have to describe each of 100+ items to create a program from.
*Running a 5k this Sunday
*Fundraising $3500 for a half marathon in October
*Having a garage sale Thursday-Saturday. I'm selling our things to raise the $1000 needed to buy pool paint and selling donated items to go toward my fundraising.
*Pricing all the stuff that wonderful friends and family have given me to sell. I haven't seen my 200 square foot patio in three weeks because of all the stuff.
*Healing! I am still having a lot of foot pain but only because I can't take any time off to heal!
*Getting costumes together for Book Character Day this Friday. Why oh why would they have this the week of the musical and the week before state testing?
*Staying calm and organized. I'm really trying.

Things I'm not currently working on:

*Working out. I ran Monday and rode the bike yesterday but can't fit it in again until the 5k Sunday.
*Cooking. After making 9 dozen cookies (for a dress rehearsal) and 3 loaves of bread Monday I haven't been home a night all week to make dinner.
*Cleaning. I am working on laundry because apparently the people I live with need clean undies. But the rest of the house is in shambles.
*Calorie counting. I have given up hope on that until Monday. My birthday is Friday so I have just decided to celebrate my birthday all week. I've been good, but I haven't counted.
*Staying calm and organized. I don't think I'm doing a good enough job.

Wow. Seeing it all there typed out makes it

Birthday-re-do

Yesterday I got another chance to have a good birthday! Growing up my parents always took me to the Arts Festival downtown to celebrate my birthday. I would eat an Indian Taco and Funnel Cake and they would buy me a wooden crayon and pink carnation from the kids area. My mom would of course sing, 'A White Sports Coat and a Pink Carnation'. I would groan and look around to see if anyone could hear her. Oh how I wish I could hear her sing that song again.

After a soccer game yesterday morning we headed downtown. When I see these...

I know I'm there!

We were meeting friends there but since they'd had a late breakfast and weren't hungry we said, "Forget them!" and headed straight for the food lines! Yes, I had my Indian Taco, and it was terrific! Tasted just like it does every year. Sadly I was too full to eat the Funnel Cake so we went about seeing what else there was to do so I could work up a hunger!

We looked at most of the artists booths. I found a basketweaver whose baskets looked just like mine. The only difference was that mine are about $200 less! It inspired me to get back at it! Maybe next year I'll have my own booth!

We watched a glass blower who had made this. The girls were amazed! I just wondered how he would pack it to take it home.

We wandered over to the gardens to see what we could see.

We found...

Then we stopped and took some time to just watch.

Then for a change of pace...hill rolling!

Oh, and hill flipping.

Personally, I enjoyed hill sitting.

Then to the waterfall for some rock climbing.

Aren't they cute???

And of course the Rhodedendron Dome. I have a picture of myself in this dome in 1991. I had on skinny jeans, half boots, a sports bra, and a patchwork jacket. Don't mock me, it was the style!

And by then, I was ready for my Funnel Cake!

Okay, I know. You can barely see the Funnel Cake. I was floored by the size of this Bratwurst!

Our last thing we wanted to do was play in the fountains. It was the highlight last year. Sadly, they were off limits this year. To make up for it we drove over to Bricktown, went to Sonic for Happy Hour (that made my day!), and played in the fountains there. Shawn dropped us off at Sonic and we walked along the canal to get to the fountains. This is what we saw when we got there. Apparently he had made a new friend!

After I showed him this picture he came up with the idea for some more.

The girls had a blast! They all got a little wet.

But after 4 hours of fun...they were all pretty tuckered out.

All in all, it was a fun day had by all!

Yes, it's my birthday

But that doesn't mean I have to have fun. I did get a bunch of myspace and facebook comments from great friends. And while working on a charity silent auction today I did go out to lunch with friends and one brought homemade cupcakes. (Yes I had two. Do you have a problem with that?) But....

***Disclaimer*** This is about to get whiney and complaining. The faint of heart might want to check out here!

After voice lessons, with help from my sweet mother-in-law, I got McKinley in hair and makeup for musical dress rehearsal. And by the way, it's scary how good that girl looked in full makeup. We dropped her off at school and headed with the in-laws and great grandmother to the Arts Festival to watch Kennedy and Reagan perform with their dance group. Even with a handicapped parking tag (that was hard to give back) we ended up on the wrong side of where we needed to be. We made the trek though and ended up at the stage with plenty of time. The girls were great and made us all proud. Just before the last song was done it started raining. It had tried to all day long but waited until we were pretty far from our car to actually do it. I left umbrellas, raincoats, and everyone possible, took Kennedy and ran! We made it to the parking garage before the hard rain came but got stuck trying to get out. Poor grandparents and Reagan, they were sitting in the rain. All of this dashed my plans of inhaling an Indian Taco and Funnel Cake. I think I might have burned the intended calories with the dash to the car though.

We settled on a restaurant, picked up my aunt, and floated there. Long story short, I didn't get a menu, the waitress didn't take my drink order, my burger (yes, burger and cupcakes...moving on) had pickles on it, I couldn't get a refill, and I got a shake but no song sung to me...I kept tearing up.

Know what made this day so much worse? Shawn is in California. Yep, not Oklahoma. I talked to him briefly during dinner but couldn't control the tears so I quickly hung up. He called back a few minutes later and told me to check the porch when I got home. Guess what I found?

Oh my word. I still miss him...but these helped!