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SPECIAL EDITION!

BIRTHDAY UPDATE

Hi everyone! Sorry it's taken me so long to actually do this, but I've had a rough couple of days getting in contact with my blog account. I really, really want to beat down our system admin. He's just being a jerk. That isn't just my opinion, it's the opinion of the IT dude who works for him.

But I digress.

OK, so my birthday.

I actually had every intention of staying at home, literally in my bed all day so that the bad luck of my birthday couldn't taint too many of you fine people. However, after talking to two very wise people (Kenny and Steve) I realize it was kind of dumb for me to think my birthday is cursed. I'm still not convinced that there isn't something wrong with the universe on that day, but maybe not as serious as a curse. So the night before (Feb. 13th), I came home from work and gave Steve his Valentine's Day card. Sappy and silly, I know, but I don't want to ruin it for him. After the candy debacle of the week before, I had pretty much given up on getting him anything like a gift, but luckily for me I ran across a Han Solo figure that he didn't even know existed! Can you believe it?! Me, finding a Han Solo figure he was unaware of! Miracle of miracles!

I am the most Awesome. Wife. Ever. No matter what he says.

Anyway. I gave him his card and when I walked into my office, there upon my office chair was my birthday gift. Steve had gotten me a WACOM tablet for my G5. If you don't already know what that is, it's kind of hard to explain. I will describe it as USB powered awesomness. Basically it's a drawing thingie for my Mac. It will be very helpful in my design work. I was very glad, because I had mentioned that I wanted one of them and he listened! Go Steve! So while I'm looking over my new toy, he asked if I wanted anything for Valentine's Day too. It's no secret that I love presents, so of course I said I did. He said he'd have to go find something. So he comes back into the living room and hands me one of these:

I was a little blown away because A: Once again, we have what is obviously jewelry (and he has told me that jewelry is a waste of money) and B: It's from frakin' Tiffany's! So I opened the lovely little robin's egg blue box to find this:



Since I love the ocean and I love stars, he got me a starfish pendant! Isn't it pretty? It's funny, because I had been saving up to buy this for myself, but he gave it too before I had the chance. So of course I was thrilled.

Then, of course, I kind of felt shoddy about the Han Solo figure. But in Steve's head, I think we are even. : )

I got many lovely gifts and cards from many of you and if I haven't already thanked you, I'm doing it again! THANK YOU!

On the morning of my actual birthday, I woke up at exactly 2:00 am and couldn't go back to sleep. I wasn't excited about it being my birthday but I think I was a little scared. This was the day I had chosen to use positive thinking so that I could have a wonderful birthday! So far, things didn't seem to be going all that hot. It was early, cold, and I was not ready to be awake. However, my brain said I couldn't sleep anymore, so I went into my office.

That is a picture of my feet. For my long time readers (all three of you) this won't have to be explained.

Ignore the dirty socks, but the dogs wanted to go outside and I couldn't find my slippers.

So I played a few rounds of Mah Jong to make myself sleepy. I played it and couldn't get past level 14 for the life of me. I know I played it solidly for 2 hours or more, but I couldn't figure out the stupid thing. I finally got sleepy enough to go back to bed.

Birthday 1 Kelly 0

It didn't last long, though. At 6:00, I was wide awake again. I had decided that I was going to do all kinds of fun, girly stuff that I never get a chance to do since I had taken the day off of work. Of course, it took me a while to get motivated.

The first thing I did was give myself a pedicure. I'd love to go have this done professionally, but my feet are so ticklish that I'm afraid I'd kick some tiny Asian lady in the head if she touched them wrong, so I did it myself.

My feet were so slippery for the foot lotion stuff that I had bought, that I almost fell and broke my leg.

Birthday 2 Kelly o




I decided to get ready and go out to do some things. I had a whole day of stuff lined up, because I was SURE that as long as I stayed busy, everything would be fine. I was just about to get dressed when I realized that I had never washed any of my jeans. So I did some laundry.

That took forever.

However, no worries. I was soon as gorgeous as I could possibly make myself and onward to my day!







My first stop was going to be the mall so I could get my hair cut. I'm letting it grow out, but I needed to get the split ends trimmed. I'm thinking: It's Wednesday, the mall has JUST opened, this shouldn't take any time at all!


Wrong. I made it to the mall, but there was only one stylist at the place, and she didn't know how long it would be before I could be fit in.

No problem, I said, and removed my name from the list.

Birthday 3 Kelly 0




OK, then. The next thing on my agenda was that I was going to go to the library and check out some audio novels that I could put on my iPod. I like to listen to books while I work because it keeps me focused. I know that our library has a really big audio/visual area, so I figured I'd get about three books and have them for days that I have long, tedious projects.

Wrong again. Apparently they have about 9,000 audio novels on cassette tape, but only about 16 on CD. 14 of those are the Bible and self-help books.

Birthday 4 Kelly o






You know, granted, these aren't big problems or anything, but the day started to get a little frustrating. Pretty much everything I had planned was going wrong. Of course I kept on keeping on, because I figured that eventually something would go right. I was determined to have a good dang birthday! However, for the time being, I stopped taking pictures to focus on trying to enjoy myself.

So from the library to an antique store I went. I love going to antique stores because I love things that have history. Plus, you never know when you go into a place and find something wonderful and old, possible all scratched to heck - but who cares. It's perfect! Well, the antique store I picked wasn't like that. Oh don't get me wrong, there were tons of beautiful things in the store, but I didn't have enough money to buy anything. In fact, I'm pretty sure I didn't have enough money to breathe on anything in that store. This was one of those places where you buy antiques because you have a house in New England that was once owned by George Washington and you need furniture of the correct time period to compliment the elaborate crown mouldings in the parlor. I was so scared I was going to knock something over! I wondered about, trying to look like I had money and kept my hands in my pockets. When I overheard the little British lady who owned the store talking about the 17th (or maybe 18th) century armoire that they had, I had to leave. One sneeze, and I would have to sell my kidneys on e-bay to pay for something. From there I went to a used book store and went a little nuts. I seriously need to stop buying books. I have a lot of them I have yet to read and I'm running out of places to put them all.

During the book store incident, I realized I hadn't eaten all day. It's a rare day when I forget to eat, people. Seriously, I was FOCUSED! My plan was to go to Cracker Barrel and get take out. Since I had dinner with Kenny there a couple of weeks ago, I had been having a serious jones for another one of their cheeseburgers. I don't know why, but that is what I wanted. So onward to Cracker Barrel, or so I thought. Somehow, somewhere I took a wrong road. I'm driving along, minding my own business, when I realize "Hey. I don't know where I am!" Soon enough, I realize I had somehow turned on the road that would take me straight out to Redstone Arsenal. If you've never tried to get on base, you probably have never seen this 900 mile long, no turns, surrounded by marshes and woods, wasteland that leads directly to a gate where two or more soldiers with M-16s are standing there waiting to do cavity searches on anyone who doesn't have a sticker thingie. I start to panic a little and begin a mental inventory of anything I might be carrying that could be considered a weapon. Lucky for me, there was a U-turn lane about 100 feet from the gate, so I got turned around the right way and headed on.

Birthday 5 Kelly 0

By this time I am past hungry and starting to get light headed and mean. I'm glad no one was with me, because I'm afraid I would have been snappish to them. I already know that I was extremely rude to the entire senior citizen population of Huntsville, which decided to come out and drive 25 miles an hour, not use the blinkers, and swerve from lane to lane regardless of the amount of traffic around them. I'm just glad they couldn't hear me. They would have been scandalized. I FINALLY made it to the restaurant and put in my order.

About an hour later I got my lunch.

I was all but gnawing on my purse straps from hunger, but luckily the food came out just in time to prevent that. I also bought myself a t-shirt that says "Official Old Fogey" from the gift shop. Then I went home. I was tired of trying to enjoy myself. So I changed into my new shirt and a pair of yoga pants and ate my lunch. It was just as Yummy as I thought it would be. After that, I took a nap.
Yes, that's me and my dragonfly slippers, and yes I took a picture of myself about to take a nap. I don't remember much after that picture, though, until Steve came home from work.

Birthday 5 Kelly 1

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA! In your FACE, Birthday!


We talked for a few minutes and then he fell asleep. I was awake by then, so I got up and worked on one of my projects.

Once Steve woke up, I was ready to go and do something. However, we both realized how very little we have in common when we couldn't think of anything we'd like to do. Together.

So he watched Stargate. I played Mah Jong.

I had come full circle. My birthday was done for another year.

Thank GOD!