birthday presents

You know how the saying goes: "It's more blessed to give than to receive." So I started my birthday right by giving myself a 4-day weekend. My birthday is actually today, so it was a weekend full of fun leading up to the big celebration. Not that I'm really having a BIG celebration, as in party or anything. But I am celebrating big in my heart.

Anyway, what did I do these four glorious days? Well, I mentioned in the previous post that Saturday I spent the day with my daughter at the zoo, which was a lot of fun and, yes, I took tons of pictures (I was nice and only gave you a sampling of the 300 I actually took). RL had left Saturday morning to go hunting and wouldn't be home until Sunday night, so I took advantage of an empty house and cleaned my little heart out. No, I didn't clean my heart -- I cleaned the house!! That might sound like a strange way to celebrate, but believe me, it was a gift for my soul.

Yesterday I continued the giving and went shopping. Now some of you may think that is a typical thing for a woman to do and you would probably be right, except I'm not your typical woman. If you'll notice, #38 of the 100 Things About Me states plainly: I hate shopping. To make it more enjoyable I planned the day, made a list, and headed to the big discount members only warehouse store. (Yeah, well, there's a whole lot more there than bulk quantities of Charmin.)

Ok, I did stop off at the mall first. But that was because I needed to take my wedding rings in for repair and some other jewelry to be checked and cleaned. I hadn't planned on roaming down to the shoe store that just happened to be having a "buy one pair and get the second at half price" sale. So, of course, I had to buy two pairs of shoes. I needed some comfy casual shoes. Really. And it seemed a shame to pass up another pair of shoes at half price!

And I couldn't help that, on my way back to the jewelry store, I had to pass the cellular phone kiosk. But since I did I thought I would see if they had a case for my phone. I didn't know I was eligible for a new phone! Hey, it's my birthday weekend -- what a cool gift!! (Actually, it turned out that I wasn't really eligible for the upgrade until the 29th. So thank you, Sam, Paris, and Jeremy for making it happen.)

So after two hours I finally made it back to the jewelry store, picked up my fully inspected, bright sparkly clean jewelry and headed to . . . oh wait! You should have seen them. Simple, shiny, 14K white gold hoop earrings just screaming, "Happy Birthday!"

When I finally made it to the big discount members only warehouse to purchase miscellaneous and much needed items, I discovered there were only two remaining black leather jackets in my size. I couldn't risk waiting for RL to buy me one for Christmas. They'd BOTH be gone. I did what any rational giving person would do. I gave myself one!

This morning RL wished me a very, VERY happy birthday and later asked me if I wanted my gift now or if I wanted to wait until tonight at dinner (at a very special seafood restaurant). Of course I want it now! So this is what my loving husband gave me. It's our children's birthstone and I absolutely love it!

And just when I thought I had received all the gifts any girl could ever imagine, I walked my husband to the door, kissed him goodbye as he was leaving for work, closed the door, walked back into the living room, and to my great surprise discovered my dog had left me a present as well! YIPEE! More cleaning. Happy Birthday to Me!!