Hey, it's my birthday for another 34 more minutes!
(Actually, no, it's no longer my birthday because I got distracted after writing that one sentence and it's now 30 minutes past midnight, but yesterday was totally my birthday, friends!)
And I took the day off.
I'm sure there are roughly a million people out there who wished their birthday was January 3rd right around 10 p.m. on January 2nd, so they could have a reason to take off work the First Monday of the year. And it was probably the first time those same million people wished for such a horribly timed birthday, but I embraced the timing of my day this year and embraced the fact that Mike always has Mondays off, and I spent the day lounging on my couch, being doted on, hanging with my boys, and it was just so nice.
January is going to be batshit crazy for me, and when I get uber-stressed over a very long to-do list or uber-annoyed that I gave up alcohol and meat and sweets all at the same time that I decided to hit the gym hard, I'll look back on my birthday and exhale.
Because it was lovely. Lovely lovely lovely.
In addition to a day off, I celebrated my day in various different ways over the weekend, one of those ways being a fancy, girl's night out dinner.
It's been a dream of mine for years to go to a nice dinner, wearing a nice dress, with all my nice friends and just eat and drink and laugh and then maybe blow out a candle.
I got to do all these things at Brownstone (Top Chef restaurant, holla!) last night, and it was even better than I thought it would be.
Mike doesn't really like birthdays, which may surprise a few of you who watch me throw him elaborate parties every year, but he knows I love birthdays -- like probably more than anyone else you've ever known -- and even though I suspect he'd drop to his knees in gratitude if I woke up one day and said, "eh, birthdays don't really do it for me any longer," he still makes homemade frosting for my birthday cupcakes, lets me sleep in for days before and after it, makes me dinner, takes me wherever I want to go, and takes Kyle outside to play in the freezing cold so mama could have some alone time with her cooking magazines and her monthly menu.
To him and to all my friends who helped me celebrate and to my mom especially for various birthday-related items including THE GIFT OF LIFE, thank you for a perfect 29.
It's hard to hate aging when you get to celebrate it so well.