BIRTHDAY and a Bandwagon

I’m jumping on a bandwagon and I don’t care who knows it. I’ve recently read some really hilarious (also thought provoking) questions over at After ‘I Do’ and Minnesota Meets California and darn it, I wanna play!!! I’ve also been trying to think of something creative to do for a themed Friday. Hello, Formspring Friday. The idea is, every Friday I will answer your burning questions. Depending on how long winded I get, because Lord knows I can’t ever tell a short story, I will post as many questions as it takes to get to 500 words. (I know, right!?) My posts are never less than about 1,000 words and I wish I was kidding. I just get so carried away with the details. I really can’t help myself. Blogging rules, be damned. We’ll start tomorrow. So… go here. (Um…please.) Ask me whatever you would like. (I’m not shy, don’t be sceeered.) And tomorrow, I will divulge the answers. I know. I’m excited too.

Now…. BIRTHDAY!!!!

Yeah, of course it’s a word of the day! (week, month… whatever)

First of all, yes I know I’m 28 and if I were normal (I’m not, really) I would be over this whole celebrating with a party thing. But you know, I love living. I love making it through another year. Especially lately. The past few years have been rough like a bull rider’s heel, so you’ll have to bah-scuse me for being elated about the possibilities standing before me. I’m happy as a clam and life has taken me through some pretty dark alleys, so I feel like I need to celebrate when I get through another year. This year (thus far) has been exponentially better than previous years and I have to say… It’s high *fucking* time!

So how did I celebrate this momentous occasion?

Whale, my manboy came up on Friday night to begin the festivities and we had a low key night. I had not had a wonderful day. Work was horrendous. Hercules made a giant mess that I had to clean up when I got home from said work day. And I somehow ripped the only pair of jeans that isn’t falling off of me. Well, shit. So his appearance was much welcomed. We ate. We relaxed. We fell asleep watching a movie.

The original plan for Saturday was to go watch the Chicago River turn green and then stand on a street corner watching green floats and marching bands. Well, the forecast was rainy and neither of us was feeling up to freezing our asses off and getting soaked. So that was scrapped and we went for Plan B.

(The activity, not the pill. Not that I don’t think that would have been an exciting (albeit terrifying) beginning to BIRTHDAY but standing in line at a Walgreens pharmacy for anti-baby medicine wasn’t really in the cards. Thank. God.)

We went to the Saugatuck Dunes State park and went for a nice, long, and leisurely hike through the dunes. R was impressed with my ability to climb “mountains” (as he called them) and keep going like nothing happened. I’m a big fan of the hiking. It was a foggy, cloudy day but the forest was downright gorgeous. I dragged R over the dunes and through the woods, spying plenty of fresh coyote tracks along the way. (We’ll talk about my experience with coyotes on our next visit.) He then continued to chide me all the way through the hike anytime we saw wild dog poo or lone “dog” tracks. Yeah, coyotes and I are no longer friends. In fact, if I never see another coyote close up or far away through wild grass, I’ll be okay with that. We hiked up and down to the beach and then I remembered this amazing view from the top of the dune. Problem is, the only way to get there from the beach (without completely backtracking all the way through the woods again) is to climb a large (LARGE) dune. R was all “Oh, that’s easy! Let’s do it! It can’t be that hard!” I warned him. I really did. Halfway up this beast of a dune, your ass, thighs, calves and lungs are all giving you the middle finger and calling you inappropriate names like stupid head and meanie. (Plus, fuck face and retard.) R didn’t believe me. Until we got halfway up and he sat on a dead, burned up log and probably resisted the urge to give ME the finger for even suggested this asinine plan. Well, well, Mr. Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better, I hate to say it (Psh.), but I told you so!!!! Ten minutes later, we were at the top, breathing heavy and enjoying the view. And what a view it is!

wood.

The beach....

Oh Look! The hill!

Aw. Shit.

Looking down...

So we made it to the summit and being a tried and true Michigan girl, I know that half (okay, three quarters) of the fun of climbing a dune is running down it! R was having none of it. Mostly because he knew running down would require another hike UP. So, no running down was had. Boo. Hiss. BUT, we did hike to the other side of the dune and got this gorgeous view…

The other side of the dune...

We finished our hike just in time for the rain to begin. Perfect timing really. I no sooner closed the car door and the sprinkling began. Score one for team BIRTHDAY! We drove home, R napped, I sang along to some lovey dovey music and that concluded our hike. Much better than freezing to death in the Chicago wind and rain. (Although, I do still want to see the river tuning green. Maybe next year!?)

The rest of Saturday was pretty low key. We ate. We fell asleep watching a movie. I think we’re starting to develop a pattern here. Am I ever going to see the end of a movie ever again? Jury’s still out.

Sunday! BIRTHDAY!!!

R made me breakfast. (Aw, squish!) I got a Droid. We went to Walgreens. I bought conditioner. We went to grandma’s to pick up more chairs. I got a ginormous pink purse and these earrings from Target that I’ve been drooling over.

Wait, what? I got a Droooid? I did. I sure did. The sales guy tried to work us over but R was there to raise an eyebrow and I was there (sans filter) to ask the “Do we really need that?” question and the “What can you give us for free?” question and we ran away with car chargers, cases, a bluetooth, a free phone and accessories coming out of our eyeballs with a $100 rebate owed. Team BIRTHDAY strikes again! Woot!

Drooooid! *Complete with Ryan's cute kissy face!*

I mentioned to my mom a couple of weeks ago that I needed a big purse after growing way too attached to her Chanel bag in Chicago and the week following. My grandma obliged with this little (giant) diddy.

The little change purse was from my sister. I had JUST said that morning that I needed something to organize all the crap in this purse. Score!

As if the morning wasn’t fun enough, BIRTHDAY continued and my family arrived. I’m pretty sure they were more excited about meeting R than celebrating BIRTHDAY. He wowed them. Of course. Then I got to hear things like “I love him!” “He’s such a love!” “I love you guys together.” “He’s a gem” “… future son-in-law.” Yeah, I think I’m allowed to keep him. <3

We grazed like cows in the spring pasture all day and played games (thanks to my very creative nephew). Pin the tail on the donkey. (Where I lost.) Duck Duck Goose. (Which ended with my brother in law football tackling me six inches from the corner of a wall.) And another rendition of Aunt Kallay will never beat her nephew in a game, ever. (aka Air Hockey with stuffed cars.) No pictures were taken of the tackling incident because everyone was sitting in the circle stunned at my brother in law's creative win.

Moving on…

BIRTHDAY dinner was butter with a side of chicken, homemade spaetzle (read: butter), and roasted asparagus. Totally delicious. My mom slaved and taught me how to make said spaetzle which is, by the way, really easy and super fun. (Yes, super.) And then it was time for cake! As you know, I’m not a fan of frosting. I’m also not big on cake in general. I’ll eat it to be kind. But all in all, I’d rather have cheesecake or Angel Food Cake. My mom bought 14 slices of a variety of cheesecakes, all beautiful, all delicious. We ate from each other’s plates and moaned for ten minutes over the drool worthy slices. It was fantastic. No pictures were taken. (To my knowledge.) Take my word for it though. Four inches of stick to the roof of your mouth cheesecake in varying flavors… sweet Jesus, take me away. Yum. I also had three candles to blow out on my slice of cake, twenty eight, three, it’s all the same to me. I made a wish. I’ll keep you posted on the results.

Presents!!! obviously, some of these folks had already jumped the gun. My friends sent me gifts in the mail, I received hoops & yoyo cards a plenty because hello, they’re hilarious, and my mom and grandma just *had* to give me their presents early. Who’s complaining? (Not. I.)

R and my mom had cleverly hidden my gift from him under a table that Lord knows I wouldn’t have known was hollow otherwise. It was pretty creative, I have to say. I’m generally pretty inquisitive (read: nosy) when it comes to gifts. Your best bet is to just not tell me at all. Because a) I will guess. No matter how obscure. and b) I will drive you insane. Patience is not my forte. Mom just tells me “It’s blue.” That’s always my clue. I don’t even try with her anymore. She knows the drill.

So my sister begged me to open her’s before R’s because she said I will forget it immediately after opening his. (Lies.) She gave me the adorable Vera Bradley change purse, which is proving to be quite handy. She also gave me a jewelry cleaning kit to clean “any shiny jewelry I might be getting in the near future…”! (insert audible wink from sister here)

And then, after all of the build up, being told I was going to cry all day, it was time to open R’s gift. I was a little nervous because a part of me wondered if this was IT. Was he proposing on my birthday? I looked in the bag for any clues and no small boxes appeared so my heart slowed a little bit. (Not that I don’t want to, but it’s been two months. We’ll get there someday.) The first gift was a gorgeous picture frame with my favorite picture of us in it. And the second gift literally took my breath away. Have you ever received a gift that makes you so emotional that you are stunned emotionless? Well, that was what this was like. It was a beautiful silver box with a fleur de lis on the lid. I opened the lid to see the inside (thinking it was empty) and out pops a piece of paper. It wasn’t just a piece of paper. It was the most touching and romantic poem, written by R, entitled “Until God Do We Part”. I won’t post the poem here, in case someone (R) has stage fright, but I will divulge my favorite part….

The day my eyes ever held yours,
I knew in my heart, I’d never want more.
The way that you smiled, the sound of your laugh,
Brought an end to the pain,
the pain in the past.

Those words sum up exactly how I feel about him and to know that’s how he feels too… there are no words. I sat there for a minute. Reading the poem a couple of times. Holding my silver box. Stunned emotionless. I wanted to smile. I wanted to cry. I wanted to do a back flip in the front yard. The lyrics “Oh, it’s what you do to me…” from a song by the Plain White T’s was dancing around in my head. It was a perfect gift. An absolutely heart felt, romantic, creative, unexpected gift. I wrote a while back about the symbolism of the silver box and I’m not even sure R understands the impact on my heart that it has. It keeps something alive for me that is so precious and so meaningful, I really can’t describe it any better than to say that my heart is full.

It sits on my nightstand so I can read the poem before bed.

It was a truly touching moment. Best BIRTHDAY ever.

Soon after, my sister and her brood left, but not without a famous quote from my nephew. I will say this… My new nickname from now until the next genius naming is “Cushie Bushie”! Thank you. Nephew.

Also, my niece? She’s my competition. She is 110% in love with R. SO. CUTE. They played blocks together, they sat next to each other at dinner and then when it was time to go, she gave him a big ol’ kiss right on the lips. I wish there was a picture. She waddled up to him all decked out in pink monkey footie pajamas and puckered lips. (This is where we all say “AWWWWWW!!!”!!) It was priceless.

So, with BIRTHDAY a success and my family’s approval, I “Spring Forward” into this new year of life, with love and gratitude in my heart, a smile on my face, and a To Do List a mile long. This weekend is BIRTHDAY for R. I can’t wait to head to the farm and relax. I love it there. (Except when I get chased out of the woods by a coyote.) It should be a great weekend. (And don’t forget! Formspring Friday! Ask a question!)

Flowers my grandma had placed on the altar for me at church. AW.

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