Birthday [Week] Recap
It's been a very busy few days so I don't know that I can get through all of it in great detail but let me try to skim through the basics at least! 
Four Birthday Meals
- Last Saturday: Walt Disney World surprise lunch
- Birthday day lunch
- Birthday day dinner
- Day after my birthday Birthday lunch with family
(I can't even tell you how full I was by the time I got to lunch the next day with my family. The fridge was - and still is - packed COMPLETELY full with leftovers and cake! I'm lucky to eat what qualifies as ONE meal a day and not because I starve myself or anything, but because the way my stomach works, I have to graze on tiny nibbles throughout the day.)
Three (and a half) Birthday Cakes
- Surprise cake at WDW lunch
- Surprise ice cream cake (with number candles for "29") from Love on birthday
- Birthday-decorated cheesecake after birthday day dinner (complete with wait-staff singing)
- Full-on birthday cake from mom served during day-after birthday Birthday lunch
(WDW was a yellow cake with chocolate fudge icing and chocolate moose inbetween the layers; ice cream cake was a "bar" style cake with multiple flavors of ice cream and topped with chocolate; cheesecake was Cheesecake Factory Lemon and Raspberry and damn was it good; and mom's cake came from Publix who makes the best cakes, was a marble with whipped cream and filled with cherries.)
(Love was cute and got me candles that said "29" instead.)
(Cake from my mom)Two WatchesNow this is a hysterical story. I had put
this watch on my
amazon wishlist just for the hell of it. In fact, the description said,
"It IS called a wishlist afterall. I can dream" because I put it on there more like, "oh pretty" not like "I wonder who'll buy it for me." You know,
wishlist. So turns out that my friend Rand got it for me. And it was very, very lovely. Much prettier than in person.
Here's where the
but.... comes into play. The watch was GINORMOUS. The face is literally the same size as Love's Fossil watch. It's 1.5" in height/width. So large that it dwarfed my very small wrists. Rand even said before I got my gifts that there was something he knew I was going to exchange because he was sure I didn't realize what it was. And he was right. I would totally have kept it but I think even Flava Flave would think it was a bit on the large size.
So off we went to the Fossil store to exchange it for something else. But we get there and I give them the packing slip thingy that was the only paperwork in the box and they tell me that the watch's value is only $39. It's $95 on amazon.com AND fossil.com. Less than $40 isn't acceptable. I try on a few, find the one I want and plan to come back with the email invoice that he received to show the price paid later.
Meanwhile, the next day (Thursday the 17th) I have lunch plans with my family. My mom, nanny (grandmother) and sister are meeting me for my official family birthday meal. I tell them about the watch situation and showed them how huge it was. We order, eat, and then get to the presents part. At which point I open the gift from my sister. I open the box and see...a Fossil tin. Inside is
this watch.
This was the EXACT watch I was going to exchange Rand's for later that afternoon.
I didn't tell anyone I wanted a watch. (Heck,
I didn't know I wanted one even!) I didn't discuss the watch situation with my family until I was
at lunch with them - long after my sister bought this one for me. This was just a total freak fluke event where things converged to give me a watch no matter what apparently!
It just made me absolutely laugh.
Bear in mind too, my sister and I don't normally give each other gifts anywhere near this expensive. It's normally more in the $25 range. And that's perfectly ok. But she said she wanted to give me something special since it was a special birthday.
After lunch, we ran over to Macy's, took two links out so it fit and I went over to Rand's to tell him the comedy of errors. We returned the now extra watch (because it made more sense to return that one fully for refund rather than make two exchanges, one to return my sister's and then one to exchange his for the one she got me, you know?) I decided to splurge with the cash from the watch (because now it was up to me to spend it as I wanted since I returned the oversized watch) and hit the Sephora store in the same mall and made my first purchase there. The Bare Minerals starter kit. I've been interested in it for years but could never EVER bring myself to spend $60 on it. It still leaves me with $40 left over to spend as well. Jeez! Craziness.
Other GiftageLove gave me a bike bell. But the best part is that it goes with a soon-to-be-selected bike for me. I've been wanting one for a long time now and he wanted me to pick it out since it's such a custom thing. I'm so excited and want to shop around tomorrow for it! Love also got me two dozen gorgeous red roses. They're so beautiful.
Mom gave me some white gold hoop earrings and three shirts. Two came from
The Animal Rescue Site which is always nice since the money helps a good cause.
Rand also gave me some
Pearl Ex which I've wanted to try in clay for a long time now. Yeah craftiness!
Nanny gave me a card and $20 (whoo hoo! More money!) and some flowers. Very sweet of her. (She is, in case you don't know going to be 91 in August!)
Love's Parents gave me a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble so I bought a couple books. (Wee books!)
In addition, I had a host of both virtual and non-virtual wishes from
all my friends. Everything from my very first
virtual Livejournal gift (thanks Dawna!), to Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead on dvd from
Lorena to a gift certificate for tea from
felinevamp plus a TON of journal wishes, comments, and even a few cards and emails. I totally feel like I'm missing something but I'm brain-fried right now and if I forgot to mention it right now I'm so sorry. Let me just say: THANK YOU EVERYONE for the cheer. I can't tell you how nice it was to see and how much it made me smile.
Well. So much for brief! And to think, I didn't even go into ALL the details of the last few days. Craziness! But it's been... I don't know. Nuts. But fun. In a good way. All-in-all I had a very nice birthday and really felt special from all my friends and family.
And now that I've been writing this for...checks..damn, an HOUR, I guess I better wrap up. Thanks for reading along and thanks to everyone for making it such a wonderful birthday for me.
~ flowers bloom for
:: miss m ::
at 5/18/2007 11:43:00 PM ~
~
Birthday Recap Soon
I have so much to talk about and details to share but right now I'm BEYOND exhausted. I will properly thank everyone for their wishes, thoughts, generosity and detail my FOUR birthday meals, THREE birthday cakes, TWO watch fiasco and more. Tomorrow.
For now? Goodnight!
~ flowers bloom for
:: miss m ::
at 5/18/2007 01:33:00 AM ~
~
You Say It's Your Birthday
It's my birthday too...
Ah, the day has arrived. I am officially three decades on this planet. So I guess this is the face of 30. Looks a lot like 29 actually. Heh.
Out to lunch. More later.
~ flowers bloom for
:: miss m ::
at 5/16/2007 12:35:00 PM ~
~
29
Today is the last day I am 29. My last day as a "twenty-something." I'm experiencing the big odometer roll-over tomorrow. The big 3-0. Thirty.
Most people tell me not to worry over it. That it's just a number or that it's a good age; that it doesn't mean I'm getting old. And logically, I know 30 isn't really all so different from 29. But logic doesn't come into play.
Thirty is this fictional reality you build for yourself when you're younger. It's this milestone that you visualize when you think of yourself as all grown up. The house, the career, the family if you want one - that's all somehow manifest in your imaginings by that age. But no one ever realizes how quickly the years pass and how hard those dreams can be to actually reach.
Thirty hurts me because I feel so stagnant in my life. I've been dealing with chronic health problems for years now without the benefit of medical assistance to help me figure it all out. I'd question the reality of it all except I am physically incapable of holding down a full time job because of those problems. For years though, I told myself there was something wrong with me that had nothing to do with doctors; that I was just defective that I didn't seem able to do what millions of people do with great ease. I moved from job to job thinking I was just a failure. So it's hard to remove that from my mind at this point. It's like, without struggling through the medical system for validation, those doubts still haunt me.
I always wanted to travel, to see things, to go places. And here I am entering my third decade never having been anywhere. It's hardly impressive to say the furthest West you've been is New Orleans. I've seen several states on the Eastern Seaboard and that's it. And even then, it's been seven or more years since I've even left the state of Florida. I've been on a plane twice when I was 15 but it made me so sick I haven't been able to get back on one since.
I never went to college. My pre-paid fund was stolen by my biological father. So I have no degree, no certification, nothing to validate my worthiness in the world. But what does it matter since I also have no career and no ability to have one due to my health. Who cares if I don't ever better myself, when all it would do is act as a piece of paper on my wall?
So I stop and take stock of where I am as I reach thirty and I find I'm not anywhere. I haven't done anything, I haven't seen anything and most painful, I haven't become anyone. I'm just this girl who drifts about, accomplishing nothing, and having no real voice or identity. No impact on the world and no legacy of actions or deeds.
This isn't a pity-party or a cry for supportive comments. This is just me, taking a long, hard look at my life and realizing I'm not doing anything with it. And finding myself not knowing how to make that change or even if I want to make the change. There's some small comfort in banality because no one ever expects anything of you, so there's no one to let down. Including yourself. If you don't strive for anything, you don't have to lick your wounds when you fail. Life has taught me that I will fail, so why not just not try and save myself the effort? Everything in my life is bound up by limitations, restrictions and inabilities. Many of them are nothing I can do anything about even if I wanted. No car, no money, no choices.
So I find myself just sitting, watching the days pass and another year coming on. I look at where I thought 30 would mean and see that it's not only not adding up, it's just reminding me how little I have to look forward to from here on. I've set my path long ago and it's not really going to change. I think, more than anything, this birthday is a loss of hope. A loss of possibility. I find myself at a place where it's all the same as far as the eye can see, in every direction and in every way. It's never too late to change! you say, but honestly, sometimes, it kinda is. And deep down, we all know that no matter what we tell ourselves or each other.
~ flowers bloom for
:: miss m ::
at 5/15/2007 03:16:00 PM ~
~
Happiest Place On Earth
The quickie version: Had a great time on Saturday at Walt Disney World. Love and Rand made a surprise lunch reservation at Le Cellier in Canada (Epcot) for me. AND a surprise birthday cake. Not a piece, but a full cake! 
I had a delicious fillet mignon for lunch. Yum it was good!
Here's a pic of Love and I:
Afterward we hit Magic Kingdom and finished out our night there. It was a really fun day and I had a really good time.
~ flowers bloom for
:: miss m ::
at 5/14/2007 05:47:00 PM ~
~
