Happy Birthday to ME!

People. I have had The Best Birthday Ever this weekend. Seriously wonderful. Fantastic. Blissful. Surprising. Fabulous. It was everything a birthday should be. The bar has been set very high this year, folks. You will have to start planning waaaaay ahead – like by Thanksgiving – next year to beat it.

It started with cake. As all birthdays should. Why eat Cheerios for breakfast on your birthday? Geez. The best part? It was a cake that I didn’t have to make or buy myself. This would be a first, since moving away from my Mom in 2000. Eight years. (Well, there was that one year when Joe was deployed and Suz came out for my birthday and we went to WalMart to buy me a cake and I picked up the small one and she made me put it back because the one that said “Serves 15″ looked “Just about perfect!” to her.  But I can’t remember if I payed for it or if she did and at the very least I had to go shopping for it myself so I’m not counting it here.) Ladies and Gentlemen – the wait was worth it. Would you check this baby out?

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I’m eating the last slice right now. Mmmm. Cake.

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It was everything a cake should be. Pink frosting? Check. Sprinkles? Check. Zero work by me? CHECK. I’m looking at this thing, and two words are coming to mind – “Award Winner”. But that’s another post.

After cake we had presents. Again – why don’t more mornings start like this? A bowl of Cheerios followed by changing someone’s diaper and being forced to watch Dora really pale in comparison to pink cake and presents. And oh, the presents. You know your world is about to be rocked when you peel back the paper and see this -

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Either Suz has developed a sick sense of humor and is wrapping my BBW gift in a recycled box, or she won the lotto.

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And rocked it was. I’d like to introduce you all to My Precious. My Precious? Meet the Blog -

Would you look at that thing? Is it not the most beautiful bag you’ve ever seen? She kept the receipts “just in case.” I told her to flush them – nobody is separating me from My Precious.

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When I was done cutting the tags off the bag, throwing out all the paper that was in the bag, and admiring how I looked with it over my shoulder, Joe handed me a big gift bag full of goodies. First thing I pulled out was this -

Whoa. Time for a manicure.

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I’m like the last person on the planet (well, I guess the last person on the planet who actually *cares* would be more accurate) who has not read this book. While I was pretty excited to see it, the first thing I thought (and said, because I have no filter) was “Great! Now all I need is to get books 5 and 6 so I can read them all again before I start this one!” Joe just gave me a look and gestured to the bag and voila!

He inventoried my bookshelf before going shopping. How much does he rock?

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There were also jammies ,(“Your FAVORITE, Mommy!” When you’re a slacker who wears your jammies around the house all day,  you need a wide variety of cute ones.) a great bead necklace, and volumes 2 and 3 of the Buffy Omnibus comics collections  (Omnibuses?) Jaynie thinks we’re saying “Buffy on the bus” so when I pulled these out she shouted “2 and 3 of Buffy on the bus! Now you have all the Buffy on the buses!”

Number one was a Christmas gift – not sure why I included it in the Birthday Haul photo.

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It occurred to me while I was photographing my COMIC BOOKS that I’ve slipped into an all new level of dorkdum. Then I panned back a bit and looked at all the gifts I was so happy about -

Next it’ll be D&D.

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Oh, yeah. Dork city.

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But the day wasn’t over with cake and gifts. We played until lunch, then all piled in the car to take me to “Nothing” where they would drop me off and then continue on to “Nothing” to buy me some “Nothings.” (This is how Jaynie put it. She’s getting reeeeeaaaaallly good at the secret keeping.) Well – the “Nothing” turned out to be here. Holy cow, people. It was too cold to really appreciate all that outdoor splendor, but you’d better believe I appreciated the view while I dined on my lovely four-course meal in the dining room with the glass wall looking out over the sea. And I appreciated it while I was in the “relaxing room” after my hour and a half massage, drinking herbal tea and reading my comic book a fashion magazine or something else completely non-dorky. Click on the picture of the green pool. I floated in that pool for half an hour. I took a shower in the “color therapy shower” (basically, a shower that changes color every few seconds. Whatever – a shower where nobody barges in and sings the ABC’s at me. )  I lounged in the sauna. I got the best massage on the planet. The massage table was like a waterbed – hysterical, but comfy. At the end she put ice-cold stones on me and left me there to bake on the hot table with ice on my forehead. Weird, but heavenly.

When the family came to pick me up, the whole car smelled like Lush. Wahoo! So this was the Nothing they went to to buy me some Nothings! Score!

I got out of the car and Joe went around to the back to get the bags. I was expecting a couple of bars of soap or a bath bomb, what I got was two, huge, FULL shopping bags worth of stuff. Shampoo and lotions and bombs and soaps and massage bars and conditioners and scrubs… oh my! I must have been a reeaally good girl this year!

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Oddly enough, I don’t have any pictures of my Lush haul. Trust me, its impressive.

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I went to bed last night feeling relaxed and rejuvenated and smelling fantastic. Could I ask for anything more? Thank you to everyone who made my birthday far superior to those that came before it. With a beginning like this, how could 31 be anything less than a spectacular year?

Happy Birthday to me!