Birthday Week - Bullet Style

As far as birthdays go, I have a feeling my 36th on Thursday is going to be a bit of a disappointment.  Perhaps since I'm already declaring it to be so, it won't be - sort of like when you lower expectations for a movie or book and then end up loving it.  Nevertheless, the day itself already has dentist appointments (dentist appointments of all things!) scheduled right in the middle and fair responsibilities that take Seth and Jay away for most of the day and so, in order to preempt any sort of self-pity which is likely to shadow me on my birthday, I'm declaring it birthday week.  I'll take the celebration in bits and pieces rather than in whole-day form.

I started today.  Nothing official.  Merely treats and gifts thrown my way by me throughout the day.  To be fair, Jay is very disappointed that I am taking away all of his super-husband-points by buying my own gift, but it's just easier this way.  He's already earned them anyway.  This is what I've done so far:

- Got my house cleaned.  True, I do this every other week, but that doesn't mean it's not a gift.  I usually only have the two ladies that come clean do the main floor, but today I splurged and paid them for an extra half hour to get the upstairs bathroom spic-and-span as well.  It brings peace to my soul to walk inside my house and have every room within sight sparkle.  The joy comes from not having to do it myself.  The floors are mopped and vacuumed.  The bathrooms are cometed and vacuumed (because I am still dealing with nasty carpet in my bathroom.  Who puts carpet in a bathroom?  Widowed women, that's who!  Not anyone that has to deal with boys and splatter).  My kitchen is clean including microwave, range, sink and, of course, counters.  I really love it. Really, really, really.

 - Treated myself and the boys to lunch at Costa Vida.  It involves a 45-minute road trip but as we had school shopping and elementary registration to do anyway, we made a day of it.  I got the pork salad and a diet coke with pebble ice and am grateful that my boys like the food there as well.  They are so good with the gluten-free crowd.  Not only do they claim to have gluten-free options, but they know about contamination and do their best to avoid it by changing gloves and using different surfaces for things ordered to be specifically gluten-free.  Can't beat that.

 - Bought a Bose Sound System for my Ipod.  I have been wanting one of these for years but always shied away due to the cost.  They had one reasonably priced at Sam's Club and I told Jay it was all I wanted for my birthday.   I picked one up and have been listening to Adele as she was meant to be listened to.  O.K, that's probably not true.  She's probably phenomenal live, but listening to her with a Bose Sound system is a close second.  I just love the sound!  I've been listening to my music either with the cheap white headphones that came with my ipod or over the computer speakers on our seven year-old desktop system.  I had no idea that any of these songs had bass!

 -  Finished school shopping for the boys.  I admit it's not really at the birthday-gift level, but it sure is nice to have it done.  No running around various stores during the last two weeks of summer for me (not counting today, of course).  Hopefully, next week when this fair thing is over, we can get to the lake instead of rioting with all the others over #2 pencils at Walmart.

 - Bought three newborn outfits for baby boy.  I know he'll need other sizes but it was so fun to pick out these cute little things.  I probably shouldn't shop with big brothers again unless I want to end up with ALL football-themed jammies.

 - Got a fun birthday decorated package from my sister, Jen.  I'm waiting to open it on Thursday so that there is something to open that day, but I'm kind of embarrassed about it.  She is so good at mailing things!  The rest of our family uses the wait-until-someone-else-visits-and-then-send-it-back-with-them-to-hold-onto-it-until-desired-recipient-visits-middle-man system and I have something that I said I'd send her from a month ago!  I'd promise to get it done this week but I don't think she'd believe me.  No matter - I vow to make it so!

So...yeah.  I kind of spent a lot of money today.  That wasn't really the point of celebrating, but it's how today went down.  Everything was planned and included in the budget so I'm not going to let the numbers, or the fact that the Dow Jones lost over 600 points today, get me down.   Because birthday week doesn't come around every....week!