Archive for the 'Birthdays' Category

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Re-entry into the real world is rough

Published on Monday, March 8, 2010 in Birthdays. 2 Comments Tags: .

Well, Birthday Week is officially over! I had a fantastic week, and our trip to Crested Butte was phenomenal. You can expect some more posts about that.

In the meantime, here is a little recap of the highlights:

  • We LOVE roadtrippin’, and the weather was perfect for the drive down.  The views from here to there are some of my favorite in the whole entire state of Colorado.  We had dry roads, blue skies, white-capped mountains.  It doesn’t get much better than that.
  • I also got to eat an entire meal while chatting nicely with my husband.  Neither one of us were interrupted, and we almost weren’t sure what to do with ourselves.  AND, I got to go to the bathroom when I wanted to.  It’s the little things really…
  • When I booked the room at the B&B in Crested Butte (more on that later!), I’d struggled with justifying the more costly room with the claw-foot tub and the private balcony.  Since we were splurging on other things, I decided to go with a more modest, yet awesome room.  When we got there, we found out we’d been upgraded…FOR FREE…to the room that I’d really wanted.  Our mountain getaway was off to a fabulous start!
  • Claire did such a great job without us that she didn’t even care to talk to us on the phone. Grandma made her.
  • I did great without being around Claire! Truth be told, I almost cried when she didn’t want to talk to me on the phone, but I got over it. Plus, Grandma made her.
  • My husband had a fabulous time skiing, and the total rejuvenation package I did at the spa was beyond words.
  • I was able to totally immerse myself in writing my book, and I made real progress.  Just thinking about that makes me giddy, and I can’t wait to get more written.  Writing in the midst of the real world won’t be the same as writing in seclusion, but the momentum is there, and I can’t wait to harness it!
  • We found out that the awesome sushi restaurant in town was having all you could eat sushi on my birthday. It was fate.
  • At one point, I’d realized that four of my last five meals had included bacon. There isn’t this much bacon in the real world. Who needs the real world?
  • I forced my husband to go to a movie on the weekend it opened, which violates numerous codes and treaties. However, seeing Alice in Wonderland in IMAX 3D was worth it! …and he only whined for a little bit. I dare say we liked it better than Avatar, which we didn’t think would be possible.
  • Today, the built-in-babysitters grandparents left, so Claire and I had a full day at the pool scheduled to keep her mind off of that. We had lessons in the morning and then swam with various other people afterwards. We were there for hours. We were both so exhausted that when we got home, we BOTH took a 3-hour nap.

I realize that the real world is relatively baconless and only 3D at times, but I’d like to petition the Naps Department to see if that part can stick around for awhile.

Despite evidence to the contrary, it is good to be back! ;)

More later!

Kids half my age can vote, but they can’t buy booze, so I’m not THAT old yet.

Published on Thursday, March 4, 2010 in Birthdays and Blog Business. 2 Comments Tags: .

Happy Birthday to me!

I was born on the only command of the year: March Forth!

Fourth.
Forth.

Get it?

No, I haven’t taken things to Literally on my birthday…it’s nowhere near Crested Butte!  ;)

I hope you have a fabulous day. I know I will!

Maybe I’m not turning 36 tomorrow. Maybe I’m turning 12.

Published on Wednesday, March 3, 2010 in Birthdays and Blog Business. 2 Comments Tags: .

I can’t stop calling Crested Butte, Crusty Butt. I know! I know. I’m sure the residents of that wonderful mountain town have heard that little joke a million times.

But, I just can’t stop saying it.

Maybe I’m not turning 36. Maybe I’m turning 12.

Either way, we’re off! We’re headed out on our Beautiful Mountain Birthday Getaway, sans babe!

We’ll be unplugged, so I won’t be around to respond to any comments until Monday.  There will be some things scheduled to post the rest of the week, so you’ll have something to read until we return…

You know when we return from Cressss-ted Byoooooot.

Wow. That was hard.

;)

I wonder if she will even notice that we are gone?

Published on Monday, March 1, 2010 in Birthdays and Fun. 2 Comments Tags: .

Happy March! It’s March 1st, so you know what that means, right!? It’s my Birthday Week! Yes, I celebrate my Birthday Week…because I can. Old people can do what they want. (Hey! Get off my lawn!) My birthday is on the 4th, and this year, my husband is taking me on a mountain getaway. We’ll leave on the 3rd, drive to a wonderful Colorado destination where he will ski and I already have a full spa package already booked! I’ll have hours of uninterrupted writing time, and I’m so excited I can hardly see straight.

We’ll be away from Claire for two nights, which is two nights longer than I’ve ever been away from her. Can you believe it?

I know she’s ready, and I’m sure I will be too. This will be nice test-run for when we escape to Hawaii for two weeks in October.

The mountain town we’re visiting has terrible cell phone and data services, so we’ll be unplugged. The last time we were unplugged was for our 12-day Road Trip out to California via the Grand Canyon, and it was awesome. They say I’ll still have spotty cell phone and txt service, but the Internet will have to figure out how to survive without us for a couple days. (I’ll have Glenda with me, but I’m not about to pay $450 per kilobyte or whatever it is to check email and play online. I’ll be too busy being massaged and pampered. Darn.)

Honestly, I can’t wait.

The grandparents will be here to watch Claire, and I wonder if she’ll even notice that we’re gone?

Confessions of a Casual Perfectionist: Day 30

Published on Monday, November 30, 2009 in Birthdays, Confessions and NaBloPoMo 2009. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

nablo1109.120x90It’s NaBloPoMo Day 30!

Today’s confession: I love milestones.

We’ve made it to the end of NaBloPoMo! The first and last days are always the easiest. “I’m going to do this, and this counts as a post!” Day One? Check. “I did it, and this counts as a post!” Day Thirty? Check.

Well, I have it doubly easy to finish NaBloPoMo, because today is my Baby Claire’s birthday! Somehow, she’s four. I’m not sure how the math on that works, since four years seems like a long time. At others, it seems so short.

Funny how that works.

We’ve spent the whole month talking about Claire’s birthday and building it up. The excitement has culminated today, and it’s going to be a great day. I’ve spent a whole month talking about my confessions as a Casual Perfectionists, and today is going to be a great day.

This all folds nicely into my confession for today. I love milestones. Reaching them makes me sigh with relief before I take a deep breath, regroup and figure out when we’ll hit the next one. In fact, I’m working on a nice synopsis piece of this fun little Confessions of a Casual Perfectionist project. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, we made it!  …and it’s Claire’s birthday!

Happy, happy day.

Confessions of a Casual Perfectionist: Day 29

Published on Sunday, November 29, 2009 in Birthdays, Confessions, Gift Ideas and NaBloPoMo 2009. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

nablo1109.120x90It’s NaBloPoMo Day 29!

Today’s confession: I have a really cool process that combines a fun photo of the party with a Thank You Card.  It works like a charm!

Yes, we already have Claire’s Party Thank You cards done, but it’s not really my fault. Don’t blame the perfectionist; blame Target Photo’s One-Hour service.

I’m a firm believer in Thank You Cards. I love writing them, and I love receiving them. I think it’s so important to remember to show our gratitude, and getting a real card in the mail makes me feel special, so I always try to reciprocate. (Yes, we thank people in person, but there is an added bonus to doing a “real” Thank You Card, in my humble opinion.)

We had Claire’s 4th Birthday Party with a few select friends at the local Build-a-Bear Place today. We took a cute photo of the group, and when we got home, I uploaded it and she helped me pick out a cute Thank You Photo Card from their online photo card selection.

I got it all arranged, and got it set to print, and I chose the “pickup at the store” option. It really was done in less than an hour, so I went to pick them up. I mean, once I’m on a roll, why stop?

They’re addressed, stamped, and beautifully artworked by Claire.

The Perfectionist Part is SO glad to have it done. The Casual Part is SO glad the process was easy and painless. Plus, now my friends will think I’m either super-organized or a touch insane or both.

Not that there’s anything wrong with either one of those diagnoses.

I’m too young to have a 48-year old.

Published on Thursday, August 20, 2009 in Birthdays, Kitties and Photos. 0 Comments Tags: .
Merlin

Merlin & Jasper wait (im)patiently for their birthday treats.

Merlin and Jasper turn 8-years old today!  It seems like yesterday we were bringing them home.  (We had to wait until they were big enough to bring them home.  You can read all about that here!) They were so tiny!

Eight Years ago!

October 2001

According to a chart online, they are the equivalent of 48-years old.  Does this mean, they’ll start looking for younger kitties to date and want to ride motorcycles?  I guess it’s a good thing we never let them outside.  :)

Where’s the cake?

Published on Friday, July 24, 2009 in Anniversaries, Birthdays and Blog Business. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

I can’t let this week slip by without mentioning a milestone of sorts…

July 22nd was The Casual Perfectionist’s 2-year birthday! Can you believe it? So far, we’ve survived the last few days without many tantrums, but the week isn’t over yet. ;)

Now, if you look in the archives, you’ll see things written back in May of 2007, but as I mention there, those were all post-dated with things I’d written offline. The official go-live date of the blog was July 22, 2007.

So, here we are two years and 936 posts later (937 if you count this one), and the story has only just begun.

Thank you for following along with me! I can’t wait to see what the next year brings!

My meal wasn’t nearly as exciting, but it was just as tasty.

Published on Thursday, March 5, 2009 in Birthdays, Claire, Conversations and Visitors. 8 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Last night, my inlaws took us out for my birthday dinner.  We went to a nice fish market type place that my husband and I had never been to.  They’d been to this same restaurant in another state and suggested we try it.  It was a fabulous choice, and the food was awesome!

The menu was so full of wonderful items, that it was hard to choose.  After much deliberation, my husband decided on his meal.

That’s when he asked for the shark.

The look on Claire’s face was priceless.  Her eyes got really big, and she gasped out loud.

“Daddy is gonna eat a shark!?” she screeched.  She just couldn’t believe it!

We tried to explain to her that he would only be eating part of the shark, and not the whole thing, but we were getting nowhere.

So, we decided to feed into her excitement and talk about how shocking it all sounded.

Daddy was going to eat a shark!

We talked about how normally the shark would take up the whole table and try to eat us, but that it wasn’t going to work that way this time.

She was rather disappointed to see his plate come out with what looked like just regular old food.  There were no sharks to be seen.

Still, she thinks her daddy is some kind of superhero.  I mean, who else could eat a shark and live to tell about it?

:)

Hey, hey, it’s my birthday!

Published on Wednesday, March 4, 2009 in Birthdays. 14 Comments Tags: , , .

What?  Was the title too subtle? :) I’ve been a long believer in the fact that if someone forgets your birthday, it’s totally your own fault.  Ha!  Just be thankful I didn’t start the birthday countdown at the beginning of the year like I usually do.

I’m slackin’ in my old age.

Speaking of which, I’m turning a pseudo-mile-marking year today…can you guess what it is??

THIRTY FIVE.

I’m like totally in a new age-bracket, dude.

(Thus made obvious by my usage of the word “dude.”)

But, for the record, I still feel 27.  I don’t know what it is about that age, but that’s how old I think I am until I remember that I’m not.  How funny is that?

Plus, as they say, it’s not the years; it’s the mileage!

:)

And, on the flip-side, it’s hard to believe that my mom had her first baby 35 years ago!!

So, what’s the big plan for the day?

Well, my inlaws are here this week, so my normal workload has been cut in half.  Claire is satisfied playing with them all day; she just checks in periodically to see if I’m still alive and kickin’.

There are some presents waiting on the dining room table for me to open, and Daddy told me that Claire has a birthday surprise for me. I can’t wait to see what that is!

We’re going to go swimming today, complete with a picnic lunch.  Then, I get to be pampered at the salon while I get my hair cut.  This evening, we’ll go out to eat for dinner, and we’ll top the evening off with a new episode of Lost.

That sounds like a day fit for a Birthday Girl…or in my case, the Birthday Old Lady.  ;)

And, for what it’s worth, birthdays put me in a good mood, so I don’t even feel like shaking my cane or yelling at anyone today…but if you could kindly refrain from stepping on my lawn, that would be awesome.  Thanks.  :)