It's my birthday, I can eat what I want to...

So I had a wonderful birthday week. It began on Wednesday, my actual birthday. I got lots of "happy birthday"s at my internship, as well as bagels and cream cheese. Then I headed home to write an long-ass assessment for a class. Amy ordered me to finish it Wednesday so we could hold our weekly craft nite/b-day celebration on Thursday. So I got to work. At around 8 or 9pm, I got a knock on the door. It was Alison! She brought daffodils and cake for two. I was making dinner at the time so we had a mini, improv dinner and had girl talk.I didn't finish any more of my paper that night, but I did finish it minutes before Amy called Thursday. We had a great time. She made organic brownies from scratch and I had some organic quiche (also from scratch) that she had made for dinner that night. She tricked me into eating soy milk! (it was in the brownies) It's ok, though. I've been meaning to be tricked into tasting it. so we sat around the table knitting or crocheting. Tanya brought her rug that she had made from the cut up t-shirts one craft nite awhile back.And Amy showed us a draft of a book she is working on. It was so exciting! Can't share the dets yet, but it looks like a great idea for a book.Tonight we also had Hillary, who was nice enough to give rides to us non-car-owners. Thank you Hillary!Friday was normal. Paper turned in and such. I went home for the weekend and then tonight (Sunday) we had a little birthday thing at my grandparents' house. Can you guess what my big present was this year???Edward, my bro.Classic grandpa line...Uncle Pat giving fatherly advice of some sort...he looks stumped.Grandma, wondering what this little silver box is in front of my face...Mom, pretending she doesn't know that I'm taking her picture...

A camera! Mom got be a Canon Powershot. It's the one from those commercials with that tennis player. Now that I have her camera I'll be just like her (so the commerical conveys...ahh, media) I also got giftcards, bare essentials from Ali, a crochet book from Amy, and cash from both sets of grandparents. I bought a couple pieces of clothing at the mall, and was wondering, what else can I spend this birthday money on?....I know....An awesome book that Heidi and I were gawking over one day in the bookstore. It shows you how to do one of our favorite things to do...re-purpose! I love the drinking straw sconce and the tin can tealight holders. It's by one of the designers from While You Were Out. I also gotA cute little sewing book with really simple patterns that would be a good basis for customizing.

After the camera, the second best gift I got was from Edward. He is gonna make a girl really happy one day because he LISTENS. He heard me say I really wanted this, but when we found out the price I passed. I can't believe he bought it for me. So sweet. Check it out: It has 908 yoga poses. He got it at this store in Lakeforest Mall called Good Luck. It has lots of spiritual items like yoga stuff, meditation, Buddhist stuff, symbolic candles, incense, Hindu stuff. The owner is very nice and talkative and likes talking about the stuff in a non-evangelical way. It's a cute little store. Anyway, this poster is supposed to be for yoga studios, but I think it's just really cool to have up in my apartment. It will encourage me to continue doing yoga and exercising. Here is a close up:Ok, I'm not a super-feminist or anything, but there are no women in any of the 908 poses...whatev.

On the exercising...yeah, so coincidentally when I am turning an age that creeps up on thirty, I notice that I have a pouch! I haven't been exercising recently and for the past 26 years I have been living by the "I can eat anything I want and am still skinny ha-ha" principle. Well, not so much anymore. And it didn't help that in my social work exam study guide it says, "Decrease in height and increase in body fat at 30." Eek! So I'm gonna start watching it. All weekend when I've seen something bad I wanted to eat, I just put my hand on my tummy like a pregnant woman and backed away slowly. I thought I was just being silly about the pregnant thing when a former co-worker at Bath and Body Works actually asked if I was pregnant! Oh man.

So overall I had a great birthday week! Everyone was so nice and made me feel special. I'm meeting up with dad sometime this week for lunch, when I'll get another present too. I am truly blessed and promise this won't go to my head. Just a normal week coming up...except for, you know, studying for this...[insert jaws music]

[insert groan]

Happy knitting!