Happy Birthday DP!

Just wanted to wish a great day to a great friend, Danielle!

I can't believe how long we've known each other. I'm excited beyond words to see you in just two weeks!

I wish you all the best and I sincerely hope this next year brings you everything your little heart desires!

Don't settle for anything, be fabulous!

Love,

M

It's my birthday and I won't cry unless I have to.

It was my birthday on Sunday and I didn't even shed a tear which is quite the feat considering my state of mind lately. It was a good weekend and it was also very exhausting.

Saturday we spent the whole day doing chores and getting groceries and enjoying the nice weather. I was supposed to nap to make sure I'd be able to make it through the evening but I didn't get a chance to. We had friends over for dinner and then more friends joined in later to hang out, drink and eat brownies. :) I was super happy about not having to make my own cake - my friend Lindsey made me some delicious brownies that were pretty much oozing with happiness. Mmmm!

Then yesterday was my actual birthday. I had a webcam date with my Aunt so I could open the gift she sent me and it turns out, my grand-ma, grand-pa and my Dad were there to surprise me! :) It was great to see them but didn't help with the whole "missing them" part. Js went to get me a Starbucks coffee and a Timmy's bagel. He had to entertain my OCDness, it was my birthday after all! ;) Plus he got me purty flowers so he wins.

He had to work for like 2 hours so I decided to go all crazy working on wedding invitations. He got home and we finished cutting and folding the first part. I'm quite impressed at the amount of work we were able to accomplish in one day! These babies have to be sent out by the end of the month *hopeful* to meet the deadline.

We had delicious Thai for supper and then we wanted to watch a movie but we were both exhausted and didn't want to commit to an hour long movie so we just watched some TV shows until I fell asleep. Roughly 20 minutes later. :)

Overall it was a good and pleasant day and I don't think getting older is so bad... yet!

Baking fun - Birthday cake for my favorite Geek!

... by favorite geek, I mean Js - not you, Nick. His birthday was back in September so forgive me once again if it's a bit outdated!

Geeky Goodness - Vanilla, Raspberry and Skor pieces

So the icing wasn't quite as I wanted it to be but I had about 2 hours to come up with something that would be easy to execute, would look good on a 9in round cake and didn't require too many colors. Behold, the Green Lantern birthday cake!

I used my grand-pa's plain white cake recipe as a base and threw in about half a bag of frozen raspberries. Mixed those in and poured the batter in two 9in round cake pans. When stacking time came around, I leveled the bottom cake and covered it with raspberry jam *mmm* and then covered that with Skor pieces. The plain white cake worked out very well with the uber-sweet filling and the raspberries added a bit of extra delicious. Then I slapped the second layer on top and went on with the icing.

I didn't have a pattern, mold or anything like that so I just had to wing it. I started by covering the entire thing with white icing then colored everything I had left in green. I used the handle of a long wooden spoon to press a straight line into the white icing along 2 of the sides where I wanted the 2 bars to be. Then I found a bowl that would fit well between the 2 lines and pressed that to the white icing lightly to create a round mark. I used those lines to follow along and create the Green Lantern logo - who needs a mold!!

I piped and piped away at trying to make a perfect circle and eventually had to give up as guests were arriving and I had to put things away. Js was very happy with the end result so it was all well worth it! :)

Let's pretend I can still say "early twenties"...

So this is it, my big birthday weekend is over and I have to say it wasn't nearly as horrible as I'd made it up to be in my mind. I had a great time and everything turned out great.

This is, not only my first birthday away from home, but my first special event that I don't get to spend with my family and close friends. I've been lucky enough and Js has been able to come home for all my birthdays so far (Even if it meant him not sleeping for over 48 hours and involving a 6 hour bus ride.) but this one was just totally out of the question for us. With him in Cornwall on course and me out here, trying to find work and getting settled, there was no way either of us could travel the distance for a short weekend.

Needless to say, knowing this far enough in advance, I'd envisioned my birthday to be a painful day-long torture of tears and sadness. *drama* I knew I was going to miss my family the most that day and I knew it would be hard for my parents to since I wasn't at home to celebrate with them. Overall, it was good. I spent the entire weekend with friends and not by my sad, sad lonesome as I envisioned.

I got a gazillion packages and cards on Friday but couldn't wait until Saturday to open them so I did. It put me in a great mood and then I went over to a friends house for dinner and some partying. The food was good and they even got me a cake! I felt so spoiled! We went out and got totally trashed (Classy, I know!) but the night was great. I went to bed that night feeling (although immensely intoxicated) happy and very satisfied with the evening.

When I woke up the next morning, it was a completely different story. It's like my body did a 180 and said "Eff you, Youth!" I could barely drag my sorry arse to the washroom and splash some cold water on my face. The day was excruciating. It took me a good 2 hours to be able to find/retrieve my phone and then another hour to muster enough energy to return my 4 missed calls from family wanting to wish me a happy birthday. I crawled around the house all day, drank a lot of fluids and avoiding any sudden movements.

I went to bed thinking "I'm still young! I can still party! Oh yeah!" and woke up thinking "Why do I feel like I drank an entire bucket of hot sauce?"

Then, I figured it out. This is what if feels like to go from "early twenties" to "late twenties". Good to know!