My Birthday Day

It was quite quiet, to say the least. I'll start with a couple of days ago. We drove Danielle and her boyfriend, Steven, up to San Francisco to stay with a friend overnight before they caught their flight home to OR early Saturday morning. We stayed in a Travelodge - the one I lived in for about two weeks before I moved onto the Presidio when I was 9 years old. I thought we would make a day of it on Saturday, going to Ghiradelli Square, check out some ships, drive to some of my old stomping grounds. Well, when we woke up on Saturday, Dan was barely able to talk. He had a sore throat and wasn't feeling very well. So, there went my plans. So I started driving out of the city and actually drove up Steiner to my old school - St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School. It looked just as I remembered it...the doors to the church, the playground. So strange to see it after all these years. We got home late Saturday afternoon. I'm thinking about calling my friend in the Bay Area and she if she wants to check out our old stomping grounds. She will appreciate it more than Dan, I think.

Dan called in sick today; he was supposed to head to LA to begin his new schedule at LAX. He will be working nights again (not what he wanted), but he will have weekends off. He'll work four days, so he gets off on Friday morning and will drive home. Maybe he will be able to get to church again after all this time.

So, my birthday, as I was saying didn't quite go as planned, but it was still kind of nice. My mom-in-love and I went to IHOP and I had my first "Senior" breakfast the "Rise and Shine". Okay, now stop laughing. It's pretty sad when one thing I was looking forward to were senior discounts and specials when I turned 55. Well, it was pretty nice actually, especially when our server told me I didn't look anywhere near 55...I looked much younger. Needless to say, he got a big tip (or should have - I didn't pay).

Then I went to the bank to put some money in my daughter's account for her school books - one thing we said we would do while she is in school. Then I went shopping for some cards and a gift for a birthday buddy who is now two years old. I had another birthday buddy and when she turned 21, I decided I could let her go, and when I did that, the Lord gave me another buddy to spoil for 21 years. I will still think of Kacey and wish her happy birthday, but the gifts have stopped. My prayers for her will never stop, especially now that she is a wife and mom.

After buying all the stuff I had to buy, I got home and started playing on Facebook and found a gazillion birthday wishes. That was unexpected and very nice. Oh, and I did get a couple of gifts. Money from my mom-in-love that I am going to use to change my looks - getting a hair cut/style, most likely to medium length or shorter. My hair is bugging me right now. I'm tired of the frizz and trying to straighten it all the time. It doesn't curl like it should and I'm the type that likes to just wash and go. So in the next few days, I'm hoping to change this:And Dan gave me a digital frame - you can kind of see what it is and I think most of you know what it is. I just loaded a bunch of kid pictures on it for fun. I'll load more when I have time and space.I did get calls and texts from my daughters, too. Was going to do the "free admission at Disneyland on your birthday", but didn't. Liz did go without me with her friend. And, lastly, since Dan was not up to going to McLintock's (where I've gone every year for my birthday since a couple of years after it opened), we just ordered Applebee's and picked it up. So, I actually had two free meals today and they were both very good. I'm looking forward to sharing another meal with two other friends - one whose birthday is the 6th and she shares the day with another friend who is celebrating her 30th wedding anniversary. We got together one time a few years ago to celebrate all our special days and it's become a tradition. So we go to different restaurants, one pays for all or we each pay for someone else's lunch or we go dutch. It's just been a fun tradition to get together like this and celebrate what the Lord has done for us.

Yeah - it's been a good, quiet day. Sad that Dan had to be sick, but glad he was actually here for my birthday - he would have been gone otherwise. We will go to McLintock's later in the month and celebrate my birthday and OUR 30th anniversary. Can't wait.