I turned 33 yesterday, and it was a good day.
Here is the felt flower clip I wore in my hair today as I drove around town doing WHATEVER I WANTED TO and forcing my sister-in-law to tag along. I bought it at Iona's Closet: pretty little hair accessories last week. It made me feel ultra festive today.
Here is my dog's disembodied head. She's looking at me expectantly because she wants me to play tug with her. You can see a glimmer of her massive tug toy behind her right ear. I declined the invitation because it's my birthday and I can do whatever I want today.
Here are my presents. Travis wrapped them all by himself, and only two of them are in Christmas paper! Before you go giving him too much credit, Anthropologie wrapped the square one with the button band around it.
This is how I spent 60 percent of my mother-in-law's birthday cash. It's a lovely pendant from J.Jill, and it was significantly on sale, otherwise it would have cost 120 percent of my mother-in-law's birthday donation. And while taking this picture, I discovered a trick! Get a pen, you'll want to write this down. At first, I thought the best way to photograph the necklace was for both the camera and me to face the mirror when I snapped the shot. But instead, I turned the camera around so it faced me. Now pay attention. I held the camera at arm's length, like for a self-portrait, but I could see the back of the camera (and its digital screen) in the bathroom mirror, helping me frame the shot! Also, the mirror reflected light onto me, the subject, resulting in a nicer photograph. Brilliant, right? Tell me I'm not the first person to think of this.
And this is how I spent the other 40 percent of Beverly's birthday cash: on a hat. Photograph taken using same trick mentioned above. Here comes the train conductor! Woot woot!
Here are Jeremy, me, and Travis out to dinner at Thanksgiving Point. I had the salmon.
A close-up of the square gift, which contained hair clips. This birthday, it was all about the noggin.
See? Headband, hair clips, hat, book. Accessories for the outside and the inside of the head.
And then it was Scrabble time. The boys don't necessarily mind playing Scrabble, but if they had their choice, they'd surely opt for killing Nazi zombies while playing Nacht der Untoten on the Xbox. I do enjoy a little bit of Nazi zombie action myself, but I excercised the full effects of my Birthday Tyrant powers, and I made them do my bidding. You see, we have a tradition in our family that the birthday boy or girl gets to call all the shots and set all the rules all day. Travis takes this tradition to extremes, so on his birthday ten days ago, we named the tradition "Birthday Tyrant." As the tyrant, you are free to forbid particular words or expressions, order people around, determine any and all menus (within reason), and basically be a dictator for 24 hours. And the other two usually happily comply, knowing that they'll soon have a chance at absolute power and that all over-the-top acts will be reciprocated.
Bonus Birthday Idea!
You may have seen this layout before, if you ever figured out how to successfully navigate Simple Scrapbooks magazine's old website. I created it last year. Here's the idea: visit famousbirthdays.com and find out which famous people share your birthday. Then make a layout about it.
The picture's not that great, but you get the idea. Thanks for indulging me! Happy April Fools' Day.
