Birthday Week

I like blog entries that tell a story. Something that really pulls you into the moment. Sure, I enjoy the grandiose principles and things, but after a while, they can be kind of repetitive. So, my birthday was last week. "Yes, you've said that before. Twice, actually." This is true, but in a way, today felt like the last day of my birthday week. Keep in mind that I plan to use the word 'week' fairly loosely.

So, when I was growing up, birthdays were as huge as days like Christmas and Easter, but they were still fun days that were out of the ordinary. I would go downstairs after waking up and find presents on the table and a "Happy Birthday" sign hung up in the kitchen. At school, people would sing and I'd occasionally get a card or a little trinket of sorts. I did have a stretch of a couple years (or at least, that's how it seems in my head) where I would get sick on my birthday and I remember that one of the few sick days I had was on my birthday and I was watching a movie that was one of my gifts. Health permitting, there would be birthday get-together with a group of 6-8 friends and we'd have a pizza party or go sledding. Classic Minnesota stuff. (Also, definitely saw Star Wars for the first time ever on my 10th birthday.)

Fast forward to now and my birthdays are kind of different. Right off the bat, I haven't been sick for a birthday in quite a long time. There were birthday outings in college (like the day of movie shooting & the pink "tongue cake" my freshman year), but nothing too exciting while in Missouri, since I'm either working or the people I would go out with are working (aka my co-workers). Wait, scratch that. My first time skiing was last year on my birthday down in St Joe. It was an awesome night... until I hit a deer on the way back to campus. :(

Since I'm two states away from family, part of my birthday "week" comes from package transit time. I ended up getting three online packages from my mom - the first of which was a day or two before Valentine's Day. The other two came a few days later, both before my birthday. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't unwrap stuff until my birthday, so maybe this whole birthday week thing is so I don't feel guilty about that. *pause* Naaaah.

I did get the day off on my birthday, but I really didn't do anything too exciting or out of the box. I played a good amount of Skyrim and sat around my apartment - I was off, after all. I did get Dairy Queen as a birthday dessert, so that's something, right? Oh, and Facebook sorta of exploded, except not really. I don't remember when it first happened, but all the birthday posts get condensed into one notification, so it's surprisingly compact. I do kind of miss the days of see a "41 New Notifications" button just yelling "Please click me!". The next day, some students caught wind that it was my birthday and gave belated well wishes. Nothing fancy.  At some point, I got a letter from my sister and one from my grandfather, which both made me smile. Yesterday, I got a box from my dad. I should have taken a picture, but my dad put more dedication into packaging up my gift than a company did to send me a $180 battery charger that could easily have complications if dropped badly. My dad also likes running jokes, where the joke has been running since I was in middle school. On the package, he wrote a line from "Joe Vs. the Volcano", because he and I would quote from a certain scene all the time (feel free to skip to 4:25). He also had a note in the box saying that he was proud of me. *Sigh* Thanks, Dad.*

Today was the little February birthday celebration with the staff because two other co-workers also have February birthdays. My supervisor had us each request different treats and mine was the chocolate/oatmeal no-bake cookies that my mom would make more than other baked good, outside of peanut blossoms during Christmas season. My supervisor said that he doesn't like that type of cookie to begin with, but I thought he did a good job at making them.

So, yeah, I feel like today was a good day to wrap up my birthday "week". I know this entry didn't have a main theme or a clear direction at times, but that's okay, because it told a story.

See you tomorrow.



* Just to clarify, this is completely legitimate with no sarcasm.