Oh yeah, it's me!

Happy birthday to cyranocyrano! And also happy birthday to Ryan, who doesn't read my journal. There's a third person with a birthday today, but I can't recall who. Maybe it will come to me.

Oh yeah, it's me!

Happy birthday to cyranocyrano! And also happy birthday to Ryan, who doesn't read my journal. There's a third person with a birthday today, but I can't recall who. Maybe it will come to me.

One more trip around the sun

I celebrated my birthday with my nephew, taking him on his long-overdue trip to the mall (I took his sister when she was several years younger). We also picked up Jake after lunch, because Nick idolizes him. Tradition dictated that a movie be involved, but there were no movies Nick wanted to see, so we planned for GameWorks instead. GameWorks, it turns out, is closed. We ended up at Timbuktu Internet Thingie (Cafe? Gaming? Whatever) where we played Modern Warfare 2 and then Red Dead Redemption. My role was to die repeatedly, which I fulfilled marvelously. (I looooove gaming, but I'm generally drawn more to strategy games or roleplaying games, and not in the slightest to shooters. I blame this on Doom and Duke Nukem, which made me physically ill from motion sickness while playing them. I was happy to note that Modern Warfare and Red Dead Redemption did not make me sick at all during the two hours we played, so I've either outgrown it or technology has gotten better since the early puke-fest shooters.)

Originally, I hadn't intended today to be a birthday celebration-- it was just the easiest day to co-ordinate both N and J. But after getting home tonight? It totally was. You see, the theme of this year's birthday is "blessed" or perhaps more accurately "how did I get this lucky?". N is one of the many blessings in my life, but I've always had a harder time connecting with him than with his sisters. Part of this is that I've *been* a teenaged girl (and a 12-year-old girl, and an 11-year-old-girl, and a 10-year-old girl, and so on) so I have some idea of what the attractions of the age are. I've never been an 11-year-old boy, nor a 10-ye... you know where I'm going with this, let's not repeat it. Today, N and I both had a lot of fun with each other, even if my fun involved a lot of hitting X to respawn.

And I am truly, utterly blessed, to a degree that I probably don't deserve. I have family and friends who love me, even through some of my worst phases in life. (This is not one of those phases (I hope), but it wasn't so long ago that I had a pretty good "poor, pitiful me" thing going, to the exclusion of anyone else's problems, and I wasn't terribly pleasant to be around.) I have a husband who adores me; I have a home that is comfortable, protected, and safe. I have income, enough to sustain us and then some, which is all the more precious in an economy where so many people do not. My obligations are few, and my opportunities are many. I'm thankful for all of it.

One more trip around the sun

I celebrated my birthday with my nephew, taking him on his long-overdue trip to the mall (I took his sister when she was several years younger). We also picked up Jake after lunch, because Nick idolizes him. Tradition dictated that a movie be involved, but there were no movies Nick wanted to see, so we planned for GameWorks instead. GameWorks, it turns out, is closed. We ended up at Timbuktu Internet Thingie (Cafe? Gaming? Whatever) where we played Modern Warfare 2 and then Red Dead Redemption. My role was to die repeatedly, which I fulfilled marvelously. (I looooove gaming, but I'm generally drawn more to strategy games or roleplaying games, and not in the slightest to shooters. I blame this on Doom and Duke Nukem, which made me physically ill from motion sickness while playing them. I was happy to note that Modern Warfare and Red Dead Redemption did not make me sick at all during the two hours we played, so I've either outgrown it or technology has gotten better since the early puke-fest shooters.)

Originally, I hadn't intended today to be a birthday celebration-- it was just the easiest day to co-ordinate both N and J. But after getting home tonight? It totally was. You see, the theme of this year's birthday is "blessed" or perhaps more accurately "how did I get this lucky?". N is one of the many blessings in my life, but I've always had a harder time connecting with him than with his sisters. Part of this is that I've *been* a teenaged girl (and a 12-year-old girl, and an 11-year-old-girl, and a 10-year-old girl, and so on) so I have some idea of what the attractions of the age are. I've never been an 11-year-old boy, nor a 10-ye... you know where I'm going with this, let's not repeat it. Today, N and I both had a lot of fun with each other, even if my fun involved a lot of hitting X to respawn.

And I am truly, utterly blessed, to a degree that I probably don't deserve. I have family and friends who love me, even through some of my worst phases in life. (This is not one of those phases (I hope), but it wasn't so long ago that I had a pretty good "poor, pitiful me" thing going, to the exclusion of anyone else's problems, and I wasn't terribly pleasant to be around.) I have a husband who adores me; I have a home that is comfortable, protected, and safe. I have income, enough to sustain us and then some, which is all the more precious in an economy where so many people do not. My obligations are few, and my opportunities are many. I'm thankful for all of it.