artyartie

If this wasn't the best birthday yet, it was damn close. First off, though it was Sunday (have to love being a firecracker baby), it felt like it lasted the entire weekend. Probably because it did. My mom's package (w/ card from the younger siblings) came on Friday, and I called her up before I opened it. A week or so ago, my mom called and asked me what I wanted, and while I could have said, "oh, Season 5 or 6 of Buffy," I said clothes or jewelry, because when it comes to that my mom has really good taste.

The box contaned 3 cute tank tops (which I love wearing now as my arms are finally starting to get definition!), a red short sleeved shirt I just love (the women of my family all wear red very well) a cute jean skirt that will sadly not fit well once I drop a few more pounds and some overalls, both long and short.

And the jewelry? Ohhhhhh my. Ohhhhh my.

I was nearly speechless when I opened the ring box. The last ring my mom gave me, which was for my 23rd birthday 2 years ago, is a beautiful silver antique ring with a garnet. Like I said, mom has impeccable taste. But this ring..oh, I'm starting to sound like Gollum. It's gold, a beautiful pale gold which is really the only gold I like. It's set with a ruby, my birthstone, and around the ruby are 6 small, very sparkly diamonds. My mom told me as it was a special birthday (which I guess your quarterlife birthday is), she wanted to get me something special. Which this is. This is something I'll give my daughter (providing I have kids) when she leaves for college.

So that's Friday.

Saturday is a nice leisurely day - we look around at a few stores for tables and grills and do end up getting a nice combo grill - and we come back home to set up the grill before we go out for dinner and a movie. In the mail there's a package from my friend Xena in Florida - certainly not anything I was expecting! In the box are a card, decorated with Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and McCoy , a party hat, streamers, and presents. But before the presents, the card is simply lovely - Xena wrote it after her computer ate a long e-mail to me, and she talks of that e-mail being frozen energy and light - absolutely beautiful. Also beautiful is the picture of her and her daughter, now almost 10 months old. They're in the backyard, the same place where the presents came from.

4 Florida mangoes, two perfectly ripe and two still green, and homemade mango chutney and mango rum sauce. We eat one of the 'birthday mangoes' right away,and it's delicious - sweet and luscious and rich with juice. I have never gotten mangoes for my birthday but they are a wonderful gift - sent by a wonderful friend, whom I really want to visit this year. I miss them terribly.

So after the mangoes, Jared and Jen, wonderful friends as well (I am very, very blessed to have the friends and family I do) take me out to Spicy Basil for dinner. They've been raving about it for months and Jen hoped I wouldn't be dissapointed if it wasn't good. Ah, no fear of that. None whatsoever. I ordered the Spicy Basil Chicken, with chicken, bok choy, basil and bell pepper in a nicely spicy sauce and a pyramid of sticky rice. Mmmmmmmmm. Must take more friends here. Jen's favorite dish is a vegetable dish heavy with eggplant, and it is delicious. Afterwards, we say Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on the IMAX - my second viewing, their first. What a wonderful movie - and we're all wistful Anglophiles, so I think we want to go back even more.

And so Sunday itself! I make some yummy light blueberry muffins (baking with yogurt is fun!) and we hang about the house - making a little outing to go to a small festival near the house. Nothing exciting there, but they did have yummy snowcones. For dinner, and to 'break in' the new grill, we grill up some vegetables - yes, vegetables - and serve them over pasta and fresh mozarella. Mmmmmm. For dessert Jen made an amazing chocolate cake with cherry filling and homemade whipped cream topping! Heaven, I tell you. We watch a slew of fireworks shows from the backyard and finish off the day with a game of Munchkin, an addictive RPG-parody card game. Look forward to playing it next weekend, when the fun continues!

A dear friend of mine is coming up for the weekend, as he was moving and couldn't come up this weekend. Saturday when he's here we're going to have a noontime grill with some other friends who were going to come over Sunday but couldn't. Saturday afternoon and evening is the Irish Fetsival and Sunday is the Ren Faire - huzzah! And when it's such a good friend, you could watch paint dry and still have fun.

However, the Ren faire is *slightly* more amusing.

So that was my wonderful weekend, with much, much, much gratitude to my friends and family who made it so!