Now I have to wait 364 days until my birthday

Birthdays are Great. Really! Even if you have a often forgotten right after Christmas birthday, it’s still a wonderful “make you feel special” day.

Ryan showed me this comic a few days before my birthday, and I had to laugh because it’s so true.

So often the birthday just gets forgotten in the Christmas hype, or people give one present that is for both Christmas and Birthday.

So I’ve learned to lower my expectations. I threw myself a big bash for my 40th birthday, and now that we’ve done that, I’m ok if I don’t have parties. But I woke to breakfast made by the family! Even Ryan, who hates waking up early, set an alarm and got up at the crack of 7:30 to make me breakfast. He even bought bacon and pancake mix the night before, so that we would have some! That’s going above and beyond the call of duty, if you ask me. Megan made me an omelet, and it was a beautiful breakfast!

The kids painted or made presents or coupons for me, which is cute. I love coupons, really. Megan brought me a handful of candy and a coupon for a free smoothie that her friend had given her for Christmas. Blatant regifting? Really? Fine. At least she thought enough to share stuff that she knew she was probably not going to use.

Then I got on the computer to find over 40 emails of birthday greetings! Say what you want about the evils of Facebook, but there’s nothing better for birthday reminders! It meant so much that so many people would take even a small minute to write a birthday greeting on my wall. And it really isn’t hard or doesn’t take much time at all, but it was wonderful. All throughout the day, there were more and more greetings. I felt VERY much loved!

Even though it was snowy and yucky weather, I took the kids out to lunch at Iceberg. We used gift cards they had gotten for Christmas and I got a free shake for my birthday! Woot! We also stopped and picked up two movies from Redbox using my codes I got when Groupon was doing a three movies for $1 deal. Score! So, after our lunch, we came home and watched the Sorcerers Apprentice. The kids were a little ticked that we had to keep stopping it so mom could answer the phone for her birthday greetings, but since it was my birthday, they couldn’t complain.

The best surprise was the package that came to the door. The box was from Hollywood Mega Store, addressed to me. Inside was a note that said “Happy Birthday Paige”, and there was sucha fun surprise!

My own “director” megaphone and clapboard! Such a great thing, since I’m now knee deep in Road Show preparations (I’ll tell you all about that in a future post). Who could have sent this, I wondered? I called Ryan, but he claimed to know nothing about it. Who else would be so thoughtful and cute? There on the box, it was addressed to Paige Erickson and Scott Coleman right under it. My brother? My brother isn’t cute and original like that (no offense, Scott), is he? When I emailed to ask him if that was really from him, he said, “Yep that was from us. I had a flash of creativity.” Well, I’m impressed!

And I LOVE it!! I’m going to take that to rehearsals and yell at the kids! So Excited!

When Ryan came home from work, he was bearing gifts. An Ice Cream cake from ColdStone Creamery, for one. Yummers! He was also a little put out because he went all the way to a certain store only to find out they were closed until Jan 3. Sorry about that, dear. But there were presents, and not just the ladle I bought for myself the day before from Ikea. New breadpans, a cooking thermometer even (I have been wanting one of those!) And he planned to take me out to dinner, since it was my birthday. I made Ramen noodles for the kids, and even though I said I was fine to stay home (HUGE BLIZZARD going on!), he insisted, so we drove the one mile to Blue Lemon for dinner. I had a coupon, too, so that was even better. And Hooray for Blue Lemon. They took my buy one get one free coupon, so my dinner was free, AND, when I asked what they would do for birthdays, he said I could pick any treat from the counter. I chose the carrot cake! Most places would let you chose to use either the coupon or get the free birthday dessert, but they let me do both!! Hooray! Because even if it’s my birthday, I’m still cheap, you know.

When we came home, we were too full to even eat the special cake he brought home, so we’ll save it for later. The kids were all watching Lord of the Rings, but I slipped upstairs with my other free redbox movie and watched Eat, Pray Love in my room, in my bed.

So, it was a great birthday! People remembered me, I got cards from a friend and my mom (thanks, Mom! Mom always remembers, even before there was facebook to remind her), and I got many, many birthday greetings. I felt loved and special on my special day! And isn’t that what it’s all about?

Today I ordered a couple cute things from Coldwater Creek. Right now everything on their entire site is 50% off, even clearance. So, I picked out some things from the clearance, then it’s half off of that, and I used my groupon deal from a few weeks back where I paid $25 for a $50 gift certificate, and, since I have a Coldwater creek Visa, they always send me a $15 gift card for my birthday. So, after using all those, I ended up paying $14 (plus the $25 for the groupon deal) for a skirt, a jacket, a dress and a scarf. Not bad for $39 out of pocket, I would say. So that will just extend the presents into the dreary January!

Yes, there was too much snow, and there’s STILL too much snow, but we’ll try to make the best of it. And bundle up ’cause it’s COLD out there.

Now, if we could just get out of our neighborhood, one of our children REALLY wants to go ice skating.