Birthday weekend.

Have you ever celebrated your birthday all weekend?

I have.

Have you ever eaten your weight in cookies and cake and hamburgers? I'm pretty sure I did this weekend!!!

Highlights of Saturday were Charlie trying to explain to me a toy he wanted that his friends all have.

Turns out he was talking about one of these:



But when I was a kid, we called them Water Weenies. Well. My kids laughed and laughed at that. No one calls them that now. Henry especially enjoyed saying, "water weenie! water weenie! water weenie!" And everyone school age was just embarrassed.

On Saturday night Jeff took me to dinner and a movie. The evening was fun and mostly uneventful except for the lady knocking on our car window.

20 minutes before pulling into Red Robin, I was telling Jeff about an article I read in the NY Times about crusty punks in Central Park. Apparently, most don't consider themselves homeless, just "travelers" who don't shower, ever. Hence the name crusty punks, they are the crustiest you see.

The article linked to a blog documenting through pictures and interviews, many of these folks. And from their own mouths, most were junkies of some type. They even talked about begging for money specifically for the purpose of being able to buy their next hit.

I shared this with him and then so wisely said,"That's why you should give them food, and not money".

Then as we pulled into Red Robin, a woman knocked on the window.
"I'm not crazy, or a druggie. As you can see I'm pregnant and my 12 year old and I just left an abusive situation and we haven't eaten all day.(She waved in some vague direction) If you could spare anything?"

Now upon first impression, the woman was obviously not crazy, but WAS most likely a druggie. But I decided that Heavenly Father has a funny sense of humour. Here I was, all knowing about what you should do when faced with someone begging 20 minutes before. Well, this lady wasn't someone on the sidewalk with a sign. She was asking specifically for our help. And I honestly didn't believe her or her story. But what if she wasn't lying? Then I would have turned someone away. And if she was lying, well, then that's on her.

I was very sheepish as we walked into Red Robin. Lesson learned. In general I should be quiet:)

On Sunday, my brother and his family came over and ate dinner and had cake. Jeff got some great pictures, but missed me blowing out the candles. So I recreated it for him.


There is a piece without frosting on it especially for me. Frosting is so over rated.

Monday, some friends took me to breakfast, and made me cry, and afterwards another friend and I went shopping. And then Monday evening, my older girls and I went shopping. So I was in food and shopping heaven pretty much all weekend. And I didn't clean or cook all weekend either. Which I am paying for today. But I will probably not clean today either, why? Well....

I was going to have this all blogged about this morning after Jeff left to go to Georgia for 5 days for a conference. Well, he is still home. 45 minutes before he was supposed to leave for the airport, he started feeling really sick. And then the nausea and stuff associated with nausea hit, and turns out he has a kidney stone, or stones. He is currently in a drug induced sleep upstairs.

I am sad for him because I have had kidney stones and they are the pits. In fact, my first blog post ever was  about it. And I'm sad for me because I was going to have the bed all to myself. Except for the little corner where Nora would end up. Because I brought her in with me:) I love snuggling that little girl.

And....my kids are out of school today because of snow. Yes, snow in the Seattle area shuts down schools and sends people running to the grocery store to stock up. My friends from RI will laugh at the pictures when they see how much snow cancels school!








We did have more after these pictures were taken, and the roads were pretty icy and snowy with little snow equipment available for clearing, but it's still funny when we've lived in places where we get real snow.

And let me tell you, folks around, here for the most part, LOVE IT. Especially the kids. It means no school and sledding. To me it just means cold and that I can't take my rear wheel drive vehicle out of the driveway.

Well, I probably should check on the hubby and give him some more meds. They make him pretty tired and loopy and possibly forgetful. This might be a good time to ask for those new boots that I want.....hm.