It's my birthday today and one of my best friends is coming into town, so it is a good day. Rich wished me a happy birthday as the clock switched over to midnight and again before he left for work this morning, but I have no idea if it's on the children's radar. We'll see when they wake up.

Rich told me to make sure they take care of me today while we wait for Lisa to get in. My plan for the day is to make one of the two birthday cakes I make for myself, if I have enough energy. This year, it's the lemon cake from the Silver Palate. Other years, I make the chocolate cloud cake from Classic Home Desserts. If I don't have enough energy, we will pull the other Mother's Day cake out of our deep freeze and eat that with the children. And then go to the bakery and buy a fancy pants lemon cake for us to eat with our fish and chips.

Because I need a lemon cake. And lumpia. I still haven't had lumpia. Now that I'm off the narcotics (thank you On-Q, for getting me off narcotics in less than one week!) and I'm more than two weeks out, I can drive though, so I might take the children on a little field trip to Lumpia Express. It will be business, multiculturalism and home economics all in one. I'm sure.

I don't know if anyone has gotten me anything, Rich kept asking what I wanted for my birthday and I told him the computer was my present, but I'm not too concerned because in the past few years Rich has become a pusher, and is always telling me to go buy things, while I'm telling him I don't want to spend any money. So, for my birthday, I'm going shopping with Lisa and maybe another friend in the new boutique mall we have and we're going to hit the sales, grab free coffees (I have coupons!), eat ice cream and maybe have a pizza at the fancy schmancy open fired pizza place tomorrow or this afternoon. And find out when the new nail salon will open up and what their prices are like so I can check them out because they are five minutes up the street instead of 12 minutes up the highway. Now that I'm post pregnant weight again, I can look for clothes that don't make me feel like I should be in an aquarium exhibit.

I have about $160-175 in gift cards in my purse that I haven't used, that I will work on putting a dent in while Lisa is here. This shows how little I've been interested in shopping. I won't even go when it's free to me.

Since I have gifts on my mind, I wanted to give away something for my birthday. Now, theoretically, I am still a knitter. I know it's hard to tell, since I'm so rarely doing it or talking about it lately, but I have all this yarn and patterns and needles and I do stuff with them occasionally. Anyway. I am going to give away yarn and a pattern for a project. I'm not sure which one yet. Let me get back to you on that. And since I didn't think of this until just now, it won't be awarded on my birthday, because I have to think of something and post it and get people to comment. So, watch this space:


Yarn enough for a pair of socks, sock pattern and Kool-Aid to dye the yarn in technicolor.

If you don't care what kind of yarn or pattern you get, but you just love the idea of getting free stuff from the internets, then by all means, leave a comment on this post (other posts won't count) with a way to contact you (either put your e-mail address in the comment, or make sure your profile gives a contact), and when I figure out what I'm giving away (soon, I promise), I will use a random number generator to pick someone to win. Winner will be announced by Monday Friday, August 1. Have fun!

I am extending the entry time, because perhaps in my sleep deprived little world I forgot to post the picture, because I'm so tired and not all my brains are working. I want to give people a chance to enter now that they see what they might win.

Labels: Birthday, Contests, Family, Tales from the Kitchen