365 Project – Day 229 – Birthday Eve

Remember when you were a kid, and you spent days, weeks, even months counting down to your birthday? Back then, it was such a big deal. There were parties to plan, friends to invite over, cake and ice cream to eat until you were so jacked up on sugar your parents threatened to sell you to gypsies or lock you in the garage. Back then, you spent those last agonizing hours leading up to your birthday watching the seconds tick by so slowly that you swore someone had rubber cemented the hands of the clock in place.

My go-to party plans usually involved some of my best girlfriends, a bunch of rented movies (usually horror flicks with a couple of comedies thrown in for good measure), pizza, soda, cake, ice cream and a whole lot of laughing. Once or twice while living in Bird City, Kansas, Mom let me invite my entire class (all of 12 or 13 students, depending on the year) to go to the bowling alley in St. Francis for pizza, bowling, and all the arcade games we could play with the quarters begged from our parents’ pockets. It was grand.

These days, birthdays are not nearly as exciting…well, at least not in the pizza-party-bowling-movie-watching-extravaganza way of my youth. These days, my birthdays tend to be much simpler, laidback affairs, and that is perfectly fine by me. I don’t need fanfare or binge drinking or surprise parties (for the love of all that is holy, please no surprise parties. I hate surprise parties).  I am perfectly content to lounge around in my pajamas until well after noon, drink an extra cup of coffee, watch one of my favorite movies, and maybe head out for a bite to eat.

All I really ask for my birthday is to be able to hang out with the people I love the most. So, in honor of me turning the big three-one tomorrow, I am going to spend my day hanging out with Cadence and do absolutely nothing that resembles work. Then, when Steven gets off work, the three of us are going to head to the Haymarket to have a little dinner. Afterward, we are going to mosey on over to Memorial Stadium to check out the Cornhusker Marching Band Exhibition Show. Everyone knows that Steven and I are big band geeks, and as much as Cadence likes music, we think she is going to really dig it, so it should shape up to be a really fun evening.

So, maybe I am feeling a bit of that giddy excitement about my birthday tomorrow. After all, you only turn 31 once, right?

Tonight’s 365 Project entry is dedicated to…well…me, and to everyone who shares my August 19th birthday! Let’s make it a great one!

And for your viewing pleasure, here are some photos from birthdays past. I apologize in advance for the fact that my scanner is apparently inebriated. I don’t know how else to explain the cockeyed photos. But, I thought I’d leave them that way to make the birthday post a bit more fun! Enjoy!