Two-Word Wednesday: Birthday Week

Today is 1 September, which, for those of you playing at home know, is the first day of Birthday Week. Neal tried to argue last night that, technically, a week is 7 days and if you count Wednesday to Wednesday, that is 8 days. Therefore, Birthday Week should not start until tomorrow. I had to explain to him, using small words and speaking slowly, that Wednesday to Wednesday is one week and therefore Birthday Week starts today. He finally relented, mostly because he fell asleep mid-sentence. If you are a Birthday Week hater or you would like to argue Neal's case for him, I will kindly point you in the direction of his blog, as your kind are no longer welcome here. Birthday Week starts today. Period.

And to prepare for such an event, I have located birthday pictures from the past 3 years. I'm not sure where the others are stored, but they aren't on the external hard drive and since I'm supposed to be packing and not blogging, it will just have to wait. Without further ado, the last 3 years:

This is me, Curly Sue, and our waitress at Don Pablo's. Apparently said waitress was a carrying a small case of the Bubonic Plague because sometime around midnight, I began to feel like I had been run over, backed over, and then run back over by a semi. Two days later, as I stumbled into the UTC, wheezing, sneezing, and leaking from all of my holes, I ran into Curly Sue sitting in the waiting room. There are not that many illnesses/injuries that will push you to the head of the line at a UTC. Low oxygen count is one of them. Come to find out I had pneumonia.

Actually, it was double pneumonia which, as it turns out, is not double the fun. Breathing treatments are the pits, especially when they refuse to give you a dragon face for your inhaler because you're "too old" or some such crapola. Happy 29th Birthday to me!

The next year, I fared better....
Dinner at The Black Tulip, before it met its untimely demise. Curly Sue and Mama Virgo and not pictured: Army Dad, Suzy Stepmom, and Grandma Gaga.

I was also treated to fondue with the girls. Any reason to eat at The Melting Pot seems like a stellar reason to me. The food is so good, we had out-of-body experiences, apparently. Neal is noticeably absent from these photos as he was in Kuwait for that year. So, double pneumonia last year, husband at war this year.

Neal thinks this photo is HI-LAR-EE-US....at almost 17 weeks pregnant, I was feeling a little like a beached whale...although Motherhood Maternity does a pretty decent job of selling clothing that makes you look less like one. We took a week trip to Philly and Baltimore to celebrate my birthday and our first stop was this Museum of Sciences in Philadelphia. As soon as I stepped in front of the fat mirror, Neal was firing off photos. Such a loving husband. Exactly 7 days later, Shepherd was delivered. If I had known then what I know now, I would have never made it past the state line.

I am infatuated with my birthday. I don't get hung up on numbers or what it all means to be "in my 30's." I'm often mistaken for someone 5 years younger, so what does it matter how old I am when I am not pegged for being in my 30's? Aside from the whole "biological clock" thing that has gone from a windchime to Uncle Ben in the past 6 months, I'm pleased as peaches to be turning 32 next week. I can't imagine being any other age. Besides, now that the average life expectancy has exceeded 70, I still have more than half of my life ahead of me. And what better day to start celebrating than today? Oompah! It's Birthday Week!