Happy birthday to....

...Me! Yes, I turned another year older yesterday. I won't directly reveal how old I am, but let's just say that someone got invited to her 20th high school reunion this year. Yes, that someone is getting old.

Birthdays used to be a big deal to me when I was younger--I would take the day off and plan a night out. But as I age, I'm finding that it really doesn't take a whole lot to make my birthday.

Take yesterday for example. It was a work day for both K and me, so we decided to keep it relatively low-key. In the morning, I went to Starbucks to redeem my free birthday coffee, and was completely tickled when I saw the birthday greeting scribbled on my cup:

In the afternoon, I opened up my Facebook and was delighted to see a bunch of birthday wishes from folks from many different facets of my life: best friend, acquaintances, high school, college, grad school, work; you get the idea. It makes me realize at how little effort it takes to brighten up someone's day--just a simple, What's-up-saw-on-FB-it's-your-birthday-so-have-a-good-one message is all it takes. And it takes probably all but 3 seconds. So note to self, I will definitely be giving regular b-day shout-outs to folks going forward.

At night, we went to grab dinner at a kid-friendly restaurant, followed by a visit to the ice cream shop, where BBoy proceeded to feed ice cream to everyone at the table.

Then after the kids drifted off to bed, K and I settled in front of the TV to catch up on another episode of Mad Men.


It was a very good birthday, indeed.