Monday, March 13, 2006

Dirty 30

A 30 year-old girl!

A very public thank you for all the Birthday Wishes. I love birthdays and this one was a biggie!! Another thank you to my Special Birthday pal. I have no idea who you are but I truly appreciate the gift (I received an anonymous gift card to Amazon!) Rest assured that the money went to fun goodies - I'll post them when they arrive.


I had a fabulous Birthday weekend in Vermont with Rob and some friends of ours. The dogs romped, the babies laughed, and the adults got drunk. Good times. I made sure to bring up some of my favorite foods for the weekend. The house we rent is in the middle of nowhere Vermont so we always head up with enough food to feed an army. This gives us the perfect excuse to sit around and stuff our faces - why the hell would we want to bring all that crap back to Boston?




Lauren wrote about Monkey Bread a few weeks ago. Man, is that stuff good. Rob and I made this for our mid-morning snack the day of my birthday. Yum. I didn't have a bundt pan, so I used a spring form pan. It worked fine except the dough was not cooked all the way through. This was no problem though - we chomped it up anyway!





The men folk headed outside during the snowfall on Saturday to build a jump for sledding. Notice the case of beer? We actually had to remind them to come back into the house before their testicles fell off. The beer gave them a wicked sense of warmth.




This is Rya, one of our dogs. We had six adults, two babies, and three dogs up there. Everyone got along swimmingly. In fact sweet Rya was so worn out from chasing all of us 80-million directions that I can to make her lie down to take a nap. She could barely stand!

This is one of my favorite things in "our" Vermont house, the tub!


Rob did a great job with this birthday. Cards, love, a banner, a cake and a perfect weekend. He also embezzled money* from our shared account to sneak a prezzie for me.


I love it.



Thank you all again!

And now for some Birthday Fun....


30 things about being 30

30. Being 15 lbs over your ideal weight is no longer "cute", "fun", "sexy". It is bad for you and bad for your soul.

29. You can eat cake for dinner every night the week after your birthday (the irony is not lost on me.)

28. The idea that you graduated from high school 12 years ago is rilly rilly scary.

27. There is joy found in knowing your best friends for longer than you have not known them.

26. Your eyes really do start to go bad - your mom was not kidding when she said you should not read without a light. Not that the light was part of your eyes going bad - it just was something that she could not imagine reading without. You are now her.

25. You really can be 30 going on 13. I have the giggle lines to prove it.

24. The fact that you married someone 13 years older than you begins to reap unforeseen benefits - the fact that your 30 is fun to him. He can barely remember his 30th birthday.

23. A box from Tiffany's really is THAT great!

22. Thirty rhythms with dirty.

21. Babies love you, dogs adore you, men crave you.

20. Knitting becomes more expected of you every day - you become a cliche...this is cool.

19. You start to feel comfortable in your skin.

18. Your dog that you adopted when you were just out of undergraduate school now is an old maid and is bored by your antics.

17. You crave the company of children so you can play "pretend" and knock blocks around.

16. Your family becomes an amorphous group of friends/enemies and others. Mostly, you don't HAVE to hang out with them anymore - in my case - you WANT to.

15. Your mother starts to speak to you about the "Red Folder" and where it's located and how important it is to find the "Red Folder" immediate after she and my father pass on to eat the big cannoli in the sky (seriously, my favorite thing about Janet Evanovich? the million different analogies she finds for biting the big one.) so that we may roll in the dough that is their insurance policy.

14. After obtaining a mortgage, completing 6 years of higher education with school loans, and falling into the dreaded credit card debt large chunks of money do not scare you any more.

13. Receiving the first promotion of your career right before you turn 30 (because you spent most of your career in jobs with low ceilings) feels really great.

12. I'm not alone. While I may still get lonely - it's a good kind of lonely.

11. Drinking a dark and stormy on a dark and stormy night for your birthday is so loaded with literary potential that you can't stop thinking of bad mysteries novels.

10. I finally realize that my mom was right - I can do ANYTHING I set my mind to.

9. It's a decade to relish your bookishness. Reading and math and science are cool and don't let the bubbly butt heads with Varsity letters tell you differently.

8. I am officially in love with coffee.

7. My baby sister is now a grown woman. My brother is now a grown man. Although - they still can be annoying sometimes with they get all up into your stuff.

6. Your parents are no longer invincible. This is the hardest part about getting older for me...my parents are getting older too.

5. Your 23 year old nephew thinks your "old". eh-hem.

4. Oh. My aching back.



3.2.1. ?? I'm at a loss. Can you all help me with this one?



* Rob and I have a shared account that I manage. We have a strict budget because we are Poor and trying to dig ourselves out of debt. Every week we each get and "allowance". Mr. Bookish was pulling a little extra out each week and hiding it in his sock drawer!! Six months of this and I never even noticed.

21 Comments:

Blogger Carole Knits said...

Glad your birthday was so fab!

3/13/2006 9:34 PM  
Blogger WandaWoman said...

Happy Happy Belated Birthday to you! Sounds like you had a fabulous birthday!

3/13/2006 9:35 PM  
Blogger Irie said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

3/13/2006 10:08 PM  
Blogger Irie said...

Happiest 30th Birthday, Wendy!

My 30th is coming up soon as well, and some of your "30 things about being 30" struck a chord with me... and some of them cracked me up! :)

P.S. that's a nice necklace, I think somebody LOOOOOOVES you! ;)

3/13/2006 10:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday! My 30's were a blast. So much so that I've decided to extend them by a few years. ;-)

3/13/2006 10:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm sooooo looking forward to turning 30 and have started making my own mental list of all the good things about it - I love yours. Happy birthday!

3/13/2006 10:31 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday!!! What an absolutely awesome celebration!

3/13/2006 11:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

happy happy birthday!

what a great list, thank you - also, from everyone i've heard, the 30s are just wayyyy better than the 20s, yay.

3/14/2006 1:34 AM  
Blogger goodkarma said...

So much fun! And I'm telling you, my 30s have been the best so far. You'll have a great time! :)

3/14/2006 1:35 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Happy birthday! It sounds like it was a perfect celebration, since the guys managed to come back to the house intact. I love your summary, even if it didn't get to 30.

3/14/2006 6:20 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wracking my brain to think of 3,2,1 - I can't, but I do know being in my 30s has been MUCH better than my 20s! Happy Birthday, Wendy!! I'm so glad you had a fun weekend - such a nice person deserves such a great celebration. oh, and the necklace - WOW!!

ps - 13 years older? YAY - mine, too!! ;)

3/14/2006 7:44 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday dear heart.

3/14/2006 9:29 AM  
Blogger Lucia said...

Happy birthday! No, I cannot help you with your list; I am older than Rob, if you can imagine such a thing, and amnesia set in a long time ago. (It had something to do with having kids, I think. All the moms I know swear that each kid takes part of your brain with him/her at birth.)

3/14/2006 10:40 AM  
Blogger claudia said...

Well, I wish I could help you with 3,2,1 but I can't remember that far back.

;-)

3/14/2006 12:38 PM  
Blogger Mini said...

Happy Birthday!
Just remember, 30 is the new 20 and so on... but I think if you "make it to 30" and are happy with who you are and can live with the choices you have made-- you're doing great. :)

3/14/2006 2:11 PM  
Blogger --Deb said...

Happy birthday!

And, um, "10 whole years before the next big birthday?"

3/14/2006 2:46 PM  
Blogger Stitchy McYarnpants said...

#3 - Mystery of life #854, when "older" people say they can't eat certain foods because it "goes right through them" is solved. You learn what this really means in your thirties.

Not necessarily a good thing, but a thing, nonetheless.

Happy Birthday!!

3/14/2006 3:49 PM  
Blogger Micky said...

Awww crap...Happy Belated Birthday! Life so gets in the way of keeping up with my blog reads. I am glad you had a good one.
Congrats on getting the gold. And what a great idea for the magnet.
:)

3/14/2006 7:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I wish I was there to give you such big hugs and kisses you end up wet and deflated. I love you and all your thirty years!!!!!!!

Big freaking hugs. I'm home - you're home. It's all good!
L, C

3/15/2006 9:38 AM  
Blogger Jscothammerquist said...

Baby Girl I can't believe that I missed your birthday !

Happy belated !

3. It is now cool to have womanly curves. Your girlish past is behind you now, Ha ha ! (or will be at some point)

2. Baking monkeybread is your newest art form.

1. The grand adventure of your life truly begins.

3/15/2006 12:15 PM  
Blogger Cathi said...

I don't know if I can think of three- I was thinking about this on my run last night- but what about your youth is no longer wasted on being young and instead focused on honing the finely tuned instrument that is you?

3/15/2006 4:02 PM  

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