Celebrating Me

I started this post awhile back and am just now getting around to finishing it. Normally, I'd just let it go, but since it was my birthday weekend (June 6-8), I figured it's worth writing about.

Anyway, my birthday weekend had all the elements I wanted: fun, friends, family, and relaxation. It was also a wonderful way to kick off summer, which hadn't officially started yet, but I was pretending it was.

Friday:

Work as usual. My friend Jessica bought me a present (some candy, sunscreen, a candle, and a beautiful card) in this lovely blue bag:



Crazy Daisy featured me on her blog in a weekly meme she's doing called Pay It Forward Friday. She had some very nice things to say about me, which made a good pre-birthday gift for me. Thank you, Crazy Daisy!

A group of us went out to lunch at the Gourmet Pizza Shoppe. I took a few pictures with my point and shoot, but they are really bad quality due to the fact that I had to use the flash. I'm too lazy to edit them. So, here you are: really bad pictures of some of my unnameable homies from work.



After lunch, I got some bad news. I found out that the graduate committee had not passed my thesis proposal. Naturally, this did not make me very happy and thus warrants a hopefully short tangent.

Begin tangent.

Hearing the news that my thesis proposal needs revision really kind of blew me away. Yes, I did not put a lot of effort into it this past quarter, but a lot of work went into it in the quarter before. I am very disappointed in myself for not working on it continuously throughout the quarter, because by the time I submitted it to my readers, they only had a short time with it before they had to let me know whether or not it could be sent up to the committee.

However, I am trying to be too hard on myself, because I busted my ass each and every day this quarter in my internship and fairy tales class. It's not like I was just being a lazy mofo. I was giving 150% to other things, which caused me to neglect my proposal. And to be honest, my proposal was good. It really was. From what I understand, the committee wants me to approach my subject in a different way. And well, no amount of good writing can make up for the fact that I'm not a mind reader.

The worst part? Because of this, I will not be able to resubmit my proposal until the fall. (The committee doesn't meet during the summer.) That means that I won't graduate in December. This has been very hard for me to accept. A week and a half later, I am finally beginning to come to terms with it. But I won't lie - it's upsetting.

End tangent.

After work, I went to get a massage. My back, neck, and shoulders had been giving me issues all week, so I called up my massage therapist Reuven and had him fit me in. I hadn't been to see Reuven since the day before my wedding (almost a year ago), so it was good to catch up with him. I am supposed to get monthly massages because I have a mild case of scoliosis, but as insurance does not cover it, sometimes I have to skip them.

As usual, the massage was wonderful, and I drove home feeling all wiggly.

A little later on, Roy walked me to Mandy's for a night of Bunco. Bunco is this really fun dice game, and Mandy is a member of a couple of Bunco groups. She was hosting the get-together for the month of June and needed a replacement. That's where I came in.

The theme of the get-together was "The Honeymoon's Over," pretty appropriate considering Mandy's recent wedding. Mandy served "moldy" wedding cake for dessert and put pimple cream on her face. This photo whore took a lot of detail shots:








But once the game started, I put down the camera and joined the party. I had forgotten how loud and screechy a big group of women can be, but it was screechiness I enjoyed. I had a really great time playing. I even won a prize for being the second highest scorer!

Paul and Mandy walked me home after the game was over. Roy had gone out for the evening but returned soon after me with a bag full of birthday goodies. It was about 11:00 PM, so I was able to rationalize opening my gifts before my actual birthday.

I was absolutely thrilled to see that Roy had bought me a new iPod. My old iPod was a third generation dinosaur that hadn't held a charge on its own in a couple of years. Now I have a brand spanking new 80GB iPod classic that I have named Silver Bullet. Silver Bullet and I are already great friends.




Saturday (my birthday!)

We woke up early (as usual) and went to the Farmer's Market with Mandy and Paul later on that morning.



I found a cool box from 1955 at an antique shop nearby.



After we were done, we went to Mandy and Paul's to see the dog they found.



Our original plans for the day were to spend the afternoon at the Huntington Gardens, but as we had plans for that night, we decided to stay local. I had developed a headache, so I spent the afternoon resting and watching our recent Netflix acquisitions.

Later that night, we all (me, Roy, Mandy, Paul, and Jake) piled into my mother-in-law's van and drove out to Orange County for murder mystery dinner theatre. I have been wanting to go to one of these events for quite awhile. It was loads of fun. On the way there, this was our soundtrack. (Just click it. You won't be sorry.)

We hung out in the bar for awhile before they let us into the dining area.



I noticed this man's very interesting hairdo.



I didn't take many good pictures during the dinner production. I was preoccupied with all that was going on, but here are a few shots (including the best one I got of one of the cast members):




All in all, I really enjoyed the performance and would recommend that others go and enjoy themselves. The dinner was good, too, but they piled all of the food together, which made me kind of lose my appetite. (Food phobias will do that to a person.) It was a really great way to celebrate my birthday, though. We even got to take a picture with the cast members.



I already have forgotten what we did on Sunday, but I seem to recall that it involved my being very, very lazy.

So that was my birthday weekend. It was a really great time - and a wonderful way to ring in the last year of my 20s.