Birthday

It was my birthday yesterday. I always take my birthday pretty seriously. Yesterday I may have taken it a little too seriously, but that's another story for another day.

After much ado, the cake turned out not so crooked it would fall over and very tasty.

Also, I'm my next birthday I need to consult an image somebody or other to make sure I look decent in at least 1 (one) of the pictures I'm in. Once upon a time, long ago before my 30's I used to be in pictures taken by non-professionals and to sort of like how I looked in them. That ship has sailed. The last non-professional picture I looked good in was, I think, 4 or 5 birthdays ago. This picture, yes the one with me making a blowing mouth, was the one that I looked the best in. And this on a day when I did my hair, my make-up, and dressed in clothes that were not appropriate for exercising or sleeping in. Nobody tell me what I look like when I go to Walmart in the mornings without (literally) so much as looking in the mirror. I'm sure I must be a regular on that people of Walmart site (nobody tell me if they've seen me there either).

Anyway, unflattering birthday pictures aside, we had the loveliest evening with so many of our friends. We went out to eat at an Indian restaurant that I like and then back to our house for cake, ice cream, and a little farkle.

Other highlights of my birthday:

Kip caught the cutest baby turtle that we kept as a pet for a day (I love the pet-for-a-day concept), releasing it this morning.

Also, our ducks made a little boyfriend, an attractive brown and white fellow Kip named Rico. I was pretty fond of him yesterday when he was hanging out with the ducks and acting like one of the flock, but today he proved to be a bit of a pied piper, leading out ducks to another pond so there was no easy (or even kind of easy) way to lead them back tonight. I'm a little bummed about it. I guess they have to grow up some time, but I was really wanting them to stay close to home. The flood waters are receding and I might ask Kip to go lead them back after our pond is once again a pond and not an extension of Pigeon creek. My hope is that they'll be sort of contained and not interested in wandering off again (wandering is easy right now because the neighborhood ponds--we have several--are either connected or nearly connected because of the high water).

And speaking of high water. It's going back. Finally. I'm very glad, but today it's gotten pretty stinky. It smells like that stagnant seashore, sort of fishy rotting things smell. it's not the worst smell in the world. It can't even begin to compete with our neighbor's dog kennel, but it's not the greatest smell in the universe either. Oh well, hopefully it means lots of healthy decaying stuff to lead to more growth later.

And speaking of growth, it's finally starting to warm up a bit. For my birthday the roses are always gorgeous and blooming. Last year, the peonies were nearly done by the time my birthday hit. This year I wasn't quite sure they were even going to open. But open they did. And just in time. I wish I'd gotten some better pictures, but it was dusk and I was holding a nearly naked baby and the color was a little bluer than it should have been.