Birthday flowers from Finny. Did she know sunflowers are one of my favorites? She knew these would make my day and they did.
I know I ramble quite a bit about how lucky I am, but it truly caught up with me this weekend. First, thank you very much to everyone who left a sweet note about my birthday. To be honest, birthdays make me squirm. I’m great at giving gifts, but needed two glasses of wine (Hello, wagon: time to fall off.) to be comfortable enough to open gifts in front of my closest friends at dinner. I’m not sure what that is all about, but apparently I’ve got some social awkwardness issues.
This week’s pumpkin cake in a pumpkin pan! Isn’t it awesome? Seriously, Finn knows me. And the bagel shop boys love her too. They wolfed this down this morning.
Then my parents called first thing Sunday morning from Texas and just hearing my dad’s voice sent me into an adolescent crying fit. I sobbed. I cried harder than I have in a long time and my parents were pretty convinced something had gone horribly wrong in Tempe. I’d simply misplaced my coping skills. And then I started crying harder when I realized how upset I had made them. I really miss my family — another topic I’ve beaten to death around here — but holidays make that all come bubbling to the surface. I heard his voice saying, “Happy Birthday, Pumpkin” and was transported to our small kitchen table, sitting in front of my mom’s amazing chocolate birthday bundt cake with a pink candle on top, with birthday presents wrapped in the funny pages surrounding me. In reality, I was standing in my bedroom on my cell phone trying to catch my breath between wails.
New fun stamps for a Fall card project I’ve got in mind.
Sometimes emotion catches me completely by surprise; I’ve definitely got a bit of delayed emotion disorder too. I’m one of those ever-so-fun friends who realizes a couple days later that ‘Hey! You totally made me mad when you said XYZ last week.’ I often recognize that I’m not feeling great, but can’t put my finger immediately on the cause. Yet another thing to work on, but I am getting better.
A little elephant luck added to my bedroom Africa wall.
Back to the luck — my girlfriends who I’ve grown up with, the Ya Yas — are pretty much the most amazing group you can imagine. They know me better than I know myself most days. I have a feeling they knew I’d be especially family sick this weekend and they over-scheduled my every second with parties, lunches, movies, and shopping to keep my mind off of things. They surrounded me and made me feel loved, as did many, many others.
If that isn’t luck, I’m not sure what is. I am so blessed!
Here is to another great week!
~K
P.S Darjeeling Limited? Fabulous movie. I’m convinced Wes Anderson and I would be great friends. And Adrien Brody is the epitome of the goofball hottie. The guy that gets the hot girl for his quirkiness, not his biceps.