Happy Birthday to {ME!}

A couple weeks ago we celebrated my 29th birthday. And because I have a fantastic husband, it was a great day. Let me set the stage -- we'd gotten home from our wonderful trip, and it took a couple weeks to feel like I was back on top of laundry, groceries, routine, etc. So I was saving up all these fun projects for the weekend before my birthday, but I got sick instead. Just some kind of sore throat, fever, virus kind of thing, but it wiped me out for a couple days. I was so MAD! I'd worked really hard catching up on 'chores' so I could do FUN work. So when I thought about my birthday coming up, I told Joseph that I just wanted a day. A day all to myself, no meals to cook, no children to dress, no messes to clean, no errands to run.
It was MAGICAL! Of course, I still had Baby A (she's a little to young to play at the indoor pool all day), but she was pretty aimiable. I pulled out all the projects I'd been saving up for weeks (months?) and felt so good. 

I was actually kind of surprised at how good I felt!  As I worked my way through my projects, I began thinking in terms of my computer.  Now, let me tell you first of all, I am not a techie, so if I get my terms wrong and you know better, just bear with me or quit reading now.  :)  I was likening myself to the CPU (the central processing unit).  I think moms (and women in general) are like CPU's -- we run the processes, and we keep things going.  The more processes I've got running, the less efficient I am.  And sometimes when I've got too many processes going on, I just crash (and occasionally loose data!).  So on my birthday, I was running the 'fun project'  process.  But usually I've got at least a half dozen other processes running simultaneously -- first of all the 'K-girl' process, the 'J-boy' process, the 'breakfast/lunch/dinner' process, the 'goodness this house is a wreck' process.  Toss a few others on there (husband, church, school, friend, blog...), and then there's the 'guilt' process (for doing a non-essential thing when there are so many essentials that really should take precedence).  

Well, Happy Birthday to me!   'Cause the 'fun project' process and the 'Baby A' process were the only things running ALL DAY and even into the night.  My wonderful husband brought me lunch at 12:30 - YUMMY Chicken Bacon Dijon grilled sandwich from Panera Bread - and then he brought dinner at 6:00 - serious comfort food in the form of Baked Potato Soup with Sourdough Bread.  Did I mention that neither of these meals required any dishes to be washed?  He took the children to the gym with him, then took them swimming at the community center for hours.  Then he ran errands with them as I peacefully project-ed my way through the day.  It was so wonderful to do things I enjoy in my own home without multi-tasking myself  to death.

So for my birthday this year, I got: Take-out lunch and dinner, two vinyl lettering phrases for my walls, one sign for my front porch, one sign for my MIL, one memoir organizing binder and 3 little notebooks for taking along with me so I'll never again forget that cute thing my kids' said, Baby A's taggie and I cut the pieces out for the little Molly Monkey up there in the picture.  She was actually sewn together last week.  

Oh, and the ones I love did make a cameo -- Joseph, the kids and I enjoyed cake (my wonderful visiting teacher made for me) together around 7:30 just before Joseph put the kids to bed.  

BEST. BIRTHDAY. EVER.

Thanks, Joseph, for pampering me with a day.  I love you!