Nuthin’ but an H thang, Baybay…

My birthday? This year, it started a bit early on Sunday at my Mom’s:

- We wolfed down a yummy spaghetti dinner with several aunts, uncles and cousins.
- My Mom bought us a lovely Lunds cake! Mmmmm, Lunds…
- We looked at photos/video of Uncle Tom and Auntie Carol’s trip to Disneyworld with CJ.
- We played cards.
- We snacked on WheatThins and homemade cream cheese and jam dip.
- We opened presents and cards.
- We blew out candles, carved up the Lunds cake and dished out ice cream.
- My mom gave me a beautiful blue clay vase and a gift certificate for a pedicure.
- Audra gave me a Target gift certificate – always a good gift.
- Kel/Anton/Deja gave me some DVD’s that I really really wanted.
- I received many sweet birthday cards.

I was totally spoiled. Rotten even.

Monday (my actual birthday) was restful. Adam made me breakfast and lunch. He gave me a couple of fabulous perfumes and he’s letting me pick out a new easel. Also, I received birthday phone calls from friends: Deb, Chrissy, Mark, Jen, Dawn and Jeff. And calls came in from family: Daddio, Mom, Audra and Kel, the Daydah and my Auntie Bon.

Later in the evening, Rob, Andy, Dena and AdamV came over for awhile. Andy and I poured over my Senior High School yearbook scouring for people that both of us know. We had fun reminiscing about high school Debate and Speech; Andy’s even currently a Debate Judge, and talking about his experiences brought me back to the days when I was a Debate Judge in college. When Dena and AdamV arrived, they gave me a hilarious card and a lovely necklace. As for Adam, he dragged AdamV into his home office to pick his brain about his newly constructed computer. As usual, Rob was just giggling at all of us; about two weeks ago, Rob gave me Season 4 of the Highlander series as a birthday gift so that I can really get my fill of Adrian Paul.

The group later met up with Tom and Gwen for supper at my favorite place: Benihana. They presented me with another hilarious card and a BestBuy gift certificate – wheee! It was so nice of everyone to give me presents and so unexpected. As always, the food was delicious and much good conversatin’ took place. They gave me a bowl of orange sherbet and sang to me. It doesn’t get much better than that.

***

Talk about a good mail day! Yesterday, I came home from work to find a big insulated box of flowers on my doorstep. They were from my work team: Rumaldo, Paul and Stacy. The card read: “Stay 29 forever!” I was so touched by the gesture and I called each of them to offer a personal thank-you. The flowers are scrumptious: stargazer lilies, mini-mums and purple irises. Since they’d been sitting outside in the cold, I immediately put them in warm water on the dining room table to get them to open up. While admiring the flowers, I opened up my mail to find a card from my Dad with money in it – yay me! I called him at work but ended up leaving a thank-you message.

Later, Chrissy and Tracy came over for supper and brought many many bags of stuff with them. For my birthday, they bought me two very striking red glass candle holders with matching red candles. They also gave us four bottles of wine and brought a homemade pudding/graham cracker dessert (I have officially stolen the recipe). For dinner, I made tortellini again and it was delicious again. We had fun showing them the new place as well, so I suppose it was a very multi-purposed visit.

At this point, you could say turning 29 hasn’t been terrible…outside of the fact that I’m only a year away from 30. Guess I’ll just worry about that next year, right? Right?

This is my ode to Kelly on her birthday:

You’ve been a wonderful sister all these years.
You’ve let me take funny photos of you pretty much whenever I wanted to.
You don’t take yourself too seriously.
You are one of the most fun people I know.
You’re always scheming about somethin’ and I love that about you.
You’re the life of the party.
You’re a good mom.
You have a sharp wit.
You’re a beautiful person.
You laugh easily and make others do the same…especially when they really need to.
And I love you!
I hope your birthday is the bomb-dizzle!!

The snow follows me wherever I go…it’s starting to creep me out. A couple of weeks ago, it followed me into Sioux Falls and almost all the way home. Today, it followed me into Wisconsin.

My morning appointments were in Bloomer and Eau Claire with new dealers – both meetings went awesomely-spectacular. I didn’t think I’d be there as long as I was, but that’s usually how these things go (yeah, I can be a little Chatty Cathy). I left Eau Claire at around 2pm and it was only flurry-ing. Once I hit the freeway it graduated to a dusting and then quickly turned to limited-visibility-type snow. I battled it all the way into Minnesota and counted off the miles until I reached St. Paul. THAT is really when it started getting bad. I-94 started to jam up downtown and into Minneapolis. I decided to take 55 home to avoid freeways but it wasn’t any better. The snow was piling up and I inched my way home, finally arriving at 4:10pm. Not terrible timing, considering the snowy trafficky mess I went through.

Adam is stuck in traffic in a major way as I write this. I could hear the irritation in his voice on the phone, poor thing. Highway 100 is bad enough without weather issues thrown in. AdamV and Dena called to see what we’re up to tonight. When Adam finally makes it home, we’ll probably grab some supper with them near the ‘hood and watch a movie or something. It sure is convenient having friends so nearby.

Speaking of supper, we had Adam’s friend and former roommate, Eric, over on Wednesday night for tortellini and garlic-mashed potatoes. We chatted about his many interests and how small of a world it really is; my old house (before I moved into Adam’s) was literally a few houses away from where he still lives. We were neighbors and didn’t even know it.

As for this weekend, we’s gots da plans galore! On Saturday night, Rachel and Pat are having a small party. Rae is so cute: she sent us an email expressing her understanding of the need to provide “healthy, diet-safe” snacks for the three brides-to-be who’ll be attending the party. Sunday is the big birthday supper at Mom’s for Kel and me; Kelly’s birthday is tomorrow and mine is on Monday, so Sunday met us in the middle this time. I can’t believe I’m turning 29. I think I’ll stay 29 for about the next 10 years…

This last week or so has been fabulously difficult. The weather has really been taking it out on me. I haven’t been sick this winter yet (crossing my fingers) but I’m getting sick of the cold temps. It was so miserable last Thursday and Friday that I battened down the hatches in my home office both days. Being cooped up like that is not exactly my bag of tea. Also, several members of my team were out of the office ill so not much was accomplished. It was kind of a sucky week.

On the positive side, some cool things did happen:
* We took all of the Christmas decorations down and put them away for next year.
* Adam bought me more beautiful flowers.
* We cleared out most of the mess in the lower level guest room and utility room.
* We went to IKEA for the first (and second) time.
* Our new Sleepnumber Bed was delivered (and we absolutely loooooove it).
* Adam showed Lord of the Rings at our house on Saturday, from 10am until approximately midnight. About 10 people came over, we served cereal for breakfast, Davanni’s pizza for lunch and homemade spaghetti for supper. It was, well, another crazy party.
* I received my commission check from last month (oh yeah, baby!).
* I had a “wedding brainstorming” lunch with my girlfriend Jen.
* My Mom and I made tentative plans to go to Japan soon.
* I bought a couple of new canvases and started a new painting.
* I spent quality time with my computer and added more photos to my “Vintage Gallery.”
* I started studying how to install ceramic tile.

And this week will get even better:
* The weather is projected to warm up.
* I have a “networking lunch” with 20 people at Benihana tomorrow (yay!).
* We’re having friends over for dinner on Wednesday.
* We’re going to a party on Saturday.
* My Mom is having the whole family over on Sunday for a birthday dinner for Kel and Me.
* Adam and I will get more wedding planning done.
* Did I mention it will get warmer??

Adam has been keeping my cold spirits up, mostly by finding new ways to make me laugh. He used this phrase to describe the chunks of dirty snow that accumulate inside of your wheel well during heavy snow: car cookies. He mentioned it a couple months ago in a conversation about snow and I almost spat out my Diet Coke. Yes, I am easily amused. It’s the simple goofy things like that which make me love him.

Monday evening, I left Minneapolis heading for Sioux Falls again. Business has been going so well down there that I’ve sort of decided to make it a monthly trip. In fact, I had prearranged several large meetings down there before I left and was expecting two extremely productive days. What I wasn’t expecting was a heap of snow dropping on the town! I checked the weather beforehand as usual. However, they predicted only light snow/flurries in the late afternoon on Tuesday with minimal accumulation. That’s not nearly what came to be.

Tuesday morning, I left the hotel at about 8am. It was already snowing way beyond “flurries.” The weatherman was now saying that the big storm that was sweeping the country from the Rockies to the Northeast was hitting just north enough to cover Sioux Falls and the surrounding areas. I brushed off my car in haste and jumped into the cold seat. I headed over to Krispy Kreme to pick up donuts for the guys in my first morning meeting. All of the meetings went very well and I got a tremendous amount of mileage out of the donuts.

The snow kept coming and it was getting much more dense. I had to brush off my car after each meeting. I desperately hate it when that happens! I finally gave up at about 4:30 and went to the mall. My hands and feet were very cold; the temp was only about 5 degrees. Ill-prepared for this storm, I had no hat or winter boots with me and only thin gloves. I did have my high-heeled black Aldo’s on but they sure weren’t helping me trudge through the building snow on the ground! Lucky for me, Empire Mall in Sioux Falls has much to choose from. I was able to find a matching off-white fleece hat and gloves. I bought a Burberry-style scarf and adorable pink knee-high snowboots with faux-fur cuffs at the top; love them! That evening, I took a couple of my dealers to Outback for dinner and good conversation. What a long day.

Wednesday morning was still cold and still snowing. I had another good morning meeting and of course, brought more donuts. Afterward, I received two phone calls from dealers wanting me to stop by before I headed back to the cities. As it goes in smaller towns, they’d heard through the grapevine that I was around and wanted to be setup with me as a customer. I ended up taking them both to a productive lunch (since they were buddies and all). In one shot, I covered the program with them both, dispensed my dealer agreements and hit the road.

If anything, the snow became worse when I got to I-90. This freeway is wiiiiiindy! The wind blew the snow straight across the road sideways. Needless to say, I drove much slower than normal. I gingerly made stops to dealers in Worthington and Fairmont and then crawled home, hours later.