An Appreciation for Birthdays...

Somehow it's already managed to be Sunday night again and it seems like the weekend was just beginning. That's one of those mysteries to me: How can time during the workday move so slowly and yet the minute you're free, it whizzes by?

Nevertheless, no matter how quickly it went by, I managed to have a lovely weekend. Fortunately, the weather did not prevent my original plans of going to my parent's to celebrate my birthday. I'm glad: Had I not gone, I would have spent the day alone. That's not to say I don't like being alone but somehow, it would seem more lonely on my birthday.

It was a wonderful birthday in the end. It was nice to spend the day with my family, receive some amazingly thoughtful gifts and enjoy reading all the nice and thoughtful comments of Facebook. That's what I like about Facebook- even if it's a simple comment, it's nice to see that your friends know it's your birthday. It's a nice way of knowing people care enough to take the time to write something.

My birthday's almost over. I did my baking tonight when I got home from my parent's. My plan was to make a chocolate amaretti cake, some brownies and maybe some cranberry walnut cookies. Well, I ended up not making the cranberry cookies because I lacked walnuts. Also, I lacked the desire to make them. The chocolate amaretti cake became chocolate amaretti brownie bites. This is because the stupid cake stuck to the pan even after it was cool and even after I used non-stick spray. On the plus side, it tasted nice. On the downside, I had to cut squares out of my cake which had fallen to pieces. My brownies turned out ok...I think. I didn't try those. I figure if they get eaten,they were edible. Then again, I've seen people in office try to eat week-old-formerly-Awkard-bagels so perhaps being edible isn't too much of a requirement.

Aside from that, I spent the evening on the phone with a couple of my good friends. It's always nice to chat and catch up. I have some pretty cool friends. The fact that they all let me drone on about my adoration of Mario Batali speaks volumes about their tolerance of me. I'm still annoyed that he and Emeril Lagasse were defeated in the Iron Chef America "Super Chef" battle against Bobby Flay and the White House Executive Chef, Cristeta Comerford. For one thing, the judges were awful. They had Nigella Lawson who actually can cook and knows about food but then they had Jane Seymore and some Olympian athlete. Let's just say with the exception of Nigella, the judges were useless. In the end, while Bobby and Chef Comerford did ok, to me, it was obvious that Mario and Emeril did the best but because the secret ingredient was the White House's vegetable garden, I think it was pretty much skewered towards Comerford and Flay from the beginning. All I can say is I want to try that sweet potato raviolo that Mario Batali made. Yum.

Anyway, I digress. I was talking about my lovely birthday and my l0vely family and friends. It was a nice day. I wish it didn't have to end. I especially wish it didn't have to end with the thought of going to work tomorrow. However, I have treats ready to go, a birthday lunch with the girls from work planned and a pile of work waiting for me. Things could definitely be far worse. It's nice to say that, especially about a workday.

Happy Monday.