Birthday Photos.

My friends, that’s Yours Truly enjoying a tall one (root beer, of course…) at my favorite local Mexican restaurant for my birthday lunch. Today, as promised, I’d love to share with you some photos from the surprise party my mom and sister threw for me the weekend before my birthday. They’d been planning the shindig for months, but about a month before the party, I accidentally found the invitation my mom had saved on our computer. I didn’t want to spoil the surprise, so I kept my mouth shut and didn’t let on that I knew (a very hard feat for me!) until the morning of the party. Still, my mom and sister planned a lovely day.

They decorated the house with lovely splashes of color. We left them up for the whole week, and every time I looked at them, I couldn’t help but smile!

During the party, they made sure guests had plenty to do. Guests could write birthday wishes to me on a giant poster hung on the wall, and instead of party games, my mom had a terrific raffle. Guests put their names into a basket and every 20 minutes, a name was drawn.

The prize? An item in this bin, which my mom filled to the brim with all my favorite things.

My mom also made these amazingly cute party favors filled with M&Ms, Hershey’s Kisses or Reese’s. The Reese’s were my favorite, and I not-so-secretly may have eaten a few before the party.

Since the party was in the afternoon, we enjoyed appetizers of cheese and crackers, meats and veggies. A friend of ours, in addition to bringing the appetizers, made the cake. It was half chocolate and half vanilla and incredibly delicious. She even added a dash of almond to the frosting to give it an extra kick of flavor! Genius!

After the party, it was so nice to sit down with my mom and sister, and read all the lovely cards from friends and family. I have so many wonderful people in my life, and I am thankful for them every single day! A BIG hug and thank-you to everyone who helped me ring in my birthday.

So, friends, do you have any tips for survivng my ’30s? What do you love about being in your ’30s? Is it really better than being in your ’20s?

P.S. My mom said she had such a fun time planning the party and picking out all the party favors. I told her she should go into the party-planning business. What do you think? 🙂

My 30th Birthday!

My, friends, at exactly 8:49 a.m. today, I turned the big 3-0. I braced myself for something apocalyptic to happen, but strangely, I don’t feel any different. As I ease myself into this new decade. I have some lovely photos to share with you next week, but for now, I’d love to know: Do you love your birthday?

P.S. I’m going out to lunch and to see Crazy, Stupid, Love to celebrate. Can’t wait!

P.P.S. Happy birthday, President Obama!

Birthday Week: Where I’m Going.

Predictability. I’m a pretty big fan of it. Quite a huge fan, actually. In fact, if predictability had a fan club, I would probably be its president. I make no secret of the fact that I like order and crave rules. In short: Uncertainty is bad.

As my 30th birthday rolls around, I’m learning more and more that the future is the most certainly unpredictable thing in the world. And frankly, that scares me to no end sometimes. I like to know where I’m going, I like my goals to be firmly in place – I never, under any circumstances, want to fly by the seat of my pants, lest they should just fly off into the wind and I’m left there red-faced and embarrassed. Don’t we all want to be able to map out our future and have everything neatly fall into place, just as we want and expect it to? Maybe it has something to do with wanting to be in control. We all like to think we are masters of our own universe, that we are fully in control of our destinies and if something goes wrong, we can immediately fix it. Everything will quickly be right with the world once we get things back on the path we’ve carved out for ourselves.

I often wonder about where I’m going and where I’ll be in the future. Do you ever wonder about that, friends? So much has happened in the first 30 years of my life, and I can’t help but think that the next 30 will be full of twists and turns and lots of surprises. So what do I want to accomplish? A sampling of my own bucket list:

*Write for Glamour magazine I’ve already got the blog covered!).
*Publish Letters To My Future Husband in book form.
*Travel with wild abandon around Europe.
*Continue to surround myself with loving family and friends.
*Fall in love, or at least stop the whole crushing-from-afar thing.
*BE HAPPY.
The truth is, we don’t know exactly where we’re going. We can put our end destination into the GPS of our life, but we can never be positive we’ll arrive at our destination on time, or at all, for that matter. Our future sometimes has other plans in store for us, and I don’t want to be one of those people who is so focused on one path that I become closed off to the possibilities of a different path.

So, maybe I don’t know exactly where I’m going. But I do know that I look forward to the ride there.

[Photos via I Can, I Will]

Birthday Week: Where I Am.

During my senior year of high school, my English teacher gave us an assignment. We were to write a letter to our future selves. Back then, I swore I knew where I would be when I would read that letter again: Living the high life in New York, a magazine editor by day and a darling socialite by night. There was no question in my mind. My fate was sealed. End. Of. Story.

I found a copy of that letter a few years ago, and I got to thinking about where I am. Maybe you’ve asked yourself that looming question: Am I where I want to be in life? Some days I think I should be doing more in life, and it can be really easy to get down on myself. That little voice creeps in; you know, the one that finds fault with every tiny thing and never misses an opportunity to criticize. I know I need to learn to silence that inner voice and learn to be happy with where I am. Today. Right now. At this moment. Because, as my mother is always pointing out, “the present moment is all we have.”
And I can’t forget about the happiness I wrote of in that letter 11 years ago. I told my future self that I wanted to be happy. It was something that seemed so easy to the 18-year-old me at the time, at a time when life was all about being carefree and looking at life through innocent eyes. For now, for today, if I can find just a shred of that happiness, maybe that will be enough.

Where are you in your life right now, friends?

[Photos via Beautiful adieu]