Birthday in May

So I celebrated my birthday late. It was supposed to be in April, but that didn't turn out to be convenient. But since it's actually in December (week before Christmas - such a dark and stressful time of year) and I moved it to April several years ago, I figure can have it whenever I want. Not my birthday - just my family's celebration of it. Hot dogs on the grill, eating outside, flowers in the gardens... After 40+ years of celebrating within days of the shortest day, I went for something different. So here we are in our "front room" which looks west to the afternoon sun, up our cul-de-sac. The circle is so often full of kids on wheels of some kind - skates, scooters, skateboards, bikes (with and without training wheels). It's amazing. Our street (our neighbors) are amazing. Hotdogs are on the grill off to the right, and we're getting them off as we eat them.

Here is my stack of presents from Dearest. She knows what kind of paper I like - colorful. We all like the animal paper - sold to us as part of a scout or school fund raiser by the boy next door. We carefully cut it off presents and re-use it on other presents. It makes favorite paper last a long time, getting smaller and smaller until they end their usefulness on a CD or a small toy... Other paper we rip! Well, some of us do.

This is what was inside. The Complete Paintings of Vincent Van Gogh and the Guide to Drawing the Head... Sometimes I like to let loose and paint like a child - other times I want to use technique I don't possess. This is to try for more of the latter. We'll see what happens. I'm impressed with the details I see in this book. The CDs are some expected and some surprises. I will stash these, since I'm still enjoying the newness of my Edward McKay heap. The lamp, a design from Provence, was a complete surprise.

Here's the lamp lit inside later in the evening. We're going to enjoy this in several settings, I think - inside and outside. The candle holder comes out the bottom, making it easy to light the candle and put in into the lamp without getting soot on the glass. It's a lovely design, and a pleasant surprise - something quite unexpected and I loved getting it.

And since my children say they no longer know my age, because I've confused myself and everyone else about it, I got "whatever" for the number of candles. Actually this very fudgy brownie (I'm not usually a chocolate dessert guy - but I've been craving this brownie recipe lately) was still pretty warm from the oven, and it would have melted the candles. So I got the birthday train (yay!) and that means six candles no matter what age you are.

For those who need to know these things, I was 48 last December.

In the evening we watched X-Men III. I love Ian Mckellen as Magneto, and he gets to chew up a lot of scenery in this movie. My favorite moment might be when he smiles and turns away after the woman locks the car door...