B for Birthday!

Well, I’m officially another year older, and thanks to a few semesters of college courses, I can say I’m another year wiser too! I know all sorts of crap about rocks and international film. You know, all the important stuff!

As I alluded to in my previous post, I had an awesome birthday weekend. Music Man had said we’d celebrate my birthday together on Saturday (a day early), because we had plans to go to my mom’s on Sunday for a family get together. Friday night I got to spend time just relaxing while Music Man ran around town trying to find a bike for my nephew.

The bike story is kind of a long one, but I’ll try to summarize it. Basically, my mom promised Li’l D a new bike if he was good all week; good defined as no potty accidents and good behavior. He worked hard to earn his reward. The problem? My mom couldn’t afford the $80 bike. She should’ve known this when she promised it to him, but she opened her mouth and made the promise anyway. Then, she called me to bail her out.

Now, if my nephew were a little older than four, I would’ve made my mom explain to him that she’d made a promise she couldn’t keep; that even though he’d worked his butt off, he wouldn’t be getting a bike. However, I know how hard my nephew had to work to keep up his end of the bargain, and I felt he deserved the bike. There was still a second problem though: my mom promised Li’l D a bike they’d found online at a big box store’s website.

Music Man went to two different stores during his lunch break on Friday and had no luck finding the bike. He called at least four other stores as well, only to be told that they also didn’t have the bike. So, he ran out to the last store that might have had one on Friday. Thankfully he was able to get the last one. Once again, auntie and uncle (mostly uncle) saved the day!

(Li'l D posing with his new bike!)

Music Man and I spent the rest of the night catching up on shows Tivo had recorded for us throughout the week, and I got my first birthday present from him and the dogs later in the evening. I don’t think I’ve ever told you this, lovely reader, but I have an obsession with fun, different pens. (As long as the ink is blue; I will not—cannot—write with black ink.) That being said, I was delighted to receive a red Crayola Executive Pen from my husband and “kids.”

It’s something I probably never would’ve bought myself, which makes it an awesome gift. It will certainly make the anticipated hell of summer classes a little more fun!

We woke up to nasty weather on Saturday. A thunderstorm was brewing, coloring the sky gray and stirring up crazy wind. Music Man gave me my birthday gift from the kids. It’s a beautiful collage frame containing one of my favorite wedding pictures of us and two of my favorite pictures of the dogs.

I also got the cutest card! It had a picture of a Pug with big red lips on the front, and inside it read, “Pugs and Kisses on your birthday!” Dexter* had “signed” it, “I da Pug. Love, Dex,” and Lucy* had signed it, “I da Kisses. Love, Lucy.” It’s adorable, because it’s so true; Dexter is, of course, a Pug, and Lucy looooooves to give kisses, even if (especially if) they’re not wanted.

Music Man ran out to get our favorite breakfast sandwiches from Panera Bread, and we lazed around drinking coffee. I eventually dozed off on the couch and had a really nice nap with the dogs curled up next to me.

After I was showered and dressed for the day, Music Man handed me money and sent me off to get a pedicure and manicure at the nail salon down the street. It’s become tradition that I get my first pedicure of the summer season at or around my birthday, so I was really looking forward to it. I wasn’t expecting Music Man to pay for it, but he insisted.

I got the deluxe spa pedicure, which involved sitting in one of those electronic massage chairs while my feet and legs (from the knee down) were pampered. The spa part includes bath salts in the foot bath, followed by the feet and lower legs getting slathered in moisturizing gel and covered with hot towels, followed by an exfoliating mud treatment, followed by a foot and leg massage, and finally a hot stone foot and leg massage. It was fantastic!!

I hate feet in general (particularly my feet) and I hate people touching my feet, but I love a good pedicure. It always amazes me that the salon technicians seem to know how to get through it without tickling my feet. They make it a nice, relaxing experience and afterwards I can’t help but to stare at my transformed feet and pretty toes.

(For those who questioned my webbed toes in Wayback Wednesday - Part 2)

Shortly after I got home, the mailman arrived. Music Man was thrilled; he had been cursing the late arrival of the mail all day. Shortly after a package was delivered to our door, Music Man told me it was time for my “big” birthday gift (as though I hadn’t already been spoiled enough!). I cannot even begin to describe how surprised and thrilled I was when I opened my birthday card to find concert tickets…

In the end of August, I’m going to see LADY GAGA!!!!! My BFF, who from here on shall be known as Rockstarr in this blog (per her request), and I have been talking about going to the concert for a while now. Gaga’s shows have been compared to Madonna in the 80’s; in other words, SPECTACULAR! Rockstarr and I like Gaga and her music, and we’ve heard the theatrics and costumes are such a site to see! Now, we’re going!!!

Music Man was thrown into a minor panic last week when I unknowingly and nonchalantly told him that Rockstarr and I were thinking about trying to get tickets, because even the overpriced crappy seats we were finding would be better than no seats. Our interest in tickets had been reignited by previews for next week’s episode of Glee, in which the cast is going to tackle some Lady Gaga songs. Good thing Music Man and Rockstarr are friends on Facebook, because he was able to tell her to stop looking for and talking about tickets. I don’t know how either of them managed to keep this secret from me!

Music Man is horrible at keeping secrets, and he’s kept this one for a while now. He was running around the house all week last week talking about how excited he was for my birthday and how he couldn’t wait to give me my gift. I thought for sure he’d spill the secret by the middle of the week, but he didn’t. The tickets arrived later than he thought they would; he thought he’d have them well before Saturday, which is why he was so antsy for the mailman.

The tickets he got are awesome—Rockstarr and I are gonna have kick ass seats! Apparently Music Man used to play in a band with a guy who’s working as a roadie on Gaga’s tour. The guy didn’t want the tickets he was given for the Minnesota show, because his wife wasn’t going to be able to use them, so he sold them to Music Man.

I cannot believe he got me such a fantastic gift! I am so freakin’ excited for the end of August! Classes will have been over for a couple weeks by then, so it will be a nice way to go out and celebrate surviving the summer of hell.

Music Man had made dinner reservations at one of my favorite local seafood restaurants for Saturday evening, so we went out and had a delicious dinner that included shrimp scampi and coconut shrimp. Overall, a fabulous birthday thanks to my incredible husband! I don’t know how I got so lucky to find such an amazing, thoughtful, loving, caring husband, but I cherish him every single day.

Thanks to Music Man, I got to sleep in for about an hour on Sunday morning. Usually, we both get up when the dogs wake us up early in the morning, but Music Man got up with them and left me to sleep. Music Man took me out to breakfast at IHOP, because I’ve wanted to try the cheesecake pancakes. They were pretty disappointing, but then again, it was IHOP. If I’d wanted a better breakfast, I should’ve chosen a better place.

Late Sunday afternoon, we went to my mom’s house for a family get together. In our 32 years on this Earth, there has only been one birthday that I can remember where my brother and I didn’t get to celebrate together, so I was really happy to hear that I’d be celebrating with him, and the rest of our family, this year at our mom’s house. The weather was brutal—super humid and very hot—but we had a good time relaxing, spending time with family, watching Lil’D ride his new bike, and watching both of my nephews and my niece swim in the kid pool my mom had setup for them.

Mom made a great dinner that included various salads—the perfect meal for a sticky, hot, humid day. My sister, a baker and pastry chef, made a heavenly trifle with chocolate cake, strawberries, and pastry cream for dessert. It was so, so good! After enjoying a few hours with the family, Music Man and I headed home to relax and prepare for the week ahead.

Overall, it was an incredibly fantastic birthday weekend!

(A not great picture of my twin and I on our birthday. Please forgive the awful hair and shiny face--it was so hot and humid!)

* The dogs used to be referred to as Wiggly (Lucy, the Boston Terrier) and Bug (Dexter, the Pug), but it’s a lot easier to just tell you their names. There’s no good reason to have my dogs remain incognito in my blog; except to confuse me, and I deal with confusion often enough as it is. No sense in making things more complicated than they need to be!

While we’re at it, my “real” name is Michelle. I shortened it to Elle for this blog, because I figured there was less of a chance of certain family members recognizing me if they happened to stumble on this blog. I recently realized that: (1) the likelihood of that is slim to none and (2) there are enough details and pictures here to give it away anyway.

Music Man will remain Music Man in this blog until such time as he tells me he’s comfortable enough for me to reveal his name. As it stands, he likes the nickname I came up with for him; so much so that he uses it on Twitter.

What I write here is the truth as I see it. It’s my views and personal thoughts on my life. In the unlikely event that certain family members were to find the blog, they’d still have the choice not to read it. If they choose to snoop around, and read something they didn’t like, that’s on them. I figure I’ll cross that bridge if I ever come to it. (For those of you out there who know me in real life, I’m not saying you should go sending the link to my blog to the whole family. You all know and understand why.)

Whew! Glad to have gotten all of that out of the way, lovely reader! I hope that none of this “news” was too groundbreaking or Earth shattering!