and miraculously not deeper in debt.
Well, yesterday was my birthday, so I guess I’m now officially 32, though I’ve been telling people I was 32 for about the past 3 months. I have a longstanding habit of rounding up whenever my birthday is nearish. I think it may track back to the childish habit of reminding people of your next upcoming age. You know how kids tell you that they’re “seven-and-a-half years old,” or “nine, going on ten.” That sort of thing.
Anyway, Joel surprised me by inviting some friends over. We’d already been making some plans based around family; my folks were planning on coming back down to KC for the weekend, and my sister was able to visit from Omaha (and bring along her very cute son, Max) so I figured we’d just do a quiet family-at-home sort of thing and invite Joel’s mom over and hang out. We did do that, but it was more like a chill friends-and-family night at home, with Christi, Sarah & Nancy, Julie & Tracey, and Justin & Stephanie dropping by to help us have a good time. We had the grill and the firepit going by sundown and munched out on veggie burgers and Joel’s mom Nancy’s fabulous potato salad.
I am now in the posession of a Squeezo! The name of this appliance alone pleases me. Mom had this juicer/strainer thing since the mid-80s and used it for making tomato sauce for ages and ages. I’m going to be using it for making my grape jelly this year. Our Catawbas are doing marvelously well, and unless unforeseeable disaster strikes, we should be looking at a bumper year for grapes.
Lookin’ promising!
Mom told me that the Squeezo wasn’t my official birthday present – one of those cool little freezable ice-cream makers was, but I’d have been perfectly happy with just the Squeezo! She and I also did a little damage at the fabric shop. We picked up some fabric so that I can make her a circle skirt like this one. I also got fabric for a few upcoming projects – a couple of cropped blazer jackets, a dress that should be really cute, and another of the circle skirts.
My nephew is getting to be quite the fun little guy. He’s two months short of his second birthday and really getting good at the whole talking thing. He does two-word phrases and is a good imitator. He picked up Ruby’s name and was going around finding her toys, saying her name, and then delivering them to her, much to her general perplexity and delight. He chased bubbles, showed off his jumping skills, and doodled with crayons for hours. For a toddler who skipped his nap, he partied on quite admirably.
Here’s Max enjoying the bubbles. Joel gave Dad a bubble-machine as a kind of joke present for his birthday last month, and as it turns out, little Max LOVES bubbles, so it turned out to be quite serendipitous to have a bubble-maker handy.
It was such a fun and relaxing day! I couldn’t have possibly hoped for a more pleasant 32nd birthday. 
Also, Joel gave me a much-needed new Camelbak. It’s the “HAWG” model in a kind of tan color and it has so many pockets! My old Camelbak was one of his that I’d taken over and it was already kind of worn out when I started using it and after our coast-to-coast tour, it was totally grodelated and completely shot! I tried to wash it and keep on using it, but one of the zippers wasn’t staying shut anymore and all of the padding was worn out of the straps so that it felt like it was leaving dents in my shoulders. Later on today I need to switch things out of my regular backpack to my new camelbak. I was trying to use my regular backpack (a super-nice, orange, NorthFace daypack) with the camelbak bladder, but that didn’t really work as well as one might hope. This new pack is big enough to tote the majority of the crap I regularly feel that I must tote around, and has the dedicated pouch to put the water bag into.
Apropos of nothing, here’s a picture of Tasha-dog. This is one of my favorite funny-looking dogs out there. She’s almost disastrously disproportionate, with stumpy little legs and a long, very furry body. She seems like something Jim Henson could have dreamed up for Labyrinth.
See what I mean? Not much ground clearance on this little dog.
Happy Belated B-Day!
Oh yes!
Happy birthday!
Many happy ones subsequent, too!
Your nephew is too cute!!!
Happy Birthday! (Sorry, I thought it was the 9th for some reason.)
The squeezo looks intriguing. There’s one at my local hardware store that I’ve been eyeballing. Worth it?
Well, it’s kind of a pain in the rear to clean out, but it does indeed work.
It’s great for stuff like pureeing fruits for jam without turning it into total liquid, but getting the seeds out and skins off. Mom used to use it to process tomatoes for canned tomato sauce.
Thank you!
Aww! Thanks for the good wishes 🙂
He’s such a delightful little fellow, too. He’s really growing up into his own personality and it’s so fun to discover who he is.