My birthday.

Molly and I outside of the restaurant. (You can see Dan in Molly's cool sunshades if you look very close.)

On July 25th, I got just a little bit older. I think that the traditions of birthday cake and gifts are best considered ways to soften the harsh reality of aging. "You're getting old! Here, have a gift to make you feel better....here, eat some cake!" It does help to make the day go by easier.

When we're kids, it's just all about fun and being the center of attention for a whole day. As we get older....and older....for me, it's more about, "don't look too close or you'll see my newly sprouting gray hairs or the little lines around my eyes." I don't understand where all the time went! How can I possibly be 40-whatever already? Inside my mind and body, I feel like I'm 33 or so. I've decided that I'm going to start just lying...I'm 10 years younger than I am. That's easy math for me..."yeah, I was born in '77, and class of '95"...easy math on my toes when I want to fib about my age.

Oh, maybe not. Age is just a number as I'm told time and again. I just don't think my number feels right, that's all. It's way too big...I need a smaller sized number. Maybe I could just have this one taken in a little bit?

On my birthday, we went to a sushi place nearby called "Wasabi" where we had a nice meal and Molly had a child's teriyaki plate and tried her hand at using chopsticks.

Enjoying my miso soup with a big beautiful tray of sushi in front of me. It was all delicious.


If you look very closely, you can see that Molly used the blue crayon on her face, making a blue mustache when we weren't looking.

We then went for a drive in a pretty part of town near some lakes and streams.

What a beautiful place to have a treehouse...it's like a child's dream place to play.


There were a few boats out on the water...a great afternoon to be on a speedboat.


Nice farmhouse near the lake...not a bad place to call home.


I love old weathered barns. There are so many around here too.

After that, we stopped by the grocery store for some necessary items but to also pick up some of their wonderful Mediterranean items from the olive bar. I just love that stuff: good crusty dipping bread, olive tapanade, stuffed grape leaves, mozzarella and feta cheeses and various stuffed olives...yum! I had asked Dan for a cheesecake instead of a traditional cake. He came through with the perfect selection of a cake with six different cheesecakes....absolutely wonderful.

My mom was on the speaker phone singing Happy Birthday with us. Even Molly tried to sing too. She was singing Happy Birthday the next day...guess it stuck in her head.


My favorite coffee mug (with Sumatran coffee from Jovis Coffee) My Celebrate Plate and my favorite Life Is Good shirt. This cheesecake selection was very good! Loved each kind. ~by the way, no one gets to see how I look when I blew out the candles...the power of cropping photos. Haha.

It was a good day.