![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
My birthday was October 6, so I'm 44 now. It sounds a lot older than 43.
In mid-September,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
etrace said, "My mom wants to know what to get you for your birthday. We looked at your Amazon list, but she doesn't like it." "She doesn't like it?" "Yes -- nothing on it is anything she wants to get you."
We've had this discussion before, and part of it is that she has this notion that anything that's been on the list for more than a few months is Not Interesting. (For me, the fact that I've wanted something for over a year without getting it might make me MORE excited about getting it, not less. But whatever.)
So I looked at my list, and... huh, there was not much on there that I would be excited about getting for someone, either. Except for the Hamilton soundtrack, which I still had never even heard but was dying to. I promoted that back to the top of the list. Everything else... enh. So I spent a few minutes looking for things that were more fun/indulgent, and put those on the list. Only, then,etrace and jessruth got me all the new fun things, and my gift from MomTrace ended up being... a renewed subscription to the New York Times crossword app! This was genius because I really did enjoy doing it every day until they doubled the subscription price in early 2015 and I gave it up.
My dad, meanwhile, gave me some cash for my birthday -- also a couple weeks early, because he was having retina surgery in the meantime (oy!) and was not going to be able to visit for most/all of the month of October. I ended up spending ALL OF IT on clothes, because I've replaced most of my pants by now but I have still been trying to squeeze into my old shirts, and it's exhausting. But more on that topic in a later post.
I get my birthday as a paid holiday off work (yay!), but since that Monday and Tuesday were Rosh Hashanah, and then my birthday was on Thursday, I thought it would be better to take the Friday instead. Oh yeah, and SisTrace and her younger son (now age 20) happened to be coming up from Louisville from Thursday to Sunday, since she had a long weekend. So I worked that Thursday and then we all went out for deep-dish pizza; came home, put tired baby to bed, and had birthday cake and presents. And then on Friday I got to go out for a WHOLE AFTERNOON by myself. I got a pedicure (the first since Aria was born) and a haircut; and I went to Starbucks and got my free birthday PSL; and then I went to Kohl's and had the luxury of puttering around trying on clothes for like 2 hours. It was delightful. The only problem is that now I want to do it again. :-}
And now I have listened to Hamilton a couple times, and while I wouldn't say the appeal stems from the music per se, I can begin to see how people get obsessed with it and how transformative it is.
Also in there, there were holidays and tonight is Sukkot, and those all merit a separate post too probably. One of these years I would like to start building our own sukkah, but this is not that year.
In mid-September,
etrace said, "My mom wants to know what to get you for your birthday. We looked at your Amazon list, but she doesn't like it." "She doesn't like it?" "Yes -- nothing on it is anything she wants to get you." We've had this discussion before, and part of it is that she has this notion that anything that's been on the list for more than a few months is Not Interesting. (For me, the fact that I've wanted something for over a year without getting it might make me MORE excited about getting it, not less. But whatever.)
So I looked at my list, and... huh, there was not much on there that I would be excited about getting for someone, either. Except for the Hamilton soundtrack, which I still had never even heard but was dying to. I promoted that back to the top of the list. Everything else... enh. So I spent a few minutes looking for things that were more fun/indulgent, and put those on the list. Only, then,
etrace and jessruth got me all the new fun things, and my gift from MomTrace ended up being... a renewed subscription to the New York Times crossword app! This was genius because I really did enjoy doing it every day until they doubled the subscription price in early 2015 and I gave it up.My dad, meanwhile, gave me some cash for my birthday -- also a couple weeks early, because he was having retina surgery in the meantime (oy!) and was not going to be able to visit for most/all of the month of October. I ended up spending ALL OF IT on clothes, because I've replaced most of my pants by now but I have still been trying to squeeze into my old shirts, and it's exhausting. But more on that topic in a later post.
I get my birthday as a paid holiday off work (yay!), but since that Monday and Tuesday were Rosh Hashanah, and then my birthday was on Thursday, I thought it would be better to take the Friday instead. Oh yeah, and SisTrace and her younger son (now age 20) happened to be coming up from Louisville from Thursday to Sunday, since she had a long weekend. So I worked that Thursday and then we all went out for deep-dish pizza; came home, put tired baby to bed, and had birthday cake and presents. And then on Friday I got to go out for a WHOLE AFTERNOON by myself. I got a pedicure (the first since Aria was born) and a haircut; and I went to Starbucks and got my free birthday PSL; and then I went to Kohl's and had the luxury of puttering around trying on clothes for like 2 hours. It was delightful. The only problem is that now I want to do it again. :-}
And now I have listened to Hamilton a couple times, and while I wouldn't say the appeal stems from the music per se, I can begin to see how people get obsessed with it and how transformative it is.
Also in there, there were holidays and tonight is Sukkot, and those all merit a separate post too probably. One of these years I would like to start building our own sukkah, but this is not that year.
