Wait, 30?

30. 

Yup, 30.

It was always my "Oh, well, I don't have to do that now, I can do it when I'm old...like 30" age.

And now, I'm old, like 30. Except not.

Things I'm grateful for, at 30:

I am married to an extremely super Husband.

We have a (small) boat, a house, and a zoomy car.

My parents are far away physically, but only as far away as the nearest computer (thank you, Skype).

My job is 100% better than it was a year ago, and I have a really excellent team and 2 great bosses.

I weigh less than I did when I was 25 (and am in better shape).

Now to finish baking cakes for the peeps at work (bizarre English tradition: you bring cakes in for everyone ELSE on your birthday)! 

Happy Birthday to ME!

Well, I hit the ripe old age of 29 today. Ack. After a brief interlude last spring where I had completely convinced myself that I was 27, going on 28, I've been happily 28 for a while. But 29 is nestling rather close to 30. Alarmingly so.

In any case, James did a beach cleanup with the Sea Scouts two weeks ago, and they had a few prize draws for participants. He won two tickets in the cleanup-sponsors' box (that would be BT, then), for today's match against Leeds. As you can see, the BT box is not too shabby - we were field level, right on the halfway line.

The players were thisclose and it was a great game. The TractorBoys managed 2 (!) goals against their bitter rivals, there was lots of good singing, we had a good group in the box, and the away fans were entertainingly rowdy, but not alarmingly so. We may have to go to more games....although something tells me it won't be in a box next time!

Thanks to BT, to the Sea Sprouts, and to our host today. And especially to James (and to his "other" family, who were generous enough to offer me the extra ticket)!

Holiday wishes

Most of you will probably have seen this, but here it is again. And yes, I'm aware that Christmas was two days ago.

In other news today, Happy Birthday Dad and John!!

Birthday recap

Last weekend, we went on another bike ride - here's a picture looking from the Stowmarket/Needham Road to the north.

There was much excitement when we went to Tesco - this bird had flown in through an open door and was looking around for a place to perch. Sorry the picture quality isn't great - we only had the point-and-shoot and not the SLR.

Two weeks ago, I got an e-newsletter from the Kate Rusby folks, announcing her upcoming tour. I was super-psyched to see that not only was she coming to Ipswich (SO much closer than Norwich and Peterborough, where we've seen her play), but that she would be there on my birthday (this past Thursday). Obv, we had to go.

In my infinite geekyness, I emailed her record company asking to have a song dedicated to me for my birthday. And she DID! Hooray!! She played 'Where Does The Time Go', which is a single that I don't have (yet), and said that it was for "Kate, or Katie, whose birthday is today, I think. Or tomorrow, or yesterday. Anyway." I felt special. Her she is, in all her blurry awesomeness.

And here we are at the intermission - John bought me a Kate Rusby mug (since I already have a KR t-shirt)

To add to the overwhelming birthday goodness, I am also the proud owner of a new and exceedingly shiny iPhone. My contract was up and I had been coveting one for yonks, so that was that. I LOVE it, with the only drawback being that the battery life is completely crap. My old Motorola Krzr would merrily go 6 or 7 days between charges, but the iPhone barely eeks out 24 hours. I've been turning off some of the push-synching when I'm not using the phone (I don't need it to tell me I have an email at 3am), and that seems to help a bit. I'm having issues with the Apple store, too - as an American, my AppleID is registered to a US address, and so Apple can't comprehend that I might have LEFT the country. Bah. The interwebs have yielded a few suggestions - we'll see what happens. Other than that, though, it's great. Being able to sync my google calendar to wherever I am is awesome, and texting on the 'keyboard' is so much easier than on my old phone.

One final birthday thing - on Wednesday night when John's buddies came round, they brought me some gorgeous birthday flowers. Thanks, guys!! They brought a bottle of really tasty wine, too (no picture, it's all gone).

Blanket Update

My brother pulled out all the stops for my birthday this year. He asked what I wanted, so I sent him links to some fluffy socks and a pillow made by Manda.

He responded by sending me a Casio Exilim digital camera (pink!), because I had 'admired his when I was home and he thought I'd like my own.' My jaw hit the floor when it arrived - I had absolutely no idea that he was sending something so awesome. I haven't taken many pictures yet because Amazon is being slow with the memory card, but here are two that I took yesterday on the walk into town.

My 4-year-old Canon digital Elph has served me very well - it's the reason I hadn't upgraded cameras before - despite the postage stamp viewing screen and 4 megapixel-ness, it's always taken fantastic pictures and I've used it so much it's like an extension of my arm. Ed and I were talking yesterday on Skype about it - we both realized that we'd had our own cameras when we were 10. I see a gently used Elph in James' future...

The hot air balloon is from Virgin Balloon flights - they run launches from the big playing field in Stowmarket.





These are from the blanket that I've been knitting for a while. I just finished the red wool yesterday, and started in on the cream. It's going to look great on the brown corduroy backing. All I have to do is knit 23 1/2 more squares and then I'm done!

Cards!

I hit the ripe old age of 26 today - yikes! I've had a really great day - John woke me up this morning with some grapefruit juice and birthday cards and presents. I think this year is my best card year ever.

First, from Mom & Dad, this beachy one:



Then, from C, another of the great Curly Girl Design cards (the Tiara one that I have is framed and ready for my wall at work):



John got me a really funny one:



Inside? "So - you thought one of them was attractive... Happy Birthday!" Hahahaha.

Now I Have A 9 Year Old Stepson!

We went to James' birthday party in Ipswich today- we all played laser tag and then the boys played 'quick cricket' and ate typically groty English birthday party food. The laser tag was really fun (John, Martin and I got to play as well), and then they all seemed to have a really good time with the cricket. Here's James, about to blow out his candles:


Happy Birthday, Kiddo!