Blown away

No, not by Irene!

Okay, today is my birthday. I haven’t spent a lot of time online today, but I woke up this morning to message after message on Facebook wishing me a happy one. I can’t reply to all of them—I think I lost count at 50—but I appreciated each and every one of them.

There were people who sang to me (What song? “Beth,” of course!), people who posted videos for me, people who called me awesome, a birthday wish in German, people who provided great quotes, people who just generally wished me well and wished me a fantastic day. Some were from relatives, some were from friends, some were from people I’ve met or people I will meet one day, and some were from those who I’ll never get a chance to meet. I grinned as I read them all, and I can’t begin to tell you how much I enjoyed it. I rant and rave there, I act like a brat at times, and more often than not, I’m a grade-A smartass...but you guys seem to kinda like me, anyway. Or at least you tolerate me. That makes me happy.

Those who say that online friends aren’t “real” friends obviously don’t have many online friends! If they did, they’d know better than to say such an idiotic thing.

Anyway, thank you all, very VERY much. I’m still smiling!

As for my day, it hasn’t been all that much different than the usual. Next week will be different (more on that in a moment). I made sure that I got some outside sun/reading time in. Yesterday, we went to see my Mom, and my cousins Denise and Jason stopped by. Mom mentioned that my birthday was the following day, and asked Denise and Jason to guess how old I was going to be. Denise said, “Let’s see...you’re younger than our parents, so I’m gonna guess 50!” I said she was close...I’d be turning 49. Mom said something like, “Well, enjoy it, because once you hit 50, things really start going fast.” The way she said it was so funny, and I said, “So I guess I’ve got one good year left in me!” So, one year...I’d better get busy living or get busy dying!

We don’t really do much on our birthdays or anniversaries anymore. I don’t need to go out to dinner on the very night, and I’m not into bling. However, we do kind of save it all up and treat our vacations as our presents. Next week, we’ll be heading to Vegas for several days (not quite a week), and we’ll do some fun stuff there. (First, though, is the Notre Dame season opener on Saturday. More about that this week!) I got us front row tickets to “Viva Elvis!” (the Cirque du Soleil Elvis show), we’re going to do a day trip to the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam, and of course there will be some Blackjack involved! We don’t spend as much time gambling as we first did. It’s still fun, but we can’t spend hours doing it. We’ll also be meeting up with a couple, Bill and Libby, who fall into the category mentioned earlier: “people I will meet.” They are long-time fellow bloggers, and we will be meeting them at the Peppermill Lounge (A fairly historic place in Vegas, and despite living there, it turns out they’ve never been there…perfect!) for some cocktails and deep discussion. I look forward to it!

It’s going to be some hot weather out there next week, but maybe it will burn all the summer out of me, and make me ready for fall. Nahh, I doubt it!

Thanks again, everyone. You’ve made my day a wonderful one. Mmmmmwah!