TGIF, blog! Here’s Joshy hanging up the Francesca painting in our dining room. She received a fresh coat of teal paint around her edges first. “This is the first time I’ve liked the Francesca painting,” Josh remarked, which didn’t hurt my feelings, because she was an early early work.

Wednesday was my birthday, and both of my bosses kindly offered to let me take the day off, which I NEVER do. Boy am I glad I did this year! I had a fabulous day that wouldn’t have been possible if I had worked during all the daylight hours. Normally I get off work and have about an hour of daylight to cram in all the outdoor sunny fun activities…Wednesday I had HOURS (thanks for waking me up at 7 am, body).

When I woke up that morning, Josh had strung up white twinkle lights all over the back patio, and a fresh teal microsuede papasan cushion (my request) greeted me, all wrapped up in a glitter bow and piled with birthday presents. What a sweet husband!

It had been so long since we’d had a cushion on the papasan, I had forgotten how comfortable they are! Bliss!

As a nice touch, the papasan is already covered in silver glitter from the bow. Somehow this seems appropriate.

I unwrapped just one present before Josh left for work: this lovely L coffee cup. Oh who am I fooling with these tea drinking fantasies? Coffee 4 Life! (plus it prevents Alzheimer’s)

I had a really lovely day, which was enhanced 87.333% by the sun shining all day. I went to my hair salon and had a free bangs trim, dropped into Sephora for my free birthday gift (Make-Up Forever mascara and lipstick, I couldn’t resist), stopped by my favorite thrift shop to see about any cute little sequin numbers for the night out (nope, but I found a teal lamp), purchased six delicious donuts from a Korean donut shop that I nibbled on throughout the day, dog walk with the girls, and finally at some point in the afternoon I parked my butt at the make-up table to do my dinner make-up while watching “Advanced Style”.

You just can’t go into Sephora for your free birthday gift without buying something, and I was drawn like a magpie to this deep green glittery eyeshadow from Urban Decay called “Zodiac”. My camera is not doing macro so well in this photo, otherwise you could see the MAGIC.

Trying to watch “Advanced Style” was more like Advanced A.D.D. but I made it through the first 30 minutes while painting my face. Of course I’ll need to watch it multiple times, review it AND take photos to be completely fulfilled…but what I saw so far I loved!

“I never wanted to look young,” said one of the ladies in the documentary, “I just wanted to look good.” Yeah!

Fully made up and dressed (the bangs weren’t working but they’re hit or miss), I toddled downstairs to sit at the kitchen table and open Josh’s presents and cards.

This glitter card is lovely.

So is the feather card. He really hit my colors this year–teal teal teal and a little purple.

Glittery peacock ornament, yes!

Gorgeous teal shell frame, even more yes! He bought a pair of them but one already broke, so I’m going to exchange it. Hopefully.

The purple version is nice too.

The piece de resistance, however, was this stunning blue and purple dish. I actually gasped when I pulled it out of the box.

So pretty!

He bought me two, because he couldn’t decide which pattern he liked best. Smart thinking, husband! Now where will I display them?

I wore this outfit out to my birthday 3 years ago, but who’s counting? This time I added black suede wedges for a little extra height (and glamour).

Josh wore the shirt and tie he was required to wear at my brother’s wedding two months ago, but shhhh, nobody has to know that. He looks nice in purple.

For my special birthday dinner I requested a French restaurant in Pike Place Market, with the most perfect view of the Ferris wheel outside, which was specially lit up rainbow all night. Everyone at dinner remarked that they had never seen it rainbow before, which makes me think it was just for ME. I invited my Broad, Brenna and Jerry, and Christy and her…um, plus one.

Aw, nerds in love. Brenna got adorably tipsy on wine and talked very emotionally about her children. She’s a born entertainer, that one! Never have to worry about the conversation drying up!

Christy had been up since 5 a.m. and had actually been on an airplane earlier that day, so I was pleased she came. She gave me a gift card to Sephora (always a good thing!) and, naturally, matched me AGAIN with her white sparkle sweater.

Dinner was delicious, but for the price should have been INSANELY good. I had escargot (we all agreed that it was okay as a vehicle for garlic and butter but overall nothing special), giant scallops (mmmm), and mixed vegetables, which included butternut squash. Normally I run far and fast away from butternut squash, but somehow they made it delicious. I ordered raisin bread pudding for dessert that I thought I had more room for than I did, and to drink I had a non-alcoholic ginger beer called “Rachel’s ginger beer” made locally that was really good.

Josh had a pork shank, Corinne had beef marrow because it’s her time of the month (she did remarkably well in spite of this–giggly and happy and not a trace of Broad-ish behavior!), and who knows what everyone else had because I was too busy snarfing. The conversation flowed nicely, I tried and failed to take non-blurry photos of the rainbow Ferris wheel, and all in all it was one of the nicest birthdays I’ve had.

Then the following day (I thought sending cards late was my specialty, Mumsie!) I received birthday cards from my parents. This one is very Dad…

…and this one is very Mom!

Phew! That was a lot of photos. I’m about to snarf some BBQ chicken and carrot cake (one of my bosses was kind enough to bake me a massive homemade carrot cake the day after my birthday!) and reeeeeelax. Happy weekend, blog-logs.