Of Birthdays, Bags and Robots

Yesterday was my birthday but I believe in celebrating pretty much all week. I started on Saturday by shopping with my friend, Steampunk Beth. Here is what you should know about Beth:

1. She has an engineering degree and a cool math/science brain. She actually understands what my husband does for a living.
2. In an extremely unfair double sprinkle from the talent shaker, Beth came into some wicked creative skills. She writes fantastic fiction and non-fiction.
3. She’s an artist who specializes in octopi. Yes, octopi. Multiple octopuses.
4. She has great legs that make me jealous.

Ok, I think that covers it. Hmm, it sorta looks like I hate Steampunk Beth. I don’t! She’s awesome and even though she’s off-the-charts talented, she’s also really nice so I don’t club her knees or anything when I see her.

So Beth and I have been trying to go to The-Store-That-Is-Never-Open for months now. I’m not sure how Beth learned of this little place, or if she’s ever actually been into the store, or if anyone has for that matter. But we’ve both stood staring into the window at normal times of the day, like 11:00 AM on a Saturday or 2:30 PM on a Tuesday. The sign on the door helpfully proclaims their hours as 10:00 AM-4:00 PM Monday through Saturday, or something like that. And yet, they are never open.

Saturday was no exception, so we window gazed at the retro fashions and intriguing items that hinted at steampunk flair possibilities in the hands of someone fabulous like Beth.

Then she took me to the surplus store in Old Colorado City. I have never been in a surplus store and rather wondered if they’d take a look at my high-heeled, lace-up boots and make me leave, especially when Beth disappeared and left me--surrounded by racks of camo--alone in a foreign land.

Turns out surplussy folks are nice, and they really admired Beth’s handmade-by-her, embellished military messenger bag. You can buy one of these cool bags on Etsy. I, however, am getting one for my birthday. See, it IS possible for people with shapely legs to be incredibly sweet and not at all worthy of incineration by death ray vision.

Next we hit Manitou Springs, which, if you’re not in The Springs and don’t know, is where cool people shop and hang out. I pretended I was cool and bought this hat!


Awesomesauce!

When I got home, Kory and I went out for a celebration date. We saw Real Steel. If you’re wondering how it is that I ended up seeing a robot boxing movie for MY birthday, let me just say, you’re not the only one. But it had Hugh Jackman in it and turned out to be pretty good, if a little manly.



The next evening, Sunday, the boys insisted on celebrating my birthday by watching a family movie. They informed me that I got to choose the movie, as long as it wasn’t girly, grown-up, or scary. As you can imagine, it was pretty hard to choose given such freedom, but we ended up watching Despicable Me, which has one of my favorite lines: “That book was accidentally destroyed maliciously.” The same thing may have happened to one or two of my boys’ books over the years.

Yesterday, on my actual birthday, Mom and I went out for pedicures and Greek food—finally some girl time! Then Chunky helped me bake a chocolate chip cookie boy when he got home from school. Using the gingerbread boy pan was his idea. So was using extra chocolate chips to make hair, shoes, hands, etc. Willie the Heeler decided she should help celebrate by eating one of Choco Boy’s feet while he was cooling on the counter. Thankfully, she didn’t get sick.

And there you have it, my very self-involved blog about my birthday. But maybe it’ll be okay if I end by saying thank-you to my awesome family and friends for celebrating with me. I am blessed.