The birthday, it never ends!

Since I am such a lucky girl as to have my birthday continue for days after the actual event, you are a lucky reader who gets not one, but TWO posts tonight. Don’t you feel all special and stuff? I sure do.

I arrived to work this morning to find these lovely ladies, along with a birthday Post-It in my darling coworker Maureen’s unmistakable bubbly writing. I’ve not yet learned their names, but they’re a little shy and we’re new friends; I’m sure they’ll tell me soon enough. I’m pretty sure Maureen intended one for a birthday gift and one as her “I’m sorry I announced my retirement before you secured a different job,” gift, but I think she’s banking on the interview tomorrow panning out well for me. We shall see.

After work, I met my friend Chelsea; I was a tired and slow-to-get-out-of-bed girl on Sunday when we’d initially planned this rendezvous, but she was gracious and accommodating, probably because she realizes that the 10+ year difference in our age means I needed more time to recuperate from birthday festivities than she would have. She surprised and overwhelmed me with one of the most thoughtful gifts I’ve ever received – she put together a collection of images from Pinterest, some of which I’d pinned, but many were her own, and had them printed on photo paper and bound in an album. I’d dearly love to share every page, but here are just a couple.

(This is the part where I started tearing up –  I know C didn’t know when she chose this one that it is particularly dear to me):

And one more – truly, every page is perfect; this is easily among my most treasured gifts.

So, here I am, about to enjoy a bit of a book and take a little “me” time to mentally prepare for tomorrow’s interview, feeling so fortunate and hopeful and above all, so very loved. Life is pretty damned good, y’all. And it just keeps getting better, in part because I’m learning how to let it.