Thursday, June 28, 2012

Hottest. Birthday. Ever.

So my oldest siblings kindly called me today to remind me I am now closer to 50 than 40. Charming.

It topped out over triple digits in Chicago today. The heat index was 105 when I left work. You know the kind of heat, where you step out of the air conditioning and abruptly gasp as the humidity steals your breath away.

But it was still a very good day. I was off to an early start with a rare Caribou coffee treat on the way into work. It was a relatively calm day allowing me a chance to begin to catch up on two weeks worth of unexecuted action points. My lovely mother took me out for lunch at Corner Bakery where I ate an entire chopped salad and sampled the lemonade, strawberry banana smoothie, chocolate brownie and cinnammon cream cake.

And they didn't even know it was my birthday.

I was equally spoiled for dinner at Lou Malnati's. A family favorite and a key reason why I have a family, as it's where I met Dan. Later, at home, my adorable family sang Happy Birthday to me while I blew out a single candle in the midst of five peanut butter cookies. Dan also brought me a shake from Steak-n-Shake. Miraculously it didn't melt on the way home.

I received a multitude of cards, texts, and phone messages from those I love dearly and felt very blessed. There was also a wonderful present waiting from U2.com containing the member's only release of a new double CD set of 22 live tracks from their most recent tour. Fifteen years ago today they were singing "Happy Birthday" to me at Soldier Field on my 30th. Okay, so the birthday song was just in my head, but "All I Want is You" was pretty amazing.

But the best present today was the ladderlike welcome I got from my three teenage children when I arrived home from work and they ran to hug me while staggered on the stairs, leaning forward one at a time to embrace me (and consequently whoever was between them and me), eventually forming one side (and the filling) of a double-stuffed oreo with me on the other end.

God is good and continually increases my joy.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

in fairness, I called you the day BEFORE your birthday so you could say you were closer to forty than fifty..............