Some Reflections and Observations on the Fifth Anniversary of My Eleventh Birthday

(Or the 11th Anniversary of my 5th birthday, whichever way you'd rather multiply it.  The age remains the same.)

I have so many dear, kind, and wonderful friends.  I am TRULY blessed.  I have teared up several times today because of the kind words and deeds of my friends.  I feel so very fortunate, and so very spoiled. And so very loved beyond all reason.

Even when I try not to obsess about my birthday, I end up wallowing in it.  Oh, I'm not worried so much about how old I'm getting, (but OMG!!) rather how much I end up thinking and talking about it.  Perhaps this is because I was the baby by so many years.  My birthday was always a big deal.  (And then the oldest one starting doing the math, somewhere around 1985, and started saying "If you're x, that means I'm...Oh, dear God, let's not EVEN talk about THAT!"  He's 16 years older.  You do the math. ;-) )

Sometimes, making your own birthday cake, and taking it somewhere to share, is more fun than letting someone else make it.

The Cake.  Complete, and ready to go be shared with starving choristers.

I like to bake anyway, and this recipe sounded like fun.  It was, and I learned that you can't wait too long to use a ganache type frosting, or it will get crumbly. 

It tastes marvelous, though.








So, this morning, I finished preparing the cake and made the frosting.  I took a lovely walk while the frosting cooled.

The neighborhood kiddos are off to school.  The kids around a few years ago really loved Mr. Bear when we were out walking in the mornings.  I miss that dog.

It was a beautiful morning, and I am so grateful for the lovely weather.  What a nice birthday gift, based on the weather Monday, and what has been predicted for from Friday on.  So nice to have had this glorious, beautiful day.

I came home, and decided to have a special breakfast before I tackled cake assembly.

I reheated some sourdough pancakes, scrambled myself an egg, and tried out the espresso cheese I bought last night.  I also had my orange juice in my Perlman mug.  (That is, a mug with a lot of pictures of Perlman's mug on it.  A gift for my birthday from my pal Kelly.) I love it.

While I was eating, I checked my Twitter feed.  I found a link to this Instagram post:

This, along with MANY posts from my friends and family, really made my day!  So much love.  (Kelly, the one who sent the mug, is on the left in this picture, which was made when we all met in Dallas in 2013.)

After breakfast, I frosted and assembled the cake.  After resting up from that, I did a few dishes, and got myself cleaned up.

This is the outfit I wore, my dark wash Levis, (size 6!) and my new sweater from Target. (With a turquoise tank top underneath.)

Thus arrayed, I gathered up the recycling, and set out to do that one chore, and then shop!

My especially sweet and loving husband had told me to buy something I wanted/needed and consider that my gift from him.  So, I went to Dick's Sporting Goods and got some new walking shoes.  (Okay, I also got two pair of really nice leggings for working out and walking.  One flare leg, and one fitted.)

After that stop, I walked next door to Target, and found a few odds and ends, like a yoga mat, some hand cream, and a new suitcase to replace the roll-along carry-on that Matt had.  (It died finally, after a long and thoroughly useful life.)

This is the hand cream I bought.  I thought it was very appropriate, me being a "coconut", and all ;-)  It smells wonderful.  Delicious, even.




After I made my Target purchases, I headed over to Kohl's, one of the best places to score bargains on clothes and household linens.  I didn't really NEED any new clothes, but I thought it couldn't hurt to look.  I found several things, including two new shirts for Matt.  Everything I bought was on clearance, and I had an "extra 15%off" coupon they had sent me in the mail.  I spent $112, but I got more than $200 worth of items.  Kohl's always has good deals.

This was my full cargo area when I got home with it.  After I got it all in the house, I set out the items from Kohl's on the bed to go through them.   Then I tried on the dress that I only paid $10.00 for.  I had tried it on in the store, but without the shapewear I found to go with it.  Below is how the dress looks on me.  It's a bit snug on the top.  Will probably wear one of my fancy shawls with it when I wear it out in public.  I love the color, though, and you can't beat the price!

After I got all the stuff I bought put away or sorted out to wash, I put workout clothes on and headed out for another walk.  No pictures this time, because the phone battery was in dire need of charging.

Right after I got changed, the doorbell rang.  There was a nice lady from the florist there with a lovely arrangement of flowers.  My dear friend Fi and her husband Geoff and her son Hayden sent me a beautiful bouquet of aromatic flowers for my birthday.  I am so touched by the kindness of all my friends, but this almost made me cry.  So very sweet, and so very beautiful.  Almost as beautiful as Fi's heart.  I love that girl.  We've never met in person, but we have a real connection as people, in spite of distance.  I owe her about a dozen hugs when we DO meet in person.

When I got home from my walk, my wonderful, loving, and long-suffering husband was home waiting for me.  His hugs and kisses are always the best thing.  Especially nice on my birthday, since we've missed a few of those over the years due to deployments, training, and regular airlift missions. All these years since he retired have been making up for the time we missed.  He's aged, of course, and so have I, but this is how I still see him, my Knight In Smelly Flightsuit.

He highly approves of the new dress, and the exercise leggings I bought.  (Anything form-fitting, and he's happy.  Some things NEVER change! ;-) )


We had a nice, light supper of Caesar Salad and grilled chicken breast, because we knew the cake after choir rehearsal was going to be RICH.  It was.  Oh, so very delicious.  Proud of my efforts in that regard. 
The choir sang Happy Birthday to me, which is a tradition in our bunch.  (This is the 19th birthday I've celebrated since joining this choir.  Hard to believe it has been so long.  That's a lot of Sunday services sung, a lot of Christmases and Lents and Holy Weeks and Easters.  I spend more time with these gifted musicians than I do with my family on holidays. )  I really love St. Paul's and I am especially fond of my fellow choristers.  The blend we can achieve, it is transporting, moving, absolutely magical sometimes.  I am SO very fortunate to be able to sing with this group.

The choir (and our fearless leader, Canon Musician H. Scott Raab) dug in to the cake, and managed to eat most of it, by taking slices home to spouses and other family members.  I'm all for that, I have to still be able to wear that $10 dress I bought!!

Here's what we have left of the cake:

I am grateful to my fellow choristers (and Scott!)  for their willingness to save me from my own birthday cake! 

So, now I'm home, and typing up this blog post so I can remember all the wonderful parts of one of the best birthdays I've ever had!  Sitting here listening to Pink Martini, and drinking a dry Martini.  Life is SO good.

This has been a busy day.  I have a few ideas about how to use tomorrow in my quest to share and spread the joy I have been gifted with.  I won't be detailing those little activities.  I think random kindnesses are best done in secret.  (Do not blow trumpets when you give your offering, as some do, for truly, they have received their reward.  Do not let your right hand know what your left hand is doing, and your Father who sees in secret, will see your gift, and your reward will be stored up for you in Heaven.  -A very rough paraphrase, but that's the idea, anyway.)  

The reason I write blog posts like this is so that I can look back in the future and remember all the wonderful things that happened on this special day.  It has indeed been a special day, made so by the love of my friends.  Many thoughtful friends who took the time to send their love and best wishes my way.  From a busy actor (and I mean he's SERIOUSLY busy right now) who took time to send me a birthday greeting, to all the friends and family near and far who sent messages, cards, gifts, and most importantly their love.  That love is what keeps me from having any serious self pity and depression any more.  When I was younger, I was very fond of self-pity.  For no good reason, I've had a very blessed life, but it was easy to fool myself on this score.  No longer.  Friends on social media, around the world make it impossible for me to feel so alone anymore.  People ask after me when I am not online.  All of us #Perlgirls check on each other, and we try to keep track of our favorite actor, too.  We care about the guy.  He makes us laugh.  He's good people.  Really.  He stands by his values, and he remembers his friends.  He appreciates his long time fans. 

 I also happen to work for one of the best public institutions going.  Our library system is always looking for new ways to bring our customers what they need and want to improve the quality of their lives.  Things to read, watch, listen to, programs to teach them things, or give them the opportunity to explore issues, a place to meet, a place where it's safe to just sit and hang out, a place where you can ask just about any question, and not only will your privacy be respected, but no one will look down their nose at you for asking.  The people I work with are all smart, funny, quirky, friendly, and caring.  They are also absolutely dedicated to your freedom to read.  Library work is a lot like teaching in that you don't go into it expecting to make a bunch of money.  This isn't a job, it's a holy calling.  Education, intellectual freedom, and the maintenance of an important community resource are what we value.  Very proud to be a part of such a great institution. 

So, time to wrap this up.  Birthday Vacation Week still has a couple of days left in it.  Perhaps a voice lesson will happen, perhaps a trip to the car dealer to get the oil changed, all depending on what the weather does Friday.  (Guess I better get cracking tomorrow on that list.) 

Thank you my friends,including Ron Perlman, whom I DO consider a friend,  my family, my coworkers, and especially Matthew, for making this such a lovely day for me.  I am SO happy.  I don't know if I'll ever stop smiling. 



“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Tuesday Trials

This was a day destined to have its issues.  First off, I accidentally shut off the alarm instead of snoozing it.  Woke up about 40 min later than I wanted to.  Luckily, I didn't have to be at work until 1pm, but there were things I wanted to get done that didn't get done. 

I had a little time to read, got my email and other computer housekeeping done, did my walk, and then it was shower,  get ready for work, and boogie!

Once I got to work, I had to tackle a stack of ILL returns.  (ILL is short for Inter Library Loan.)   These are the books our customers are done with, and need to go back to our service center and from thence on to their owning libraries.  That wasn't bad, then I did the items that needed their RFID tags replaced.  After that, it was work the sorter until 3, when I had to go out to the desk for two hours.  Oh, my.  There was a children's program today, and there were lots of little kiddos in superhero

costumes along with their parents invading our space.  There are also about 25 dozen people at a time looking for tax forms.  Our booklets, etc run out on a regular basis, and we rarely have a chance to get out there and put more out.  On top of all this goodness, the movie box broke down. This was the desk shift from hell. 

I had to answer lots of phone calls about taxes, tax assistance, tax forms, etc, too.  ALL of us do.  Library people get REALLY sick of tax questions this time of year.  I think there ought to be prizes awarded if we conduct a conversation involving tax forms without sighing.

On the positive side, my wonderful husband is cooking dinner again tonight, so I was able to go out and have a nice, relaxing walk around the neighborhood before it got dark.  It is nice and warm here right now, very odd for February, and I was able to go walking in my capris and a t-shirt.  (My lucky t-shirt from Michael Ornstein, with the Blue Sweater painting on it. Needed the Power of the Art today!)
After my walk, Matt discovered he was too low on soy sauce to do the recipe he was working on, so I walked up to the market and bought some.  (Extra steps, now I'm over 11K steps for the day, WooHoo!)

The photo at the right was not made today, but the weather is similar.  Clouds and bright sun. 
I think I am going to go put my feet up and read some more before supper. I think I've earned it!

Anybody Seen A Guy Building A Big Boat?

We talk about the weather a lot in Oklahoma.  Only natural, the weather here can be deadly.  In more ways than one.  Giant monsters of storms can come out of nowhere and eat your whole town, sheets of ice can fall and make travel dangerous, heatwaves can come that will make you wish you were dead, and, on occasion, we get steady, unrelenting rain in the middle of freakin' July.
So, this blog post is also about the weather.  Mostly.
Today, it was so rainy, that my walks both took place in the rain.  I tried wearing the Wellies, but my ankles were too restricted by the boots, so trudged home and put the non-slip sneakers that were still wet from the morning walk back on for the evening walk.  Didn't get as soaked on the evening trip.  Still, had to hang my light jacket up to dry.  At least I didn't have to put it, my capris and my socks in the dryer like I did after this morning's walk.
On these walks, I had the soundtrack for Pacific Rim to keep me company.  Excellent music for walking.  The music was running through my head so much, I just bought the soundtrack to help get the little theme out of there.  Seems to help. Also fit the atmosphere of the day today.  I mean, in Pacific Rim, it seems to be cloudy and raining a LOT.  So it fit my very damp walks very well.

Everything here had gotten dry again, and my herbs and flowers were suffering.  We needed the rain.  Of course, I had just watered the yard around the foundations of the house the day before all the rain started.  I guess I had to guarantee our rainfall, but boy, that gets hard on the water bill.

Today had some positive notes as well.  I got to use the new digital audio recorder to record my voice lesson, and it worked just fine.  No more cassette tapes for me.  We will also be able to connect Karen's microphones to the recorder and make good quality recordings of some of my songs. 

Now it is Tuesday, and I have more to write.

Today, we actually see the sun!  Amazing!  My walk was reasonably dry.  As the sun came out, this came up on my Pandora mix.  So very appropriate, and uplifting after all the dreary wet weather.  In the middle of JULY, for God's sake!

Got all my errands run this morning, so we once again have fruit and other low fat things to nibble on in the house.  Also, filled up my car with gas, and found out I got over 26 mpg this last month.  For me, driving a compact station wagon all around town with no highway miles, that's pretty good.  It'll go down again because of the air conditioner use soon.  I was only down to about 1/4 tank.  I cannot let it get below a quarter tank.  Saw too many commercials on AFN while in Germany about preparedness and safety. Thank God we never had to do a non-combatant emergency evacuation, but we had to have all our ducks in a row just in case.  To this day, I get nervous if I have less than half a tank of gas.

About time to head for work.  Tuesdays are my Mondays as far as work goes.  Here's hoping we aren't too slammed with check ins.  It IS summertime at your library!  Glad to know the people love us and come see us so often.  The library is one of the busiest places in town!  (Though the cynics among us say it's because of unlimited dvd checkouts and free internet.  Though PLENTY of books circulate as well.)

Glad to report that it appears we won't be needing the Ark after all.  Hope all of you have a fabulous Tuesday!
As Ever,
Katie

There Is A Lot Less Of Me To Love...

Since my husband's recent hospital adventure, and discovering that he has seriously high blood pressure and is diabetic, we have BOTH been watching our diets and exercising more.  It is finally easier for me to stick to a diet without SOMEBODY sabotaging me.  For him it is a matter of life and death, for me, a matter of pride.  I want to be as thin as I was when he married me.  I want to look as good as I can, and be as healthy as I can. 
My goal is to weigh 125 pound again, like I did in this picture.

His goal is to get back to the weight HE was in this picture, and to get his medications decreased because of the weight loss. 
Neither of us will be as smooth of skin as we are in this picture, this picture was made in 1990.  A lot of time and experiences have passed since then.  I also have a LOT less hair, because I cut it all off a few years ago because I was just plain tired of messing with it.
I have about 27 pounds to go.  I've lost 16 pounds since January, more than 8 of it in the last month. I can wear clothes now that haven't fit me for MONTHS.  I am very glad I kept them.  Some of my favorites among my newer jeans now require a belt, and some may be just plain too big now.  I got into a pair of size 10 jeans yesterday that I haven't been able to wear since the last Star Trek movie came out.  (That's the last time I remember wearing them before this.)  I have an absolutely beautiful green dress with a velvet bodice and a chiffon skirt that I want to fit once again.  When I can wear it again, I will proudly post a photo.  (I hope to get a good portrait of me in it, without my glasses, because they reflect the flash too much.)  It has literally been years since I have been able to wear the dress, and I love it. 
To accomplish our goals, we have changed the way we eat, including more fresh fruits and vegetables, and using sugar substitutes in some things simply because Matt shouldn't have the sugar.  (I have to watch it, though, my digestion rebels at too much Splenda.)  I also have gone back to the way I learned to cook, when I had to cook for my Pop, who had to limit his salt intake.  I use Lite Salt, or Mrs. Dash instead of regular salt.  In some things, I still use Sea Salt, or Kosher Salt, because of the flavor profile, but I use less. 
We are also having a bit of a competition about the number of steps we take each day.  So far, I am beating the pants off him, because I take two walks most days, and I walk a LOT in my job.  Circulation is not sedentary.  We are constantly on the move, emptying book drops, moving full carts around, sometimes shelving books or roaming the stacks doing reports, and going back and forth from the desk to the copiers and the self checkouts, and the automated book drop.  I also stand to check in, and I have developed my own little "checkin dance" that I do moving between the bin, the checkin antenna, and the carts we sort the books on.  There is usually music playing in the work area, so this makes it easy for me to get LOTS of steps in. 
I also spend a lot of time walking from one end of this house to the other, doing whatever chores are ongoing on any particular day.   
We both wear a FitBit tracker that tracks our steps, and monitors the number of times we wake at night.  He does better at sleeping than I do, but then again, I AM a "woman of a certain age", and I do have a tropical heat wave of my very own that seeks me out at inopportune moments.  (Like when I'm trying to sleep.)
We are both also using LoseIt!  a free app that we have on our cell phones.  Makes it easy to log our exercise and our food.  You can even scan barcodes on the packages of what you eat, and it will enter the nutritional information in the app for you.
So far, Matt has probably dropped more weight than I have, but he had more to lose, and he has been eating a LOT less than he used to.  Strangely enough, he finds what he does eat very satisfying, and the difference in how he feels is even more satisfying.  (Personally, I am glad to be able to get closer to him than I have been able to lately.  ;-> )
I have a lot less trouble from my various arthritic joints now that my weight is down.  This will get even better as I approach my goal weight.  My recent checkup revealed that my cholesterol is lower now than it has ever been, and everything else looks really good,too.  (Now, if the follow up mammogram next week show that the suspicious cyst has gone away or gotten smaller, things will be perfect.) My blood pressure is also going down as my weight does.
We are very glad we had not gotten rid of our old clothes before we started this adventure.  I had cleaned out the closet, and had the clothes in the car ready to go to the veteran's charity collection point, but pulled out the barely-worn stuff in the smaller sizes once we started losing weight.  Good thing I did, or Matt would have NO pants that fit at all.
This is working very well so far, I hope we can continue on to our goals and then maintain them long term.  That is the hard part.  Once you get to your goal weight, it is entirely too easy to slack off and gain everything back and then some.  I've done it more than once in my life.
I'll check back in here on my progress after I lose a bit more.  I also promised myself that soon I will order a pair of Boot Campaign boots as a reward for losing and keeping off the first 10 pounds.  Should happen soon.  (I hope.)