The Number 24

I woke up at 5:00 in the morning on the 5th for a run. What a better way to start off your birthday (besides sleeping in)? Things started to go wrong. I didn’t have a good nights sleep. Getting up when all you want to do is sleep is not much fun. As Brent and I have started our marathon training, there was no getting out of it. When I finally dragged myself out of bed, I started to trip on various items that were on the floor. They were things that were off to the side of my path to the bathroom and my closet. It took me a few extra minutes to get all geared up for running and then I headed downstairs. Of course I had to bump my elbow on my way down the stairs. I decided to take a moment to sit down and pray. I did not want to start my day off with a bad attitude that I could feel starting to arise. This was not how I wanted to spend my birthday. As I shouldn’t want to spend any of my days this way. We have a choice whether or not to have a bad day. I decided that I did not want to spend my day moping around. Brent and I headed out the door for our run and it all started to turn around. I was wearing some new running clothes that he had bought me! The nice thing was that he bought some nice ones as before I didn’t spend much money on them. Oh boy could you feel the difference. I am definitely going to start investing in some nicer running clothes! It was a nice 40 degree run. Our training program has us doing minutes during the week and miles on the weekends, we could just run without a path. We could have a spontaneous run! Brent and I rarely do this. We usually head out the door with a specific plan. It felt great! My attitude had completely changed and I was now ready to bring on the day. We finished up our run. Brent made me a tasty breakfast of french toast and then I headed off to work.

As I was unlocking the door to my office, I noticed something hanging from the cabinets above my desk. I was confused as to what was there until I turned on the light and noticed a triangle banner with Happy Birthday on it. I continued to walk in to discover my desk covered in Happy Birthday acknowledgements. There was the triangle banner strung along the top of the cabinets. Another Happy Birthday banner was pinned on the back of my desk. There was a twisted red paper ribbon strung all over my desk, my computer, and hanging from the back of my chair. Below this was confetti that luckily was not covering my keyboard or any other desk accessories. It was strictly on my desk which made for an easy clean up when the time came. Happy Birthday balloons topped off everything. It was a great surprise. My co-worker, Emi, from downtown came with her husband the night before after I had already left work. She had been planning this for weeks. I have never had anyone do anything like this for me before. It made me feel pretty special. She left me a little note saying Happy Birthday and that it was her, but it was not needed because as soon as I saw it, I knew who had done it. She also left me a birthday girl pin that I put on my shirt and wore the rest of the day.

A few of my co-workers saw this and proceeded to ask me if it was my 21st birthday. I laughed as I thought about having worked at Owenhouse for 3 years, gotten promoted 3 times, and not to mention graduated college two years ago. I would have graduated at the age of 19. I had already graduated a semester early, but 19 years old would have been pushing it. Who knew I looked so young? It must be the running thing mixed in with the weight lost. They also thought that that was the best explanation for all the whoopla, it couldn’t have been because I was just one year older.

I was able to meet my twin sister for our lunch at a delicious little sandwich shop, Biankinis. I had a tasty veggie sandwhich on chibata bread with a cup of creamy asparagus soup. We didn’t even have to wait in line, or sit for several minutes to get our food. It was out to us almost by the time we sat down at our table. It was nice to spend some time with her on our birthday as it is usually filled with all our other family as well. Plus, who wants to eat lunch alone on their birthday? I sure didn’t.

I finished off the night with my family over at my house for  dinner and dessert. We were able to enjoy some ribs, salad, fresh pineapple (at least as fresh as you can get in Montana), and twice baked potatoes. I didn’t even have to cook any of it! My mom headed over early and got it all started. It was nice to have it at my house so that I did not have to go anywhere, but yet not have to lift a finger. My mom even cleaned all the dishes for me so that I would not have a pile after everyone had left. We had some raspberry cheesecake. Brent made some homemade strawberry ice cream with fresh strawberries. It was all very tasty and with good company. It was not a super happening day, but a nice and relaxing one. Overall my day turned out to be a pretty good one. Nothing else had gone wrong so I was able to just enjoy the beauty of the day and head to bed a tad bit early!