My First Winter Birthday

I am clearly a summer person. I have a general theory about this, but it doesn't hold true for everyone. Generally, I've found that if a person was born in summer, they are a summer weather person. Born in winter... winter person. Spring and Fall are wild cards. At any rate, I'm a summer person and I love the heat and I love that my birthday falls in the summer. But not this year. This upside down climate means my birthday is now in winter. Although it's nothing like a Midwest winter - lately we've had highs in the upper 50s, I still find the energy to complain, even though I know I have no right to.

Despite the temperatures, it's been a wonderful birthday. Not really because we've done anything super exciting, but because I've received all kinds of good news this past week. I started the week out on pins and needles, waiting to hear if my last interview was a success or not. I was preparing myself mentally for all kinds of scenarios, one of which being no job offer at all and impending financial doom. So I reevaluated my assets. I still had a car in my mom's driveway to sell. So I asked my family to post another ad on craigslist. It got immediate response and the car was sold in a matter of days. I am glad to have a replenishment of funds in the bank, but I'm also sad to say goodbye to my favorite car I've ever owned... my always-fun-to-drive Subaru WRX.

I was also worried about my house. Our renters' current lease is about to expire, and we didn't know if they planned to renew or not. If they didn't, there was a possibility we'd have to cover the mortgage until our management company found new renters. After pressing the company to get an answer, we finally heard back. They're staying! Yay!




And the week just kept getting better. On Thursday, I was unofficially (until some details are taken care of) offered the job in Mackay! That definitely made my day... week... month, perhaps! I will soon be employed and will do something worthwhile with my time. (It's about time!)

It's also the beginning to my "birthday week." I prefer to celebrate birthday over a span of at least a week. It's much more fun that way, and you always seem to have birthday dinner with this group of people, birthday lunch with that group of people. So you might as well call it a "birthday week." It especially holds true here, where July 3rd is not really my birthday, technically, because of the time zones. So I really have 2 birthdays now.

Friday, we began the festivities by going out with some new friends to our favorite local Japanese joint. It's nothing special, but their sushi is wonderful and not over-priced. I was dying for some hot sake - it's "cold" out, remember. But we get there and realize they're not licensed to sell alcohol, which is pretty common here. However, many places are BYO. Theo rushed to save the day. Although I doubted he could save this day, he surprised me by returning from the bottle shop with a whole bottle of sake!! I hadn't even dreamed the nearby bottle shop would actually carry sake, but they did! It came in the cutest box (see pics all around - each side looks like a scene from a different 1000-piece puzzle), and the ladies at the restaurant even heated it up for us! It was a fantastic finish to a week of happy surprises!