the one about being grateful and personal injury..

Its been pretty slow on the blog front here. I haven't really felt like I had much to blog about but I figured I should probably touch base and do a little catching up.

Last weekend was my 40th birthday!! I don't really FEEL forty and people never believe I am forty either. I think turning 30 was more "traumatic" for me.

Anyway, as good friends usually do, my gal pals gathered together to celebrate with me. My 2 sisters in law and 2 good friends headed down to San Simeon the weekend previous and then a bunch of us gathered the Friday before my actual birthday for a fun dinner. We went to an old favorite restaurant which unfortunately has gone a bit downhill but we had fun none the less. To top off the good cheer that we shared we got to witness first hand a sorority party going on upstairs. I think none of us wished we were back in our 20s going to cray parties and getting falling down drunk though we wished we had a bit more energy to go out dancing.

In true BFF form, these girls plotted many surprises. I was kind of the guinea pig because I am the first in the group to turn 40, tho Pammy is not far behind ;). Since dinner was taking so long to get to us, they decided I needed to open gifts. Shosh and my SIL Tia chipped in together and got me a Blythe doll! I was stunned. Tia has just gotten her fist Blythem followed quickly by a pre-ordered second. She and Shosh know each other and they got down and sneaky. Both dug for clues and hints as to which doll I wanted but I was less than cooperative because I had not been paying attention to new releases. I love my girls but money has been tight so I did not want to tempt myself with a new purchase. They could not have chosen a better girl to join in our little family though. I do not have any darker brown haired girls and she has long hair and bangs PLUS she has prety eye chips and a bunny necklace and pull charm. It was almost like she was meant to be. She is officially a "Welcome Winter" but Hannah helped me name her January. Thanks girls!

Then whole lot of my BFF's surprised me because they had gotten together and treated me with this LOVELY charm necklace from Tiffany!! I guess that is the plus to turning 40.. good jewelry!
Its so funny that this is what they had chosen and while at Hearst Castle in San Simeon we saw this statue. They sure are sneaky! So its a great memento of our trip, my birthday and the wonderful friendship we all share. The thing I love about it so much is that I can wear it everyday, either dressed up or dressed down so it is always close to my heart.

To cap off my birthday celebration we had a wonderful LOBSTER dinner at my Mom's on my actual birthday. She and Greg had ordered lobsters flown in from Maine and my family shared a special meal and many laughs. Greg and my brother chipped in and got me a large Wacom graphics tablet so I need to go back to "school" to figure out how to use it. We've tried it and its weird, definitely a learning curve there! So there ya have it.. a little recap of my wonderful birthday. I am so grateful for my friends and family. I really try not to take anyone for granted because I know life is so short. I want to enjoy every minute of it and I guess that is the one thing about turning forty.. I am running out of time!

So that wonderful weekend kicked off a pretty stressful and nutty week. The highlights (um, lowlights) included finding our Wednesday that the insurance company had cancelled ALL of our insurance.. home, auto, life, earthquake... ater several stressful hours we were able to get most of in reinstated. They are still trying to figure out what had happened.We were all paid up, they even sent us refunds. Of course having everything cancelled raised a bunch of other issues as far as our home loan and stuff. What a pain in the butt.. oh and speaking of which. Yesterday I took Hannah to the movies with soem of her friends. We were going to use the potty and I slipped and fell on a concrete edge. Now I have a big hematoma on my upper leg. It HURTS and its swollen and well, as you can see.. pretty nasty looking. I sure hope that is the end of this week! I am looking forward to Thanksgiving!!