The 4, 5, 6? Days of Birthday

You've heard of the 12 days of Christmas?
How about the eight nights of Hanukkah?



I'm living the 5 days of Birthday with a possibility of more...




1. So my birthday was on Friday and though in the past, I have taken off the day from work. Recently, I've not done that and last Friday was no different. After toiling through the morning work, I was taken for a meeting to a nearby restaurant where I had a nice lunch. A bit later that day, I had a nice cake with the peeps in the shop. All in all a fairly nice day...until near the end of the day when the revelation that I could have taken a paid half day off. In fairness, I should have known the information, but I was assured that I could take the half at a later time.  
Due to my illness a few days earlier, we decided to postpone a possible dinner that evening. Pretty Good Day!

2. Saturday arrived and my "official" family birthday began. We began with some general errands followed by a trip to the used book store where we quietly killed an hour or two perusing stacks of books. I stumbled upon this book and was later officially weirded out by someone with my same name.

Decisions about ink were made and art was apparently begun, I decided to go with the soccer ball and I will be sure to post more when it is completed. Ink will be my gift from Mrs. Mynd and the kids.

We had an early dinner at Olive Garden and I had then swap out the Creamy Alfredo for the Spaghetti with Meat Sauce on the Tour of Italy.  So big bowl of salad followed by aforementioned Spaghetti with Chicken Parmigiana and Lasagna.  I ate a slice of Bruschetta or two as well.  Since it was my birthday celebration my kids had to make the waitress sing to me and we ordered 3 of the little mini dessert cups.. Might as well have been a dinner mint, which they also served with the check. Suffice it to say waddling was a theme for that afternoon. Our later afternoon and evening consisted of some redbox action with Mr. Poppers Penguins on tap with the kids followed by Moneyball with Mrs. Mynd.  This is a family friendly blog, so I will stop the discussion of Saturday here.

3. Sunday was birthday with my folks and sister and I made cheese fondue. It's a bit of a tradition for me. In our family, the birthday person gets to pick the meal. Normally they don't make their own meal.  In this case, I get a big charge out of making the fondue so I do... It is my birthday after all. Who can argue? As a bonus, it wasn't my knuckles being grated as my wife and kids took care of the cheese (yes, many fine jokes about "cutting the cheese" we're made.)

Some yellow cake with fudge icing was decorated with a tea light candle or two because the birthday candles had gone AWOL. (absent with out lighting) and we called it a birthday.  Oh and I got some more money to put towards a gift or two that were unobtainable at the time of shopping.

So we top that off with some ugly singing and dancing to the playstation. I rocked a little Supremes "Baby Love."

4. Monday was "real" cake day at the office.  One of my co-workers is a top notch baker who makes cakes for those that she truly loves... Read those who have helped her in big ways...like me! Here is my Oreo cookie cake that was horrifically good and as Mrs Mynd says, it is a good liar about how little of it will go to our hips, thighs, etc. 

5. Tuesday was my claimed half day, so while the rest of the crew fought some fairly fun situations, I ran away for a half day date with my wife (that IS Mrs. Mynd for my slower friends) Among our chores, we were looking for a new phone for her and a gift or two for me.

Success was spelled F-I-R-E! I had been wanting a Chimnea for a few years and I finally got one.  Now I'm euro-trash, which is to say, fancy redneck.

We lit up the box when we got home later. I can't wait to get some wood to stoke a good fire. I don't think that I'll convince Mrs. Mynd to give up the comfort of heat inside the house to join me outside in the dead of winter, but perhaps if the temperature stays warmer she will join me.

Now y'all know my ADHD problems and love of all that is squirrel. So we're in Michaels getting some decorative stuff that Mrs. Mynd will turn into some sort of living room something, when I am sent on an in store hunt for some decorative item or other.  I turned a corner and spotted this fancy fellow hanging off a flower pot... He will look fantastic hanging off my monitor at work.

Oh, yes we got a phone and we ate too much Outback.  My dining gift cards are gone now... Too bad.









This post should have been made Tuesday, but since I was hoping for more gifts and extravagant eating, I have held this for Wednesday.

If I play my cards right, I can work this through Father's Day.  Is that greedy?