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Home > Archive: August, 2022

Archive for August, 2022

Birthday week review

August 28th, 2022 at 09:00 pm

My birthday was this past week.  As a single person, my birthday and Thanksgiving are the two ostensibly celebratory days of the year that I usually dread most--the days where you "expect" to be with others who care about you (but if you are single, you might not be).  But this year was actually a relatively good birthday.

When I opened the door that morning, my mail from the previous day was in the mailbox and included a watercolor painting of my cat Buffy done by a friend of mine.  I didn't even know she painted.  It's lovely, and I will frame it.

I worked that day, and in fact had 3 client meetings (which is about as many client meetings as I will ever have in a day), so the day was busy.  But the birthday actually began the Friday before with the arrival of a mystery gift at my door which arrived without a card.  I was able to trace the sender by posting a picture of the gift on Facebook--it was my friend who had come to visit me at the beginning of August.

Then when I arrived at work, there was a birthday card on my desk, and all of my coworkers greeted me with birthday wishes.  One of my colleagues even sang to me!

After work, my boss took the clients to dinner and invited me.  I was again serenaded.

Then the next evening, four of my personal friends took me to dinner at my favorite little Korean restaurant (where I am friends with the owner as well).  I received an additional card and a couple of gifts, and the restaurant owner gave me an extra dinner to take home for the following night as a gift (I saved it and just ate it for Sunday lunch).

And of course, "Facebook" birthdays are fun since you hear from all kinds of people you never hear from the rest of the year.  All in all, it was a pretty good day.

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Last week was super-busy as work, and Mon-Wed are this coming week, but I'm taking next Thursday and Friday off, and we have Labor Day off, so I'm looking ahead to a 5-day weekend.  I took some time off in May but ended up spending a good chunk of it reading a textbook that I had long wanted to read.  I'm very glad I finally got a chance to read that book, but reading and taking notes on a finance textbook is not exactly "R&R."  Then the other long weekend that I took was right before my annual visitor came, and I spent two solid days working on decluttering and cleaning my house in preparation for her visit.  Again, productive but not restful.

So this coming weekend, I am determined to use the time for more relaxing pursuits.  I've scheduled a kayaking lesson (which includes the boat rental) through the nearby LL Bean outlet, which runs classes at a lake 20 miles south.  I'll probably schedule one or two social things, but mostly I want to leave time for reading, walking, and taking a nap or two.