Birthday blog.

Here - tonight I'll let the photos do most of the talking.

Spring flower (but, actually, it blossomed before spring started, so it's really a winter flower, but still, a flower! Color! Warmth! Growth!)

Birthday friends

Birthday cake

Birthday hike

Birthday girls

Birthday party (with more birthday cake!)

So, that's the pictorial update. The other update is that I am growing tired and weary of my blog. It's the same old stuff. I use a lot of exclamation points, I use a lot of colloquialisms and turns of phrase and a lot of run-on sentences, I throw in a deep and meaningful, thoughtful post every once in a while, and I paint the picture that this is me and this is my life. Well, I suppose it is, in a way. This is part of me. Some of me. What you see and read in this blog. But it's not enough to satisfy me these days. Based on those photos above you'd think that this past week/weekend my life was great. And much of it was; the part that's portrayed on the blog. But then there were the two nights that I was tossing and turning and thinking about curling up in a little ball in the corner of my bedroom, over near the coat rack with the mounds of fuzz and dust-bunnies, because my stomach was so uncomfortable. And then there were the fights that I was having with Doug, both out loud and in my head. And then there was the funeral for Doug's grandfather. And then there were all the messages of Happy Birthday! for me on facebook, the vast majority from people I haven't actually spoken to in about fourteen years. So, you know. There's all of that stuff that doesn't make it onto my blog. It could, and sometimes it does, but when it does I feel so boring and old and washed up, and I feel like the look of those two deep lines in my forehead that you can so plainly see in the birthday girls photo above. I guess I feel wrinkled. I don't want to feel wrinkled, so most times I post about the good stuff, and thankfully there's enough good stuff to post about, to keep this blog going. But today I wonder if I even want to keep the blog going. I do because of posterity. I do because of the historical record it keeps. But I also don't because of the historical record it keeps, the record of that slice of me that I frequently tire of. Maybe I'm just tired from all my birthday celebrating, and maybe I'm just too full from all the cake I've been eating, but I certainly don't feel much motivation these days to keep this thing going. I'm ready for a really big dose of sunshine and fresh air; I'm hoping that will revive me, because it's going to be a long, long year if it doesn't.