Happy Birthday to Me!

So today was my birthday...I love my birthday.



My best birthday ever was when I turned 17. The Wednesday before, I had just moved to Maine for a semester. My birthday was the first Sunday while we were there, and it was just a perfect day--the first of so many while I lived there. My mom had sent a bunch of presents with me when I left, and I opened them one at a time throughout the day--which is the greatest way to open presents. I remember really loving them, too. I got a birthday s'more from one of my teachers, who had a bonfire going almost right out my front door. I got an amazing colorful HUGE card (more like a banner really) from my cabinmates. It was a gorgeous sunny but chilly winter day (my favorite type of day).

That birthday always stands out to me.

None of them before then I really remember, though my mom always made birthdays fun in our house. I turned 21 and 22 in Spain (I wasn't there a year, I went there two Januarys in a row) which had their fun moments.

I'm not really into having a "party", I just like to do fun things and have the day be memorable. I just saw my friends last weekend because they came to one of my hockey games and we had dinner, so I was okay with not seeing most of them.

My cat cuddled with me twice this morning, which is unusual. It was like she knew. :)

I went grocery shopping in the morning....yay. Bought myself a cake and some flowers though. One of my friends met me around 11 for brunch at one of my favorite restaurants (Twisted Fork), which was excellent.

I had to work 1-8:30 so that was not so great. It wasn't terrible, though--could've been worse. Every time I looked at my phone, I had a text or a tweet or a Facebook message and it was so great to hear from everyone. I also had my mom and brother call me within like the same five minutes--called my mom back on my break and my brother after work.

I got off at like 7:50--we were slow and my boss wanted to send someone home, so he let it be me since it was my birthday!

I had two packages from my mom waiting for me.



And I opened the package my brother sent home with me at Christmas.

The stuff that was in both of them, plus two cards from an aunt/uncle and one of my grandmas:


My brother gave me a pig whisk, a chef brush, this ridiculous Brian Trottier coin he found in his closet from a 1998 Penguins game, some awesome Tupperware measuring cups, and the best shirt ever--it's a cat kneading bread. LOVE IT!

My mom gave me everything else: kitchen container (I asked for it), the book Hugo was based on, Swiss Army knife, St Paul Almanac, Bananagrams, sports scrapbook paper (I don't even scrapbook but this paper makes me want to), a necklace, and the picture of a cat who looks like Puck.

I tried showing it to her, but she was much more interested in the tinsel that it was packaged in....she's a cat, what can I say.

Interested to see what 24 brings!

Looking Back

My resolution in 2011 was to visit one new place each week. I actually did okay for awhile, but then I stopped keeping track and pushing myself to keep it up. There were a couple places I planned a dozen times to visit, but never did (notably the State Capitol)

Some things I did accomplish:
Went to the Super Bowl with my mom in February.
Met some Wild players and got a bunch of autographs.
Traveled to Vancouver.
Visited three new NHL rinks (Vancouver, Chicago, and Pittsburgh).
Started playing goalie.
Survived a summer at home with my parents, but barely.
Got a long-term'ish job in Minnesota. Long term as in, it's the first job I've had without a specific end date, though it's not really a "real" job.
Adopted my cat.
Went to a one-day conference on my favorite topic of all time.
Kept up with this blog fairly well!


In terms of who I am and figuring out what I want in life, it was kind of a stagnant year. I was happy for most of it, though, content with day to day life. I think some of the biggest things for me were this fall, when I returned to Minnesota and adopted Puck, got my Minnesota license and registered my car here. I made a declaration that I was gonna stay here for awhile. Who knows if that'll pan out or not...

And a happy new year...

I think I've only ever spent New Year's Eve at my parents' house in Pittsburgh. It was fun as a kid, and then there were a couple years when it was like "okay, it's midnight, and I'll be up for another three hours..."

Anyway, I wasn't really planning on doing anything because I worked all yesterday and I had to work all today. But I texted my best friend Kirstine--she's always good for last minute plans. I went over to her place and her boyfriend Mike and his friend made dinner for all of us, we watched a movie and played with cats.



Then we went outside to a little frozen pond in a shallow in the woods (and when I say "pond" I mean "body of water outside and bigger than a bathtub but not by much"), cleared off a piece of it (partly with our sticks) and played boot hockey to ring in the new year. Half of the pond was underwater (it had been raining) so we used the part that had gotten snow when the rain turned to snow, and by the time we were done, our rink was more water than ice, too, because it warmed back up a bit.


I really wanted my camera, but it was too wet so I took one cell phone picture to commemorate.

It was dark except for the snow, it was warm at around freezing, it was good friends and a good spirit of competition and fun. It was the most Minnesotan thing I've ever done, ever. Possibly the most Minnesota experience there is.

We were trying to make it to the new year, but couldn't stick it out any longer and went back inside. Someone looked at the clock and it was 12:02, so we all said "Happy New Year", decided to say we were playing hockey to ring it in, and then I went home and everyone went to bed because we're old now.

Hopefully within the next couple days, I'll get a chance to write about the past year and the year ahead, but for now, I am quite content with the time in between. :)