Another Year Older

Birthdays used to be fun. Now they're depressing because every year I get closer and closer to looking like this (or worse):

Another year come and gone.

Today was my birthday. It started out a little sketchy but ended up being very enjoyable. I had to get up and go to work (the blah part). But Mr X swooped into my work and whisked me away for a pleasant lunch. Throughout my day all sorts of friends and family called or wrote to wish me well on my special day so I was feeling very much remembered and loved and that's really what makes a birthday wonderful. A niece and a nephew even called to sing the birthday song to me. I came home to these beautiful flowers from Mr X:

Then Mr X took me out to a Turkish restaurant for dinner, where I tried something (I can't remember what it was called) I've never heard of before. It was delicious. Then we came back and wandered the neighborhood, admiring the immaculate and interesting houses we'll never be able to afford. When the sun began to set we headed home and Mr X put the finishing touches on my cake while we watched the sun set from our patio.

My cake was an angel food cake with mixed berries and whipped cream. It was just what I wanted. I was serenaded with the birthday song one more time by Mr X.

Mr X particularly liked a gift given to me by my mother. Birds of North America. He immediately grabbed the book and began looking for chickens.

I received several lovely gifts today. But you should be warned about one of them. This one:

Don't be surprised if YOU get a fresh brick of homemade cheese for your birthday this year.

Hair

Back when I first moved to CA, long before I Mr X knew me, I went a little highlight crazy with my hair. I had so many blonde highlights that I was pretty much a dark blonde of sorts. Prior to that I had tried out the auburn look and jet black as well. After several years of meandering hair color I couldn't remember exactly what color my hair was, so I decided to gradually go 'Au Natural' before that natural color became gray. That was something like 7 years ago. Now it seems the gray is starting to creep in enough that I can no longer simply pluck them out or I'd look bald-ish.





So I decided to play around with some new looks and see what styles and color I liked. Here are a few of my attempts:

How does this auburn color do on me?

How about a nice medium blonde? Could I pull that off or is it just weird?


What if I just tried a a lighter brown with lots of blonde highlights?

Or is dark brown with highlights the way to go?

What if I tried to pull off a really light blonde look?

Or maybe I should just keep my color natural and simply stop getting my hair straightened?

Eat your heart out!

I know that you've heard me lament over the aging process many times. I’ve detailed a bit of my daily battle against wrinkles, gray hair, cellulite and weight. It occurred to me that maybe you think I'm being harsh on myself, but allow me to clear this issue up - If you looked as good as I did here, you'd be mourning the loss of your youth and beauty too.

Eat with Wild Abandon

It seems that since Mr X arrived home from Japan there hasn't been a morsel of food I haven't put in my mouth. It's now becoming quite evident too - 10 pounds in 1 month. If I keep up this rate of indulgence I'll have gained nearly 100 pounds by the end of the year. There'll be a whole lot more of me for Mr X to love. This is bad. Very bad.

(I'm sporting a sweet paunch here...)