Happy Birthday To Me!

Wow! 59.....I never ever envisioned myself reaching this age....I can still remember feeling that 31 was ancient! But oh boy, am I glad I have! For all the not good things, and all the sad things, I am very thankful for the blessed life I have.

This was from a birthday swap I did. A lovely young lady from the east coast who just graduated from college. Look what is in the upper left corner - a ROAMING GNOME! Isnt that fun?????!!!!

A dear friend from work gave me this. She always finds wonderful gifts - she made sure she gave me this before she went on vacation because she didnt want a repeat of another time when she left a gift for me on my front porch (a really wonderful sounding tote bag!) that was stolen before I even knew she left it there....

Hubby has evolved into a very good gift hunter! He knows that when it comes to jewlery - I like two types - the real deal - or interesting. And he has found a lovely shop in Pleasanton where he always find the latter. These are from www.extasia.com and the back story is "Our hand pressed glass intaglios are made in a small Bavarian village, using original steel molds and techniques unchanged from the 1800s." He siad he had a hard time deciding on what color - and as soon as he said the other color was blue I told him he made a great choice!

 Great adage - eat dessert first! Had our calamari cocktail down at Fisherman's Wharf....and then headed to Ghirardelli. Thought it would be crowded but it wasnt - so we split a banana split. Way back in the dark ages, when we were first married, we would save up our coins to buy one of these to split.....back then it was just a few dollars - and they put more nuts on it then and at least 3 cherries! But they are still tasty!

 You know, we were so excited to grab a bus before rush hour - plus several of the restaurants we wanted to eat at were not open yet - we just ended up getting on BART (again - before rush hour!) and headed home. So my birthday dinner was at Amici's in Dublin (I really miss the Union Street one!!!) for antipasta salad, a New York pizza, and for me a glass of Wente's Rivas Ranch wine while hubby had a Corona (or two).

This is some Art Deco detail from a building across from Ghirardelli. As much fun as everything you see at street level (the man begging with the sign that said : I am getting a divorce and need money for a hit man; and the man whose sign said: Give me money and I wont vote for Obama....needless to say, I did not give him money!) in SF you must always remember to look up also!

Remember this? This was part of my present from my son - it covered Mother's Day as well as my Birthday - well worth it!