The Heathen Housewife

My birthday was this weekend, and although I’m old enough not to want a flashy party, it is really nice to have people around me remember the day and help me celebrate it.

On Friday, we had our standing playdate with our Canadian friends, who surprised me with my favorite birthday cake, chocolate with chocolate frosting.

There were even party hats.

And pink lettering in the frosting on top.

It was incredibly sweet of my totally thoughtful friend to remember about the cake and make one for me special. Thanks, Jen!

As if that weren’t enough, she produced a gift including eight ounces of luscious merino-silk roving and a pretty knitting book, as well as an original piece of artwork by her daughter M, who is Julie’s age. Subtle, but oh-so-pretty.

Jen wasn’t the only one who remembered my birthday, though. My friend Laura presented me with this beautiful shawl pin on Saturday.

I really love it, especially since I’m newly into making and actually wearing shawls.

And then I got home on Saturday to find a package from my friend Jaci.

A sweet little kit for a needle-felted sheep and a skein of the Noro sock yarn. Yum! Thanks, Jaci!

On Sunday, the girls helped me make another chocolate cake. I’m picky about my cake and had been dreaming about the one I wanted pretty much all month (okay, maybe really since my birthday last year). I like to use the recipe on the back of the Hershey’s cocoa box, which is no-fail and always turns out moist and delicious. Here’s Sophie after she finished licking the frosting off one of the beaters.

And here’s the completed cake, including some decorative candies. I had the colored frosting out, but it just didn’t feel right to write “Happy Birthday Shelly” on my own cake

Joe and the girls presented me with a couple of handmade cards (which I love, but forgot to photograph) and a new MP3 player, which I had kind of been lusting after.

It’s a Creative Zen, which I wanted for several reasons versus an iPod. First, I listen to a lot of audio books, and iPods can’t play the downloadable ones that I often get free from the library. Also, I’ve had good experience with the old version of the Zen which I’ve been using for the last couple of years. The only problem with it was that part of the case had broken, so the battery cover was always falling off. The new version has a lot more memory, and can play pictures and videos I take of the girls. Sweet!

Sunday night we went out for dinner at Fudruckers, not fancy, but tasty and it kept me from having to cook and clean. Then, we invited our favorite neighbors over for cake and ice cream. Unfortunately, the little boy across the street one way was sick, so I ended up taking a chunk of cake over to them later, but we did have the other family over to share our dessert. It is so much more fun to eat chocolate cake with friends than it is without. Especially since Joe doesn’t get excited about desserts – at least the girls are on my side now and share the dessert love, but still, sharing is better and it saves me from eating cake every meal for three days or until it is gone.

Which I would totally do if it were sitting on the counter. As it is, the girls and I had a piece each this afternoon, and I just ate the last piece with a bowl of ice cream after they were in bed.

Another year gone by, and celebrated happily with the help of loving family and friends.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 at 4:50 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.