Ending of an Era

I think I’ll take a moment to celebrate my age.  The ending of an era and the turning of a page. – My Next Thirty Years, Tim McGraw.

So, it happened.  I turned thirty last weekend.  And the world did not implode.  My body did not shrivel into a ball of wrinkles and skin.  And to be perfectly frank, I had an absolute blast!!!!

Everybody talks about dreading birthdays as you get older and I remember saying, when I was 25 or so, that I was scared of thirty.  That I was going to embrace getting older.  I mean, what a silly thing to be scared of.  Then twenty-nine hit.  And Steve turned thirty.  And our bodies started having these weird aches.  The mornings after parties were rougher and rougher.  And well, it got a bit terrifying.

But truth be told, birthdays are fabulous because of the people who surround you.  I am so very blessed to have such wonderful people who were willing to come out and celebrate and I really and truly believe that they are the reason I didn’t dread my birthday.

The day of my actual birthday, which was Saturday (four23, *heh*), we actually woke up early, like 7am early.  Guess that’s another sign of getting old.  Steve snuggled with me a bit, wished me Happy Birthday in more ways than one then left me to get up and get ready while he grabbed breakfast.  I was sitting in bed checking my email when he came in with a bag stuffed full of Easter grass and shit-eating grin on his face.  I was throughly surprised because he had already bought me a bitchin’ new laptop a few weeks before as my big gift (which just shipped today and shall arrive next week … so excited!) so I didn’t expect anything.  Well, not only did he get me the Michael Jackson Experience and the yoostar 2 Kinect games that he knew I had been coveting, but he got me a super sappy and lovey card that literally made me cry.  I loved the games but I LOVED that card because a) it was perfect and b) he has never, ever been a sappy card kind of guy.

Even ten years later, he still surprises me!

Of course, I HAD to get up a try those games out immediately so that’s how I found myself pretty much sweating my ass off and hyperventilating at 8am on my 30th birthday because holy shit, is that Michael Jackson game hard.  I’m fairly good at our Dance Central game but the hard levels on that, which I can’t do, are like the Easy levels on the MJ game.  Just a testament to the fact that the man could dance!

Steve pretty much had to pry me away from the game because we were meeting some friends at Shoney’s for their breakfast buffet, which we’d never been too and man on man, what a start to a birthday, especially after I had pretty much burned an entire years worth of energy playing that game.  Pretty much any kind of breakfast available for me to shove into mouth.  Yea, it was not a bad way to start the day.

The rest of the day was spent doing nothing.  I think I read some blogs, watched Steve play video games, just vegged out.  I didn’t clean, I didn’t run errands, I didn’t pay bills.  And it was perfectly FINE! The world did not collapse around me and life went out.

But that evening – oh lord, was that evening awesome!

We were headed over to my mom’s, where she had decided to throw a nineties themed party.  I had racked my brain on what to wear since what I ACTUALLY wore in the nineties was NOT an option (think stretch pants and big shirts or babydoll dresses, stuff like that).  I decided to go easy, throw on a pair of jeans, black tank top and plaid shirt and voila, nineties grunge!  Steve, on the other hand, did well with his grunge – plaid shirt, Beavis and Butthead shirt and Chucks.

We got to my mom’s and there was food and decorations galore.  Both of my brothers were there, the middle one having come down from New Jersey.  My parents dressed up like Peggy and Al Bundy.  Our friends came in Clueless garb and other 90s paraphenelia.  We tooks pictures, played the Kinect, laughed and got really loud, which is something I’m good at.  We played Asshole, we taught MY DAD how to play Asshole and then he proceeded to WHOOP our ASS in every game of Asshole.  I drank A LOT of beer!  And there was ice cream cake.

And a tiara.

And all of this happened.

 

My brothers, Eric on the left, Ty on the right.  Eric is 27, Ty is 16.

Steve, Amy, Joe and I prepping for another round of Asshole.

Before everyone started telling Mom to straighten up her wig.

Yea, favorite picture ever of Sarona, Eric and Steve.  Shows exactly what kind of time everyone had.

My drunk ass and Papa Frank dressed as Urkel.  Yea, this wasn’t exactly the beginning of the night.

Love how there is a beer near me in EVERY PICTURE!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! If there was ever a perfect portrait of Eric, this is it!

Everyone was fabulously generous and while birthdays shouldn’t be and are never about gifts for me, it’s always nice when someone takes their time out to give you something that they know you’d like.  Though with the shear amount of restaurant gift cards I got, that kind of scares me.  But now, aside from the laptop and games Steve got me, our friends gave me a decorated wine glass and a nice photo divider thing for the house because they know how much I collect picture and never hang them.  My brothers got me a Kinect mount.  I got even more decorated wine glasses from my parents (because EVERYONE knows how much I love to drink wine!) AND an absolutely beautiful and stunning diamond bracelet that I have yet to take off.

And you’ll only know how awesome this card is if you know me and my penchant for being a booze troll (obscure sitcom reference that I am adopting):

Seriously, BEST. BIRTHDAY. EVAR!!!!