How Fun Was That?

Well, it's confession time again.

Not only did I not make Steve a cake for his actual birthday (of course, I DID know his real party and real cake were coming two days later), but I also made the poor man help cook his birthday dinner! Look at him, slaving away here.

And if you're wondering if it was our intention to get every dish in the house dirty in the cooking process, the answer is a big ol' yes! I think we did rather well in reaching our goal.

Snowy, of course, was on hand for the whole event, watching carefully in case anyone needed assistance in picking up dropped food items. He's good like that.



And where was I?

I was afraid you would ask that.

While Steve was cheerily chopping, slicing and dicing, I was happily snoozing in the big chair. And yes, I did try to find a pose that would show off my double chin to its best advantage.

In my defense, I only snoozed for a brief while (I think it was just a matter of hours minutes) before I was back at work.

And all of our hard work was worth it. The party was wonderful, the food was great, the cake was delicious and all the calories were pre-removed.



One of the most special parts of the evening for me happened after the four of us finished cleaning up the dishes; without any prearranged plan, we all just sort of wandered our collective way into the living room. For an hour or more, we sat and talked and laughed, basking in the birthday's afterglow, the memory of the fun guests we'd had, and the joy of having Nathan home again after having been gone ten days.

I know that birthdays are about candles and cake and the passing of years but they're also about a weary mom staying up till after 11:30 just because she can't seem to tear herself away from the people she loves the most. Birthdays are a good time to remember who we love and why we love them.

Unfortunately, our birthday afterglow just also happened to be the time I was hit the realization that in my last entry here, I misspelled tiramisu about a million times.

Sigh.

I apologize to all of you spelling experts out there. Not only can I not make the stinkin' stuff, I can't even SPELL it!

Oh well. My hubby loves me anyway.

And I'm thankful.

I'm thankful for him, for my family, for Snowy, for our dinner guests and mostly, I'm thankful for a day well spent.

Obeying the Eyeballs

See Steve.

See Steve stare.

See Steve stare at his sumptious birthday cake cookie. (With the smoke ascending from the single candle so recently removed.)

Can you see the celebratory satisfaction on the face that is Steve's?

What's that?

No? You can't?

Hmmmm . . .

You think maybe he was expecting a BIGGER cake? Maybe he was expecting an ACTUAL cake? Maybe he was expecting some EFFORT to be put into the BIGGER, ACTUAL cake? Possibly?

Wait! Don't go! I have an excuse! A really, really good excuse!

And here it is.

Ummm . . . . as soon as I think of one.

Okay, I've got it!

Steve LOVES tiramasu. In fact, he loves it so much that I actually tried to make it. Once.

I will never try it again. I ended up with mysterious little blobs of something or another floating in the pan. The blobs looked like accusatory eyeballs. They were speaking to me in accusatory eyeball language saying, "Do not ever try to make this dessert again. Or we will come and FIND you. We KNOW where you live!"

And so I have obeyed the eyeballs and have never even thought of attempting to make tiramusu again.

Never. I still have nightmares about the eyes.

But anyway, back to my story.

A couple months ago, I happened to see the menu for a restaurant in town that featured tiramasu! I was so excited! My plan was that on Steve's birthday, I was going to sashay on down to this particular eating establishment and purchase for Steve one perfectly made piece of tiramasu. (With NO accusatory floating eyeballs.)

However, when I called the restaurant to see if I could order a piece to go, the nice man on the phone said, "I'm sorry. We no longer carry that dessert."

My heart sank. My spirits plummeted. My face sagged. (Oh wait. My face was ALREADY saggy.)

I called around to a few other places but without much hope because we live in the land of sweet tea, fried chicken and coleslaw. When I asked the first guy if he carried tiramusu he said, "Huh?"
Now how many of you want to take a guess that if a fella has never even HEARD of tiramusu, he probably does NOT carry it?

So when Steve got home from Duke with Sarah on Wednesday, I explained my foiled plot to him. He said in grand husbandly tones, "Oh, that's fine. I'll just have a cookie with a candle on it for tonight."

And so that's what he had.

On his 52nd birthday.

On his ONLY 52nd birthday.

Sniff. Sigh. Cue the sad violins.

Happily, however, the tale doesn't end there!

For the past two days, I have been cooking/baking up a veritable whirlwind, including my famous deep dark choclate cake with pudding/whipped cream icing. After a sumptious feast tonight, Steve will be served his official birthday dessert and the forlorn little cookie will become a faded memory.

Plus, Nathan and a friend are driving home from Florida today so the two of them will be with us for the party, along with a really fun pastoral couple from the area.

So I'd better get back to my cooking, cleaning, baking and chocolate chip cookie-memory erasing.
Because we certainly don't want THIS to be the last memory of his 52nd birthday!

Oops! Almost Forgot

I had meant to post these two pictures earlier in honor of Steve's birthday. I really don't even know how old Steve was in this picture. Somewhere near college age, I think.

Don't you just love the hair and the pink shirt? I'm sure that "back in the day," he was really stylin'!

This second picture was taken a couple weeks ago. I think he just gets better looking the older he gets.



Although I do sort of miss the pink shirt. And the big collars. And the hair. . .

Fifty Two is Young!

Happy birthday to Steve who is fifty two years old today.

Which is really very, very young. In fact, the closer I get to fifty two, the younger it becomes.

You're invited to drop over to Sarah Smith's Spot to view some stories and pictures (from the archives) about Steve and Sarah in honor of his birthday.

Also, there's a very new picture of Sarah wearing a very new (and darling) t-shirt!

Books and Prayers

When Sarah and Steve got back from his parents' house Sunday night, they were carrying with them a treasure. Well, actually two treasures! And here's Sarah (our own personal treasure) showing off the two treasures she brought home.

These books are by Hans Christian Andersen which is probably not all that exciting in itself. However, what is exciting is that when Steve was a young boy, he and his parents were in Denmark and purchased these books in Andersen's home, which had been turned into a historical site.


Steve's parents gave the books to Sarah and she is so delighted to have them. Not that Sarah likes books, or anything.






In fact she HATES books.



She never, EVER reads them.


Yeah, right. She just did an inventory and she has over 120 books in her room alone! Hans Christian Andersen will have plenty of company.


Steve and Sarah also came home from Charlotte with a Steve Story I had never heard before. It seems that when Steve was a toddler, he would hide a butter knife when he was put to bed and then try to take his crib apart when no one was looking.

As much as that man loves to tinker with mechanical things, that doesn't surprise me one teeny little bit.

And on a more serious note, Colleen signed the guest book recently saying that her husband has been laid off work for six months. She asked if our family would pray for them.

That reminded me of another blog I read last week where readers were encouraged to put their prayer requests in the guest book and pray for each other. That is exactly what I would like to do here!

If you have something on your mind--job issues, family circumstances, health crises, financial concerns--I invite you to write down your request. I promise that I will pray for them all and I'd also like to encourage each of you to pray for the two requests above yours.

These are tough times for a whole bunch of people and the Bible encourages us to "bear each other's burdens." Isn't it exciting to have the privilege of doing that? So many of us have gotten to know each other through guest book entries left on Sarah's site through the years. Sharing prayer requests is an even better way to link hearts.

And it doesn't have to be in response to just this post; any time down the road, feel free to write down your concerns.

Is that a deal? Good!

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Sarah's Spot

Just a quick note that since Sarah's 7-year anniversary as a cancer survivor is this Sunday, I'll be updating Sarah's Spot every day this week with stories and pictures of her cancer journey.

Be sure to drop by over there and say howdy. And even sign the guest book if you want.

We don't mind.

Really!