Happy Birthday to Me!

(of course, this post is via auto-post.  I think you'll notice as you read that I wouldn't take the time to do all this work on my actual birthday...lol)

Growing up, my family always made a big deal out of our birthdays (they still do!).  We had a party every year, though rarely were they parties with school chums.  Just my cousins and other family members.  Why?  One, we didn't have a lot of money back then for party stuff; two, my mom considered school chums a necessary evil but didn't really want to have them around; and three, my birthday almost always fell over my school's spring break, so kids just weren't in town.  I can count on one hand the number of non-family-centric birthday parties I had in the past.  I can also count on one hand the number of birthdays spent in school so I could receive dozens of birthday wishes during the school day.  Wah.

All of the above is a bunch of pseudo-psychobabble blah blah blah explaining why I feel the need to celebrate my birthday for at least a month and throw myself a big hairy party every year FOR MY OWN SELF.  :)  I love my birthday!  And I love having everyone around me love my birthday!  I've learned to live with it.  So should you.

This year, though, I'm having a nice dinner with my four best friends.  Because, in the big scheme of things, who really needs more than that??  I mean, even I get tired of planning big 'celebrate me' extravaganzas.  But I'm still toying with saving my pennies for a huge blow out for the big five-oh in 2014.  Mark your calendars now.  In the meantime, here are some blasts from my birthday past (clearly, my 'awkward' phase lasted a really long time).  Everyone celebrate!  Celebrate spring AND my birthday!  Viva me!  [lol]