Happy birthday to me : )

Tomorrow is my birthday -- and Aunt Flo has decided to crash my party, argh. She is banging on the door & will be here by tomorrow morning. Oh well. On the bright side, a post I wrote earlier this week about how fertiles have managed to co-opt the term "childless" wound up on Mel's regular Friday Blog Roundup. Could an infertile blogger ask for a nicer present than that??

AF & the sheer numbers that are staring me in the face aside ; ) I can't help but get a little excited about my birthday -- it's that childhood feeling of anticipation and knowing that for this one special day a year, you're at the centre of the universe -- well, at least in the eyes of the people who love you. Not that dh & I usually do anything wildly special for our birthdays these days. We give each other cards & kisses in the morning, & the birthday boy or girl sets the agenda for the day, especially when the birthday falls on a weekend & we don't have to work. As I don't drive, dh has agreed to chauffeur me to do some shopping at my favourite scrapbooking stores tomorrow afternoon (he is not the world's most patient man, but he brings a book & sits in the car and reads while I shop -- how cool is that??), then whisk me away to one of our favourite restaurants for steaks, followed by a browse at our local megabookstore & coffee at Starbucks. And maybe a movie on Sunday afternoon (another favourite thing to do). Not too different from our usual weekend routine, but having a birthday gives me license to abandon the usual Saturday housecleaning, order dessert & maybe even have a drink (which we don't normally do) and give the credit card a workout. ; ) I view such indulgences as some of the perqs of growing older, not to mention being childless.

As I wrote in a post about getting older awhile back, I will be 47 (eek) tomorrow. Everyone says you're only as old as you feel. There are days I feel every second of those 47 years, & days when I really have to remind myself that I'm old enough to be the mother of many of the 20-somethings who work in my office, and not their peer. I don't think I look 47, and I'm usually told I look younger than my age. At our office Christmas party, one of the 20-somethings asked me how long I'd been with the company. I said, "21 years," and her eyes got huge & she said, "Oh my crap." She's probably only about 24 herself. I wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or amused by her reaction. (Someday, you too will be 47, dear.)

Anyway, birthdays only come once a year & I'm determined to make the most of mine! ; ) Even if I am one step further from my prime childbearing years, and one step closer to (eek) 50...!