It is My Birthday for One More Hour

I am 28.

I really like the sound of it.

This has been one of the best birthday celebrations I've had in a long while.

It started with a super chill, lovely, alcohol-filled Saturday night with some close friends (complete with devil's food and peanut butter butter creme cupcakes) and continued through the weekend with a boozy brunch and then a long evening of sushi and sake with a super close friend.

Tuesday, I was treated to dinner at my cousin's house and even got time with the baby.

I collected birthday cards from my kiddoes all week, intent on keeping them sealed until today. I also wore a dress and tiara to work because I could. When I got to work, I opened all of the cards and put them on display. There were more than this by the end of the day, plus a couple paintings.


Most touching message: Thank you Annie for all youve done. Love you!
Funniest message: Happy birthday annie write below whatever you want

My job is the best place ever to work if you're celebrating a birthday, except when the kids started telling me I was older than their mothers. Hrmm.

My coworkers got me a card and baked me cupcakes, and one of my art teachers made me this. I almost sobbed.


(I just realized you can see my tiara in this pic!)

Tonight, my friend took me out to dinner, and I came home to hundreds of email and Facebook messages.

This is the first birthday in a long time that I feel like I'm celebrating at home. I've dragged weeks-worth of luggage to New York City before heading to New Haven for the summer for what feels like years (really, it was only 2). But before that, for years and years, I was either unhappy or away from home.

Celebrating in Boston has been really nice, and I have a feeling my 28th year is going to be pretty amazing.

A List of Things I am Distracted By Even Though (or Maybe Because) I'm Exhausted

1. My schedule this week.

(Which really isn't all that different except it FEELS different because I have a couple early meetings and extra things and Friday is a school holiday, which means I have a super early day.)

2. My birthday party.

(Which really isn't all that stressful because I have literally invited my closest friends and we are literally going to meet down my street AND I've already figured out what I'm wearing AND how I'm wearing my hair. I do still have to get a pedicure and call the places to tell them to expect me and my party. But really.)

3. The need to clean my room.

(I was so scattered today at work that I spent the last 45 minutes of my day cleaning my desk. I haven't really had a spare moment to do the same thing in my room, though I know it would make me feel better.)

4. Summer wardrobe.

(I spent two Sundays in a row shopping and made a few excellent purchases, but I still need summery things to wear below the waist. I have not, for the life of me, been able to find shorts or capris that don't make me look like either a sausage or a whore.)

5. The wedding I'll be in in August.

(One of my best friends is getting married this summer. Hers will be the first wedding I've been to of my friends, the first wedding I'll be IN since I was a three-year-old flower girl. And it is distracting me because I need shoes and jewelry to go with the hot purple dress I bought and I need to figure out where I'm staying when I'm in California for it and I need to write an amazing, hilarious, and touching speech befitting what I'm sure will be a ridiculously magical day.)

6. The fact that June is already almost over.

(I know it's only the 13th, but this is also the second-to-last week of afterschool programming for the year at work. Every afternoon, 350 kids show up, squirrely as fuck and ready to tear the walls down because they are so done with school. They never have homework these days and they are just as ready for a vacation as I am. The summer program starts the first week of July and we are all ready.

Not to mention that, as noted above, June ending means I am about to have a birthday. Which brings me to my last point...)

7. Turning 28.

(I learned a long time ago that the body completely regenerates every seven years. When I learned that, I looked back at my life in multiples of 7:

At 7, my mother met my stepfather. An incredibly significant moment in all of our lives. To say the least.

At 14, we moved from Brooklyn to Cambria, CA. Yet another earth-shattering, life-altering moment.

At 21, I spent the craziest, most transformative, heart-wrenching, and eye-opening summer of my life with friends in college.

All this to say, 28 is bound to be...something.)