celebrate my half birthday

Ate half a cake and celebrated with a friend :)

My friend called me up to announce us celebrating my half birthday, because that way I could check something of my 43things.
She made me cinnamonnies (brownies, but with cinnamon instead of chocolate) and it had chocolatenumbers saying 25 1/2 and a candle on it.
I bought some balloons, cake and whipped cream.
It was great! :) thnx Annie!
Too bad Meindert couldn’t make it.

She sent me a box of Turtles (you know, chocolate, caramel and nuts…yum yum). She gave me 2 pocket books, #2 and 3 from the Belgariad series by David Eddings, 2 crochet lite crochet hooks, sizes G and J (this is a crochetville.org secret pal swap), a retractable tape measure that is encased in a cute little sheep cover, a hanky that she crocheted a lovely edging around it and in one corner is a beautiful crocheted lady called a crinioline (crinolines qualify as vintage crochet), 2 packages of ribbon roses, and a Far Side card that was just perfect! So far only a stranger has celebrated my half birthday with me. boo hoo hoo!

I have a holiday birthday and for all of us Thanksgiving and Christmas babies, our birthdays can tend to get lost in there somewhere, can’t they?

I had my 60th back in November…a landmark birthday…and no one, not anyone, did anything to celebrate my birthday. I’m getting tears in my eyes writing this!

My poor daughter has been going through the most horrible divorce so I excuse her. She at least did remember it with a phone call and a card. If she had had the money (the divorce is draining her!) she would have flown to be with me, I know. In the past when she could afford it she has been the only one to treat me with all the love that she has in her heart for me…and believe me, it’s BIG! The way she wishes me Happy Birthday doesn’t even require money!

But, back in 2004, I think, that sweet girl ordered her favorite cake from a bakery in Dallas where she lives…a chocolate cake with a hint of cinnamon and 3 kinds of chocolate chips in it. She wanted to share her favorite cake with her mom! She had the bakery ship it to me in Michigan! I think she paid about as much for the shipping as she did for the cake! And it was soooo delicious. But I couldn’t even get anyone to celebrate and have cake with me! I shouldn’t have even had to try to get anyone to celebrate with me. Someone should have said, “Well, look, we have this wonderful birthday cake so let’s make a celebration out of it!”

Then there’s my son, who lives close to me. For my 60th, I got a Happy Birthday phone call but I don’t remember hearing from his 2 kids, my grandchildren. I do remember one Christmas he gave me a beautiful V-neck sweater and another Christmas a gorgeous off white sweater. One year he gave me a nice set of plastic storage bowls, another time a nice set of fragrant candles. Those times hold precious memories for me. It’s not the stuff but that he took the effort to make it special for me. But for most of the occasions, he hardly ever has the time or money for me on my birthday or Mother’s Day or Christmas. Most of the time, there’s not even a card! But he seems to have money for other things. I’ve just given up expecting anything from him. For Mother’s Day, on Sunday he told me we’d go to lunch this week. I haven’t heard from him since and it’s Wednesday night. The tears are really welling up in my eyes right now. I didn’t even hear from my grandchildren. Of course, though, it wasn’t grandparents’ day, now was it? And nobody remembers to celebrate that…it’s just another Hallmark holiday!

Even the one true love of my life did nothing for my 60th. I excused it because neither of us were feeling very well and money was a bit tight then but there was not even a dinner prepared or a cake baked. I know his love for me is immeasurable and maybe that makes it hurt more. He did make a very special card for me on the computer which means all the world to me because he means all the world to me.

I have to say, however, that when his birthday came almost 3 months later, I didn’t do anything for him either but that was because I was going through some bad depression…not feeling like doing anything. Not Anything! I felt really bad because I couldn’t even bake a cake for him. I haven’t even felt like getting out of the house to even go buy a cake from the store or a bakery.

No one has ever given me a party. Oh, I remember having some friends over when I was like 9 or 10 yo. But I’ve never had a surprise except for my 40th when my daughter came over with a cake and ice cream and presents. She had at least put balloons out over the garage and stuff.
Of course she had to make it a “over the hill” affair. My son was there as was my ex. It was pretty nice.

I have to say that for my 1st pregnancy (my sweet daughter) the few ladies I worked with gave a surprise shower at lunch and when I left one of my jobs to move away, the people in my department took a pickup truck to pick up a 12-ft sub sandwich and we had a get together at lunch time.

But I would like to have a fairly decent size surprise party during “party hours”. All someone has to do is take the initiative to contact my family, friends and people I have worked with to try to put together a party for me. That would be so cool!

One of my very good friends was here earlier to walk with me (I’m about 50 lbs overweight) and told me about throwing a surprise birthday party for someone at her office. We’ve been friends for over 10 years! That really hurt and that’s what brought this issue to the forefront of my thoughts. Also, an acquaintance I email with just threw a big surprise party for her husband’s 40th. My daughter used to have parties for her husband…I don’t remember if any of them were ever surprises. I’m always happy for these people and I don’t ever begrudge them. I would just like to have that experience, too.

So, my half birthday is coming up on May 29. I just told my hubby and he didn’t even get it at first. Actually, I don’t know what finally clicked in his head but he did get it. Now to see what he’s gonna do about it.

I want a surprise party so very bad. To have cake and ice cream and streamers, silly hats, whistles, some silly string, etc., but most importantly to have laughter and fun with people I love to come to celebrate with me…WOW! I can’t tell you what that would mean to me. I don’t even want presents, just the presence of my family, friends and loved ones.

Didn’t do it. Ah well. There’s always next year. But in the meantime I’m giving up on this.

6 March!

That’s three days from now… and a Tuesday. I guess I need to find some friends to celebrate with before then.

I’ve found a winning strategy: find a friend with a birthday that lands on your half birthday. I celebrated my halfsies at Palisades with Sharon, on her real birthday. Wahoo!

First I’ve got to figure out when my half birthday is. Arrrgh. Math is hard! So I searched for a half birthday calculator and voila! The following information comes from Peter James at http://peterjanes.ca/peterj/half-birthday.cgi

There’s not much magic in calculating your half-birthday, although there are two different methods. The first, which is the simplest, is to take your birthday and add six months; for example, someone born on January 1 would have a half-birthday of July 1. That means that some unlucky people have no half-birthday! The second way is to add half a year, i.e. 182.5 days.