I imagine by now you are probably tired of hearing all about my birthday! A woman turns 45 only once in her life, so she has to keep celebrating!

I took my birthday off from work, which I paid for the following day…but on Tuesday I enjoyed my leisurely day. I stayed in bed until 10:00 reading my lovely Clara Callan (which I just reviewed) and drinking English Breakfast tea. I dragged myself out of bed to do a couple of hours of work and then go off to pick Nick up from preschool with Mike. Then the three of us had lunch at Marco’s. I had a roasted vegetable scramble, which was lovely!

NEW! Roasted Vegetable Scramble: two eggs scrambled with herb-roasted zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, onions and sweet red peppers

In the afternoon I stopped by Fred Meyer to buy some ingredients for muesli. Then I did some wandering in Hillsdale and Multnomah Village. I hit Paloma, which was having a sale–bought a new top and some earrings for myself–plus my two favorite southwest resale shops, followed by Topanien and Annie Bloom’s. What a treat to be able to browse in three separate book stores during my birth week (followed by Borders and Powell’s on the weekend)!

I returned home to the wonderful smells of mulligatawny, which Mike had made. My parents joined us for dinner. Yum! Fortunately he made a huge batch, and we’re still eating it. It continues to be delicious.

Mom made my very favorite tunnel of fudge cake:

The boys singing to me and helping me blow out the candles:

My gift from them, which Chris was DESPERATE for me to open, was the new Beatles Rock Band for the Wii (just the game, as we already have the instruments). It’s a blast–but it’s made me realize I need to study up on the more obscure Beatles songs in order to be able to sing them. And my parents gave me two CDs: the new Girlyman, and a Sara Thomsen. So it turned out to be a very musical birthday and a wonderful day.