I Had the BEST Birthday!!

As you know, I've been a cleaning fool the past couple weeks. Well, the work continued this weekend. I can hardly call it work as I love cleaning out. I started on Saturday with this being one of my projects:

 You may recall how I said I give everything a bath. Well, I took apart a Christmas floral arrangement.  It is probably 20 years old, but I still like it.

Each year at Christmas, I tell myself that I need to take it apart and clean everything. But them I'm just anxious to get everything put up and don't want to take the time. I finally decided that after Christmas was the time to do it. I have a philosophy that if something is dirty, then I have nothing to lose by cleaning it however I can. When my girls were little, I washed everything in the washer and put it all in the dryer---leather shoes, wool coats, back packs, you name it, it got washed. You'd be surprised at how nice things came out. I've never been afraid to give anything a good dunk! In this arrangement, there was plastic greenery, silk flowers and even dried things. It all went in the sink.

 Next came the basket and bow. It all cleaned up nicely.

I liked the looks of everything drying in the dish drainer. I let it all dry overnight. On Sunday, I put the arrangement back together. I forgot to take another picture and now it's packed away. Next Christmas.

That's the first thing I did on my birthday (well, after my "gift" of working out). Next,  I spent the day cleaning out in my scrapbook room. I was ruthless. If I haven't used it in two years, I'm getting rid of it. I thoroughly enjoyed that---still have a lot to go. I'll be working on my room for probably two more weeks.

I spent a couple hours in the afternoon reading---What Alice Forgot---by Liane Moriarty---my new favorite author. I'm trying NOT to read everything she's written all in a row. I want to spread her books out so I don't get tired of them. Anyway, if you're looking for a new author---she's your gal.

The family came over for Happy Hour and to watch me open gifts. I got some really nice things.

 Sandy sent me this awesome tidbit tray.

 The little tongs are so cute---I put the paper clip there so you could see the size of them. The "picker up" part of the tongs are fleur de lis.

 This glitter tree full of the "12 Days of Christmas" wine charms will look great on the bar next Christmas.

 Stephanie found this adorable little gnome. She thought it was perfect after I went wild over the little gnome trivia game piece over the holidays.

Mindy and Justing gave me a Barnes and Noble gift card---perfect as I have about 85 books on my "to read" list!

I got other gifts from family and friends---too numerous to mention!! I'm a lucky girl!!

Butch game me these walking sticks for our trip to Costa Rica. I was thrilled!

When I was a kid, we would go on these "Incredible Journeys"---named after the Disney movie from the 1960's (which is when I was a kid). That was back in the good ol' days when we packed a lunch in the morning, took off and didn't come back home until supper. Our parents had no idea where we were, or what we were doing. We just had to be home by supper.

Anyway, often we would go off on these hikes. The very first thing we did was find ourselves a walking stick. We used it for everything---moving branches out of our way while traipsing through the woods, checking the depth of the creek to decide if we could wade it, and poking at dead animals or any other "finds."

I was just telling Butch that I would like a walking stick to use to stabilize myself while walking through uneven terrain. DO NOT confuse this with a CANE!!! I'm not that OLD! I did not know that walking sticks (or hiking sticks as it says on the package) came in pairs. I plan to let Butch use one if he wants. They are so awesome---they are compact and will fit in the suitcase. Just perfect.

I'm totally ready for another incredible journey!

So after all the gift opening, we went to Sperry's (a steak house)  for dinner. I had the lobster! It was a perfect day for me. What could be better, a little cleaning, a little reading a little time with family!