My Birthday

Today is my birthday. With it coming a mere two weeks after Christmas, it becomes a kind of extension of the holiday season. In fact, I feel like my life has been a constant stream of celebrations for at least the entire last month. It's going to be a bit disappointing to wake up tomorrow and not find any presents waiting to be opened, cards in the mail, or family dinners to go to. Ah, well, real life must return at some point, I suppose.

I received a lot of nice gifts, most of them practical and needed (new shirts!--to replace some that I've been wearing for the last ten years) (new pillows!--can't wait to go to sleep tonight) (new sheets--ditto what I said about the pillows), but the one gift that was a true and shameless splurge was a book bag. Have you ever visited the website Out of Print? They make T-shirts, tote bags, notebooks, and other things, all featuring old book covers, usually with a slightly retro flavor. I have wanted one of the tote bags for a long time for no other reason than because I liked them. So I was excited to see that one of our local bookstores (Weller Book Works) carried most of them (especially since I had a Groupon there, so it was like it was 50% off). I tried to pick it out myself, but I still wanted it to be somewhat of a surprise, so I told Mike I wanted one and made him do the actual choosing.

Here it is:

It's Jane Eyre! I should have photographed the back of it, too, because the picture wraps around the other side.

 

I actually have a really hard time with my birthdays, mainly because I really don't like getting another year older. But between the celebrations with my family, Mike's family, and our own little family, I had so much fun I was almost able to forget the reason for the celebrating.