Party like its yo birthday.

Hello friends. It's my birthday! It has been a delightful day so far for many reasons:
1. Dinner date with husband last night. He took me to Gloria's and endured FOUR STORES worth of shopping for the one item I asked for: curtains.
2. Red velvet cupcake from The Cupcakery with birthday candle.
3. Lunch with parents at Mattito's.
4. Brief shopping with Mom.
5. Savannah's bridesmaid dress came in.
6. Going to happy hour with dear friends.
7. Wore my favorite red shirt and lots of lipstick.
8. Gave myself a birthday gift by not fixing my hair:)
9. Cards from friends and family, and happy texts, and emails.

Very best part:
10. To this minute, $876 given to Buckner via my Facebook Cause birthday wish.

Tufted, chandelier, French chair. What more can I say.

Magical.

Is it the color combo? No countertrop space, though. 

Those baskets would be a great way to hide all those bottles, sprays, etc.

Thank you, Brabourne Farm, for your delightful room ideas this week.

Really interesting: Brian McLaren over at Sojourners (see link at right) wrote a fascinating article today about knowing your environmental neighborhood. Not as defined by your school district, zip code, or city, but by your watershed. Do you know where your water comes from? Or where what you put down your sink goes? A watershed! And you can find it at this nifty government website.

Now, nobody will ever ask me this of course. But it is valuable to know simply because it makes me more aware of my connection to, and dependence on, the interwoven creation around me. Maybe if I know my watershed's name (it's "Upper Trinity", by the way) I won't dump my leftover bug spray or Clorox down the sink.

Also, that website allows you to see what citizen groups are at work doing cleanups, advocacy, etc in my watershed. There are 4 groups working to make sure my watershed is clean! Thank you!

One last tidbit: Earlier this week a group called the "Yes Men" pranked the New York Post by releasing 10,000 copies of a spoof version centered on the topic of climate change all around New York City ahead of the UN meeting going on there this week. While the spoof was a joke, the group says every fact and article in the paper is 100% true, and their purpose was to print news about global warming they feel is left out of the mainstream news.

This group apparently does lots of satire, "culture jamming" and shows up impersonating officials- from major corporate CEOs to the World Health Organization. Their website is hysterical- they have had their impersonators give satirical speeches in major conferences, on TV, and at major world events before when everyone in the audience thinks they are the real person. I love it.

Off to eat my birthday cupcake!