Did it hurt, Marco?

Dear Marco (who is in India on the occasion of my birthday),

I have one question. Did it hurt? Did it hurt when you fell from heaven because you must be an angel!!!

Not only did he send flowers, but he also had a great table and chairs delivered to my front yard just so the flowers had a place to sit. I was totally surprised. The real story is that I have had my eye on this table for a while. Yesterday I took my sister, Shauna, to the Finer Consigner to BUY it for myself as a personal birthday present. You can imagine how disappointed I was when the sales guy called the owner to confirm that it had already been sold. How ironic that the owner of the store was at that very moment dropping the set off at my house. (No one was home, so luckily they had the right address.)

I quickly called the world's best mother in law, Betty Jo, and the world's best niece/hipster friend, Kjirsten, to pop on over for a tea party under the willow tree. They showed up in matching polka-dots and hats.

Here's a detail of the cool drawer, complete with secret compartment. The chairs are great, but I didn't really get a good shot of them. You will just have to come over and sit in them for yourself.

I've stopped trying to take a bad picture of Zina. I am afraid she has inherited her sisters' photo-genetics. (Now, there's a good made up word for you, Betty Jo!)

My other birthday "tray-zures" included:

This fancy mug pictured above from Emily that I love.

Tasty eclairs and pear cake from KJ.

A birthday breakie with my sister Shauna.

A great card and phone call from Carolyn in Maryland.

One beautiful facebook note from Katie with pictures.

Custom furniture moving from Liz and Andrew.

Breakfast in bed from the kidlettes. (Cherries and toast of their own making ... at 6:00am!)

Many thousands of happy birthday wishes from friends far and wide. (It's the miracle of facebook.)

And ... (drumroll, please) my mom gave me this.

It's Grandma Zina's firebird necklace she wore all the time. I kind of love it a lot. I have a whole philosophy that goes along with it that will have to wait for another post.

(Please tell me those are hat shadows and not wrinkles.)

Thanks, everyone!!