I have given up… I have given up and I am waving a little white flag. I have ALWAYS been the lover of my own birthday. Its MY day, a day that I can lazily ask others to do for me by tacking on “coz It’s my birthday” at the end of All sentences. I have prethought & preplanned & counted down to others when my birthday is almost a good 30 days out. I’m the type of person that will write “15 days left til my B day” on your calendar when you’re not looking. It’s never been about presents, its more about feeling special as in my mind I am the only person who has  rights to this day (oh and my friend Carlos… his mum popped him out a year after me but I don’t mind sharing with him as he is special to me anyhow). If you say your Birthday is May 1^st I will tell you that you are mistaken. At least… this WAS me until this year when father time cracked me over the skull leaving me with one of those cartoon humps on my head with a patch of hair balancing at the top. I could NEVER have foreseen this happening. How can 2 little numbers when pushed together just right, suddenly remind you “hey… your on the downward end of life now my friend… Pay attention to all those “polident’ commercials because you’ll need to be up on all the old people facts and Lingo.”I NEVER could understand people or TV shows when people shied away from their given Birthdays. ITS FREE- IT’s YOURS. I thought anyone who claimed this was a knucklehead or faking it for attention because if I could have 2 b days a year I would take control of it in a heartbeat (maybe one in summer and one not too far off of Christmas in case I needed to call ME TIME to do holiday shopping or to have a reason why I didn’t pick up someones present “oh gosh.. I’m sorry.. it was my birthday and I just got carried away.” This way I could avoid crowded malls at the same time – I mean what better way to utilize the freedom of ‘Birthday?’. I tried to tell myself as this year started rolling out that it’s been super busy. I DID just start the new job and all that but if I am going to be very honest with myself I can tell you that I lived more in a world of denial since about New Years. It was almost as if I had tricked myself into believing if I didn’t do my regular count down and didn’t let the world of anxious well wishers in on the fact that my birthday was “X” many days away, that it just might possibly sneak by unnoticed and once that happened I would not have to collect on the age that came with it. “oh no… you missed it.. too late now, you’ll have to wait to catch me next year”… In the lead up years I enjoyed sharing my Birthday as people naturally ask your age and they have always told me “no way… you look WAY younger. I would have guessed about 20”… But this year I realize that by sharing this fact I would actually have to own up to being old. 40…it even sounds eons past than of ‘thirty something.’I was most affected by the pending age of doom LAST night (the night before said Birthday). It honestly had that feeling of walking the green mile, DOOM!! All that ran thru my mind is all the wrinkles, the sore muscles, the clicking of my bones… up until that moment I was able to think that if I bought the best ‘creams’ and worked out some that I might be able to starve off aging and in fact held out some bogus hope that I would wake up back in the body that I owned in my 20’s (you know… the one that ate anything and drank, partied and stayed out a clubs not needing any sleep.. the NO maintenance me). The announcement of 40 holds the equivalent of stripping off the last grasp at this dream…. By the time I would wake up in the morning there would be no going back.

There is but one thing that has so far saved me from completely going out and putting money down on a burial plot… Skating. When my husband announced that he and my friend Kacy had planned a skate party for my “green mile” birthday, I suddenly was able to reverse a small amount of time.

… to be continued

Like him or not, Adam Lambert is THE front-runner for this season’s American Idol. With his unique style and ability to make each and every song current and his own, Adam has “rocked” from his very first performance.

I surveyed the Certified Hosting staff and if the majority wins, then Adam Lambert is your next American Idol. I will admit, I was and am still not rushing out to buy his first record but I can clearly see him outselling any other Idol contestant thus far. The new generation will eat him up!

What are your thoughts? Do you watch American Idol? Who do you think will win? Would you continue to watch Idol if Adam didn’t win?

  …. Do people really buy those “Commemorative” Plates (coins? etc). I keep seeing the commercial for the Obama plate and I think, “In this suck ass economy state, do they really think people will spend money on a plate that one doesn’t even eat on?” I can’t think of the last time I have seen a Commemorative plate in a museum or an article in a fancy Art exhibit on how a plate is worth billions…they never show up on “The Antique Road Show.” It’d be easy enough for the appraiser to know which year the plate was from “Oh this plate has George Washington on it!!”…..  I have never gone into someone’s home and seen a display of commemorative plates hung on the wall… next to the $2 bill with the twin towers on it.
Dear readers… how would you react if you received one of these as a Birthday present? What if this person bought you something like this EVERY year.. Would you display them when they came over? What if they asked about them?… Or do you see yourself re-gifting them?