Birthday recap: excellence, ice cream, and toys!

I seriously had such an amazing birthday! As if all of those awesome gifts from my mom and getting my new job weren't fantastic enough, the actual day itself was a lot of fun too! I didn't want to do anything too special; just little things that we always do on the weekend like get lunch and ice cream. We started the day off by rolling out of bed and heading to Baskin Robbins for birthday breakfast ice cream. Matt got chocolate donuts, and I had my low-cal peanut butter chocolate frozen yogurt. I cannot get enough of that stuff! Then we came back home and watched Golden Girls while I painted my toenails something that was birthday appropriate.


Then we headed to Blue Fin Buffet, and I had tons of sushi and yummy desserts!
I had two plates of this. Sososo much sushi! I love the seaweed covered ones and the spicy almon ones the most.

I love their teensy, tiny little layer cakes. They have tons of different flavors, but the cheesecake with the cherry pie filling in the middle is the best!


And after lunch, we walked over to Toys 'R Us, and I got Jake and Finn Adventure Time figures and four little Hello Kitty lego toys!


After we went home and let our tummies settle a bit, I opened and set up my new toys and played with the kitties. And then we headed to a new park that was nearby, and it had a playground! I lovelovelove swings, so I was really excited, because most of the parks we find are more for trails and walking areas and never have playgrounds. So we sat on the swings for a bit and Matt pushed me, and then we played the who can go higher game, but he's almost six feet tall, and I am not. Then he pushed me on the merry-go-round until it got too dark and I almost got sick.

Here's a video I took while on the merry-go-round. I think the colors and lights look so fun.


And on the way home, I jokingly suggested ice cream again for dinner, thinking Matt would be like 'pffft, no way', but he said whatever I wanted since it was my birthday. How sweet. :) So after dinner ice cream, we headed back home to relax, and I counted a total of 117 happy birthday's on Facebook. Having that many people just take a second to say that definitely made me feel super loved being so far from everyone this year. I thought it was so sweet, and it definitely added to the awesomeness of the entire day. What an excellent birthday! :D

I got a job for my birthday!

This week has been so great, and it isn't even my birthday yet! Not only did my mom send me that awesome box full of presents, but she ordered me a Harajuku girls gift set, too! It came the day after I got the first box! Amazing present overload!



And here's my whole Harajuku family!


These are the only perfumes I've ever liked and actually worn. I feel like it's mainly because of the bottles being so dang cute. But they smell good, too!

And I used the gift card she sent me to get a few new hoodies! (To me, it's officially fall when I buy new hoodies.) Every year right around my birthday, Mom and I would go to the mall and do some school shopping and I'd get new hoodies and jeans. So even though she wasn't here, it felt just like old times.

So besides getting lots of fun presents, I was given the gift of employment! Earlier this week, I applied for a job that originally was listed as a data entry position. I haven't been finding many graphic design opportunities, and since I'm a quick typer and pretty friendly, I figured I'd cast a wider net and try for something that wasn't necessarily art related. But it turned out to be way more art related than I could've imagined. The job is actually in an art gallery!

The lady that runs the gallery (and makes some of the art) is opening a new location in another city and needed someone to be at that store while she's getting the new one up and running. She also needed someone to update her website and other things like that, so I will actually be doing some graphic stuff! I get to use my retail skills aaaand my design skills! I was really unsure of how I'd feel if I ever got a job where I didn't interact with people and just sat in a cubicle all day, so I definitely lucked out with this one. I am so excited and nervous!

The gallery is in this amazing little spot called Pioneer Square. It's so historic and pretty. It's covered in art galleries and little coffee shops, and the whole little area is paved in bricks. And just about everyone was walking cute pups! I had a hard time not breaking down and hugging every single one of them. They were everywhere! I loved it. I do have to take a bus to and from because parking is so scarce and expensive downtown. But I only had to walk about 5 minutes to get to a bus and then about 5 minutes to the gallery, so it's not that bad at all.

I took this while waiting on Ms. Rhonda to get there.


And here's a photo of the stuff across from the gallery.


After all this excitement, I plan on taking it easy tomorrow. I want to eat Subway, get ice cream, and just having a nice, relaxing birthday. And then get everything ready for my first day on Monday!

Surprise birthday package!

I know I juuuust made a post this morning, but I felt like another one was in order after receiving this wonderful early birthday box in the mail from my mom!


She told me that she was going to grab me a few art supplies because she had a Hobby Lobby coupon and knew I wanted to start painting again, but I didn't expect all of this fun stuff!

She sent me:
• two canvases
• two tablets of watercolor paper
• a tablet of acrylic paper
• a Desperate Housewives cookbook
• two paint palettes
• a do it yourself magazine
• a set of watercolors
• a set of gouache
• two packs of hello kitty socks
• philosophy orange jelly bean lip gloss
• philosophy vanilla birthday cake lip gloss
• a sweet cupcake card
• a visa gift card

And she ordered me a set of Harajuku girls perfume that will be here sometime this week! How stinkin' nice of her to do all of that. And it's not even my birthday yet! I swear, my mom loves me fifty times more now that I've moved away. It's too late to call and say thank you since it's two hours later there, but first thing tomorrow, I'm calling her and giving her so many phone hugs. <3