How to celebrate a golden birthday (or ANY birthday for that matter):

1. Make it a week-long celebration. Seriously…WEEK-long.

2. Go out for drinks and laughter with girlfriends.

3. Make your favorite kind of cupcakes (or get your husband to make them).

4. Blown up yellow balloons the eve of the big day and let them float around at the bottom of the stairs so in the morning it feels all celebratory as you come down to leave for work. 🙂

5. Have breakfast in bed, even if it IS a Tuesday and you feel rushed. (Thank you, Page <3).

6. Dress up.

7. Upgrade your grande size latte to a venti, en route to work.

8. Explain to anyone who doesn’t understand the “golden birthday”
concept just HOW big of a deal it is, and that they should really catch
up.

9. Eat a cupcake in lieu of the typical healthy mid-morning snack, while chatting with a happy-birthday-wishing bestie.

10. Gratefully read Facebook birthday posts (don’t you just love that Facebook reminds you of all bdays?)

11. Skip the brown bag and go out to lunch.

12. Buy yourself a present, taking it as a sign that MJ’s This Is It came out on DVD on your birthday. 🙂

13. Check the mail. Nothing beats an old-fashioned birthday card. And grandparents are always SO on top of that game.

14. Take a day off from the gym.

15. Squeal with delight as you unwrap gift cards for mystic tanning. No skin cancer this year!

16. Read a blog post featuring you through the years, compiled by Mom.
A mix of misty eyes, then mortification at just how bad your eyebrows
were, washes over you as you read her words and look at the pics. What
a lucky girl to have such amazing parents these 26 years.

17. Forget the diet for one day and splurge on your favorite deep dish pizza for dinner.

18. Have a drink. Or three.

19. Enjoy phone calls, texts, and emails from friends and family, (in particular a text from Dad, telling me he can still remember just how funny I looked the day I was born) :). So lucky to have each and every one of these people in my life.

20. Take some reflection time. Write an email to your future self on your 27th birthday. Set Google Calendar to send it to your inbox one year from today.

21. Try not to kill your husband when he points out it’s only four years until you’re thirty. (And your grandmother, when she makes it known that you’re more than halfway to fifty).

22. Eat your second cupcake of the day. It’s your birthday – there’s no “stop after one” rule.

23. (Resolve to make tomorrow’s workout extra long).

24. Settle in on the couch to watch a good movie, courtesy of Netflix.

25. Smile blissfully, reflecting on a simply delightful day.

26. In the middle of blissful state, glance out window. Make mental note to self that next year, it should be considered that you live in freezing cold, icy, blizzardy Iowa and that January 26, 2011 should and will be spent at a resort in the Caribbean.

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Thank you to all the family and friends that bless my life in small and large ways every day, and celebrate with me not just on January 26, but every day. You are all loved beyond sane reason.