My birthday was awesome!

I had a terrific day yesterday. We started off with a little breakfast at my favorite diner. In spite of the extremely loud construction going on on the roof, I still enjoyed my feta cheese omelette with homefries immensely. When the ceiling threatened to cave in, we decided it was time to leave. Good call.

Next stop was to pick up some flowers to plant in our flower beds in front of and in back of the house. That was my main goal for the day. Weird, I know, but being able to plant the gardens without Ellie hovering about is very enjoyable and only takes a couple of hours. We stocked up on impatiens and marigolds for annuals and shasta daisies, Arizona blanket flowers, a hosta plant, and an azalea for our perennials. I have to say I'm quite pleased with how it looks. I love flowers but I have a black thumb. I researched and bombarded my mom (who used to be a florist) with questions about hearty flowers for our area that required minimal attention. These ended up being the top choices, and I'm really hoping they take well. We'll be able to enjoy the perennials for years, and they'll eventually take up most of the space so I won't even have to plant annuals anymore. Total score. Oh, and my hydrangea we transplanted from the other house survived the winter and looks like it's gotten bigger. Joy. As for the mums we planted last fall, only 1 survived. Sadness.

Harry and I really enjoyed gardening together, and it was the first project we've done in a while that we didn't bite each other's heads off. We tend to get a bit moody and irritated with each other when we're working together, I admit. Yesterday was not like that. It was relaxing and we were talking and laughing through a good part of it. Eventually we ended up in separate areas of the yard, and I got to spend some quiet time planting and thinking and just enjoying the sunshine. Perfect.

After that, we trekked our way to the movie theatre to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I loved it. Absolutely loved it. Weapon X is one of my favorite X-men stories, and I like how they encorporated some of it into the movie. Mr. Jackman was, of course, fantastic as usual. Liev Schreiber, whom I love as an actor, was awesome as Victor. The only casting I didn't like was Gambit. Gambit happens to be one of my favorite X-men, and Taylor Kitsch didn't do him justice. Josh Holloway from LOST, who was the first choice, would have nailed it. It's too bad he couldn't fit the movie into his schedule. I liked it so much that I totally wouldn't mind seeing it the theatres again. Not sure if that will happen, but I'd like to.

After the movie, we picked Ellie up from daycare and headed to our local Olive Garden for dinner. Olive Garden is never my first choice for restaurants, but my mom had gotten us a gift certificate there at Christmastime, so I figured we'd save a little cash going there. Unfortunately, dinner was a bummer. Ellie couldn't sit still the entire time we were there, and the food was mediocre. AND we had to fork over another $20 to cover the bill and tip after we used the gift card. Ick. It seems Ellie has hit that weird age where she absolutely cannot sit still in a restaurant. This is the second time she's been extremely antsy when we went out to dinner, and she's normally really good about it. I'm hoping it'll pass in a few months. Eh.

After dinner, we went back home for cake. My mom came over to join us, and Miss Ellie helped me blow out the candles. I had decided I wanted a chocolate cake with ice cream filling and whipped cream topping this year, and well, you can't really buy that around here. So I made it myself. Yep, I made my own cake. And it was delicious. Even my mom, who's not a fan of chocolate and can bake like you wouldn't believe, really liked it. Yay!

We ended the evening watching LOST (excellent episode) and a little, ahem, you know. Quite a nice ending to a nice day:)

Oh, and I got a ton of birthday wishes from friends which I not only appreciated but which completely made my day 100 times better. I can't thank everyone enough. AND my niece wrote this wonderful blog entry about me, too, which brought me to tears and made me smile. She rocks. Love you, Uh-cuh-cuh.