It’s been ten days since my birthday and I’m just now getting to explaining the birthday itself! Shame on me, I know, but I’ve been busy. Busy with what, I’ll tell you in a bit, but first we have some pink business to attend to.

I couldn’t sleep in on my birthday because I had church to go to, which was alright. I came home from it a bit early, though, because I wasn’t feeling too well and I wanted to come home. Once I got home, I goofed around on the computer for a while before having to prepare for the night’s festivities. On Saturday night, after falling on my butt at Target, I bought about twelve boxes of those little necco heart candies to serve as placemats at the table. Mom told me she changed her decorating plans at the last minute to accommodate my newly-found preference for pink. I thought these little conversation hearts in bright pink, heart-encrusted boxes would be appropriately sicky-sweet. I tied cute pink ribbons around the boxes, curling ends to form wringlet bows. I cut out 9 pink hearts out of cardstock to tape to the boxes, a name eloquently written in the center of each heart. I placed one box atop each plate at the table, arranging who should sit where. It looked lovely and oh so very girly. Wanna see?

In the midst of cutting out paper hearts and curling pink ribbon, I was also busy cooking my birthday dinner. I know that sounds bad, but I honestly wanted it that way. My favorite home-cooked meal is the special spaghetti that I make. I haven’t been able to really teach the recipe to anyone else because, well, honestly I just wing it. And yet, every time it turns out scrumptious. The sauce takes quite a while to cook because the sauce needs to cook down until it’s so nice and thick and the meat kind of absorbs it and it really turns out as more of a thick beef sloppy-joe-style goop rather than actual spaghetti sauce. But ooooh is it yummy.

Thankfully my timing was perfect: the heart placecards were set and the spaghetti sauce was done right about the time people started arriving. Kevin, Jen, and Max came a bit early so we all got to work on Mom’s little birthday activity she’d thought up: making valentines for a bunch of people (hence why we went to Target to buy valentines.) That was entertaining just long enough for the cute Mormon missionaries to show up (they’re the two on the left.) The missionary guys made some valentines for their families, but by that point it was time to eat.

We all filed into the dining room (isn’t it cute?) and started chowing down. But not before I could get a picture of the whole group (aren’t we cute?)

Dinner was fabulous and I think the spaghetti was a big hit. We talked, laughed, had some fun, then most importantly, had some cake. Although, we did take a break between dinner and cake to open some presents, which I quite liked, including a DVD – “The Day The Earth Stood Still” – two CDs – Lyle Lovett’s “Joshua Judges Ruth” and The Flaming Lips’ “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” – a gorgeous silver hair-clip, some traveling cases, and a nice check to subsidise my travel expenses. It was great! Even the cute Mormon missionaries brought me a present – one of them enjoys drawing, so he drew my name in really cool ink patterns and stuff, it’s very cool and was very nice of him to take the time to do something for me.

While eating cake we talked for a really long time about all sorts of things; traveling, The Kids in the Hall, movies, opera (one of the missionaries likes opera, can you believe it? He’s 20, he’s cultured, and he *likes* it. I thought those guys were extinct, didn’t you?), music, food, Utah, and all sorts of great things. It was a great party, very laid back but full of laughter. After dinner the missionaries had to go, but not before taking some rather ridiculous pictures (which I won’t post – I have to blackmail him first.) One of the two missionaries has a very strange sense of humor and he got it in his head that he needed a “serious, slightly scary” portrait taken. It was very entertaining and had me rolling with laughter.

So what have I been doing for the past ten days? Finishing up lots of things. Guess what I did today. 🙂 Go on, guess. It’s big, cost me $500, and will mean big things for my future.

I finished my 501(c)3 forms!!!! I mailed them in today and I’m SO thrilled! This huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders, I feel great. I really couldn’t have done it without Monica, my fabulous sister(-in-law), who is an absolutely brilliant accountant. She volunteered to help me out and believe me, she really came through. There’s no way I could have gotten them done without her and I’ll always be grateful to her. So, three cheers for Monica, everybody!

This means that I’m all set and I think I can receive donations for the DP while I’m waiting for my 501(c)3 status to be confirmed. I wonder how long it will take… I hope not too long, I really want to move full steam ahead. I’m thinking of adding a whole new section to the Daily Prophet, apart from the already planned Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings departments. I’ve read all sorts of statistics that say that boys are performing far worse than girls when it comes to English and creative writing, so I really need a way for the site to appeal directly to boys. Honestly, I can’t believe I didn’t think of this idea earlier: Marvel! Wouldn’t a website all about your favorite superheroes kick serious literary butt? At first I was trying to decide between my favorites, Batman or X-Men? Batman’s great and all, I really think he’s my all-time favorite, but he doesn’t have the wide appeal that the X-Men series does. With X-Men, kids have dozens of opportunities to feel a connection with characters, because there are so many of them.

But then I thought, why limit it to just X-Men? Marvel has a surfeit of characters, we should open up all of them to potential users of the site. That’s why I want to get Marvel in on this project and create the Marvel Universe section, where kids can write about superheroes as if they were real, expressing their feelings, views, et al in the form of articles framed around the entire Marvel archive of stories, characters, and worlds. It’d be huge, widely appealing, and a great way to connect with boys especially. Plus, it’d be really cool! It’s been a dream of mine ever since I was a little kid to work with Marvel, I really hope they go along with it.

What else have I done? I went on a mini-road trip with my friend Stephen! This past Monday – President’s Day – we decided we should go somewhere, so after far too much deliberation, we finally made our way out to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The trip was a fantastic success, except for one slight problem on the way there – I got car sick. I haven’t gotten car sick for as long as I can remember, it never really used to be a problem after the age of two or so. But suddenly, just as we were nearing Gettysburg, I really felt icky. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say it wasn’t fun.

Thankfully, after walking around and a quick pit stop, I felt so much better. In fact, I didn’t get sick at all the rest of the day. We toured around the Gettysburg museum, we watched a funny little presentation called “The Electric Map.” Sure, just like everyone else there, we were a little confused at first; wouldn’t you have thought that The Electric Map was a popular dance during the Civil War era? No? Okay, then maybe we’re just weird…

(I hope you realize I’m kidding about that.)

The Electric Map, rather than being a pre-disco disco dance, was in fact a funny map about the size of three king-size mattresses with little light bulbs that lit up as Wilford Brimley told us all about the battle at Gettysburg. The orange lights represented the South, the blue were from the North, and again and again we were reminded that the big white light was where we were at the present time, sitting in the visitor’s center. After just recovering from a bout with car-sickness, I was a bit giddy and I ended up giggling every time ole’ Wilford reminded us where we were, as if we couldn’t remember that the big white glowing orb that was about three times the size of the Union battalions was our present location. No one else seemed to find that funny, but I sure did. I must be really annoying when I’m sick, bursting into fits of laughter whenever someone says something over and over again. Especially when that someone sounds like Wilford. Or John Wayne, but he sounds funny at any time.

After The Electric Map, we walked around in the bitter cold to see the cemetary and take some really neat-o pictures. But dang was it cold. My ears turned bright red from cold, I had to perform the “I’ve Got Ice in my Shoes!” dance, and I had to walk through ice and snow in clogs to get some of those pictures, so you’d better dang well enjoy them, understand?

After we were done in the cemetary, it was time for lunch! We drove into downtown Gettysburg and stopped right by Lincoln Square which was so cute it made me go, “Ooooo!” We ate at the Lincoln Diner because Stephen was in search of a Lincoln Sandwich, cause hey, what would a Lincoln Sandwich look like? Corned beef in the shape of a bearded dude with a stovepipe hat, perhaps? Unfortunately, the diner didn’t have a Lincoln Sandwich, but they did have French Toast ala Lincoln. We still have yet to figure out what the french toast had to do with Lincoln, but he said it was yummy anyway.

After a short nap in the car (don’t worry, I was the one that napped, he drove and didn’t nap), we drove around Mount Saint Mary’s College, just to see what it looked like, then we intended to go up to see Cunningham Falls. Unfortunately, my clogs didn’t agree with the ice-encrusted hiking trail up to the falls, so I had to say no to that idea. I still feel bad about it, it would have been lovely to see, but I didn’t like the idea of falling on my butt again ala Target.

So that concludes the tale of the trip to Gettysburg, and thus concludes this blog entry, for it has grown to incredible lengths once again. Tomorrow, True Stories, funny quotes, house guests, Blonde Ambition, and cookies. At least, I hope there are cookies somewhere.