Holy freaking crap, I’m 24!!! Can you believe it?!?! I sure can’t…

    So my birthday was nice and relaxed this year, for the obvious reasons, but I was at least able to have a birthday party! My friend Joey and her family came over for games and dinner this afternoon, which was very nice and lots of fun. We played lots of different games, talked a lot, played some more, ate, kept on talking, and so on. It was a lovely, relaxed, no worries kind of evening, which was just perfect. Joey and her family all have rare medical problems as well, so I knew they’d be really understanding about my situation, which made it less awkward to just sit around in my pajamas, play games, and lounge around. With healthy people, I get to feel a bit weird and awkward, not being able to do much or be active or keep them entertained. But I know with Joey that she’s been there, knows what that’s like, and enjoys just lazing around, talking, hanging out, and playing games. So it worked out perfectly and I was really grateful that they were able to come spend their Sunday evening with me. 🙂

    Of course, the really tough thing about having a birthday party right now is that I can’t have any cake!!! Because of this stupid new diet the docs have me on, all sorts of foods are off limits right now. Amongst that list of No-No Food is wheat, eggs, dairy, and all sorts of other things that are all required to create a cake. Thankfully my Mom’s very creative, so she and I put our heads together to try to come up with something workable. Originally we were going to do chocolate fondue, but then I thought, maybe we could somehow make an ice cream cake, but out of sorbet and non-dairy icing! That way it would at least look like a cake, but it’d be like one of those fancy ice cream store cakes.

    I have to say, I’m very impressed with what my Mom managed to put together. She’d never made an ice cream cake before, let alone a sorbet cake, but she did a marvelous job with it. The bottom layer was made up of a kind of rice crispie treat/muddy buddy hybrid, smashed down into a kind of crust. Then there was raspberry sorbet, with plain rice crispie treat on top of that. Next up, a layer of absolutely delicious blackberry sorbet, all topped off with homemade non-dairy chocolate icing. It was completely fantastic, very, very pretty, and surprisingly tasty! I still missed having chocolate cake, but I at least didn’t have to miss it quite so much. I even had birthday candles to blow out! 🙂 So it all turned out pretty darn well.

    I’m going to have to wrap this up, since I’m absolutely exhausted and it’s time for me to sleep. But I also wanted to mention – last but not least – some very, very nice person out there sent me a birthday present, but alas, I do not know who that kind person is! I received an envelope in the mail with a very cute, funny little magnetic bumper sticker, but the envelope didn’t have any kind of recognizable return address, nor did it include any kind of note or packaging slip with the name of the purchaser. So I’m completely in the dark and don’t know who to thank for the surprisingly lovely gift! If that kind person could please stand up, I would really appreciate it! I’d very much like to thank you and give you a big hug!

    Alright, off to bed with the birthday girl! Big thank yous and hugs to everyone who’s gone out of their way to send me birthday wishes, kind notes, and unexpected presents, I really appreciate it. I love you all very, very much and consider myself lucky to count you all as my friends. So big hugs all around and here’s to a lovely 24th year on planet Earth, surrounded by my wonderfully loving friends and family! 🙂