{"id":1293,"date":"2010-09-20T11:30:26","date_gmt":"2010-09-20T18:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/?p=1293"},"modified":"2010-09-20T11:30:26","modified_gmt":"2010-09-20T18:30:26","slug":"highlighting-the-highlights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/highlighting-the-highlights\/","title":{"rendered":"Highlighting the Highlights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So I turned 35 a few days ago and while it wasn&#8217;t the best birthday that I&#8217;ve had, I suppose that it could have been worse.  As it turns out&#8230;&#8230;it is what it is and there is nothing that I can do to change or to alter it and so here are the highlights of it all&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>This is a picture of me bright and early on my 35th birthday.  This is the &#8220;raw&#8221; me.  No make up, no hair (ha) and wearing a pretty bland, white tank and jeans.<\/p>\n<p>As much as this is not my FAVORITE picture of me&#8230;.I suppose that it could be a lot worse and I&#8217;m not entirely disappointed in how 35 looks on me.  Eh?<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/xangelle\/5008171551\/\" title=\"Early Morning 35 by Xangelle, on Flickr\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4151\/5008171551_6b98f1d754.jpg?resize=500%2C333\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" alt=\"Early Morning 35\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Here is the Birthday Banana that the girls made for me.  Very creative if you ask me&#8230;&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/xangelle\/5008173499\/\" title=\"Birthday Banana by Xangelle, on Flickr\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4091\/5008173499_0ca69cafdd.jpg?resize=500%2C332\" width=\"500\" height=\"332\" alt=\"Birthday Banana\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Then there was the crazy, no good, horrible, terrible day that happened.  In the evening, my momma came over and took the kids and I down to Derby Reach.  We picked up some sushi and ate at a picnic table as the evening turned to  night.  It was a break from the craziness of the day and a treat.  Jon and I used to go for a weekly sushi date before Angelica was diagnosed and we haven&#8217;t gone since.  Thank, Momma!  I love you.  You have and continue to be such a help and encouragement to me.<\/p>\n<p>Momma took Siah for a sleepover on Saturday night and after we woke up on Sunday morning we went for breakfast at Ricky&#8217;s Restaurant.  This is another favorite thing of mine to do.  I love breakfast&#8230;..any time of the day.  Eggs and Hashbrowns and bacon or sausage&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;MMMMMMmmmmm!  Debbie, Denver and Jack joined us.  In all the insanity of this whole crazy journey, it&#8217;s nice to do something ordinary.<\/p>\n<p>The kids and I came home and spent the rest of Sunday as just a quiet at home day.  I figured that if I was going to get all the kids down to bed on my own that I&#8217;d need to start early. We had a few too many leftover&#8217;s in the fridge and so rather than spending time cooking, I re-heated and everyone got to choose a little bit of this and a little bit of that.  My mom came over just as things were warming and she stayed for dinner.  I was able to get the dishes cleaned and the kids in jammies while she held Judah.  So SO nice.<\/p>\n<p> Just as I was shooshing the kids upstairs to read before I turned out their lights, my sister Debbie came rushing into my house carrying a cake stand&#8230;&#8230;.with a cake.  SURPRISE!<\/p>\n<p>They sang happy birthday to me&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/xangelle\/5008793810\/\" title=\"Singing Happy Birthday by Xangelle, on Flickr\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4113\/5008793810_fdd5a8aa7e.jpg?resize=332%2C500\" width=\"332\" height=\"500\" alt=\"Singing Happy Birthday\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Even Judah joined in with a few squeeks and squawks&#8230;..<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/xangelle\/5008796652\/\" title=\"Nana &amp; Judah by Xangelle, on Flickr\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4146\/5008796652_1ab5e3aba6.jpg?resize=332%2C500\" width=\"332\" height=\"500\" alt=\"Nana &amp; Judah\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>And we even managed to get Jon in on the action through Skype.  (Geli was sleeping thanks to some meds.)<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/xangelle\/5008191075\/\" title=\"Virtual Attendance by Xangelle, on Flickr\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4132\/5008191075_fdd93e4b1c.jpg?resize=332%2C500\" width=\"332\" height=\"500\" alt=\"Virtual Attendance\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>After my post mentioned emotional eating, I&#8217;ve made a few changes for myself, my health and my diet; and the cake Debbie brought over was sooooo appreciated.<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/xangelle\/5008193317\/\" title=\"Birthday Cake by Xangelle, on Flickr\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4083\/5008193317_b2468b2c36.jpg?resize=500%2C333\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" alt=\"Birthday Cake\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Isn&#8217;t that amazing?  It&#8217;s watermelon on the bottom two layers, and a layer of canteloupe and a layer of pineapple.  With thin layers of strawberries and banana&#8217;s in between.  The sauce is a soy yogurt blended with strawberries, and those are grapes for fancy candles&#8230;..<\/p>\n<p>Debbie is amazing.<\/p>\n<p>It was even more delicious than it looks and was a great way to end off the day after my 35th birthday.<\/p>\n<p>What was even better, was that I managed to get all the kids asleep early and was in bed, myself, by 8:30pm.   Sleep is an amazing thing.<\/p>\n<p>So, it wasn&#8217;t all bad&#8230;&#8230;more like difficult or tough or just not what I was expecting or had hoped for.  <\/p>\n<p>But, we carry on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So I turned 35 a few days ago and while it wasn&#8217;t the best birthday that I&#8217;ve had, I suppose that it could have been worse. As it turns out&#8230;&#8230;it is what it is and there is nothing that I can do to change or to alter it and so here are the highlights of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/highlighting-the-highlights\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Highlighting the Highlights&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47,12,15,5,16,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-debbie","category-family","category-food","category-life","category-me","category-special-days"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1294,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1293\/revisions\/1294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}