Birthday celebrations
As I mentioned in my last post, I turned twenty-nine a couple of weeks ago. Brandon and I celebrated by going to True Food Kitchen, as it had come highly recommended by a friend of Brandon's for being both delicious and veggie-friendly. I would've enjoyed it more had I not come down with the plague the night before; it seems that all of those adorable kids I'd been hugging on my trip to Indy were all little germ bombs. I drank pots of tea with lemon and honey and tried in vain to really appreciate my no-doubt amazing food despite lacking any sense of smell or taste. Fortunately, the tea perked me up long enough to take a walk through the lobbies of the very swank Biltmore Hotel so we could admire the 1930's architecture and the photos of various celebrities who have stayed there through the years.
However, by the time we went to Bodyworlds the next day, I felt like I should have been inside one of the glass cases as an example of a diseased, used-up body. I spent the rest of the weekend sniffling and sneezing through a box of tissues; despite all of our precautions, Brandon fell ill too. We were a sorry pair.
Fortunately, my birthday fun was extended a bit - first, I went to the salon for a birthday present to myself and finally got my hair dyed red again. (It began as super-red red, but now it's faded down to a sort of strawberry. I'm content with it staying there.) And this morning, wearebarnacles took me up to North Phoenix for what turned out to be a three hour chocolate-making class. The chocolatier plied us with coffee and unlimited delicious pastries while she taught us how to make truffles and a chocolate mousse. It was heaven. Later, we brunched at a hip new restaurant downtown with another mutual friend and went vintage furniture shopping.
Twenty-nine feels more... solid than twenty-eight. I feel like I should be figuring out what my thirties should look like. Should I consider kids? Make a firm decision about no kids? Plan to stay in Phoenix? Plan to move abroad and teach again? Save for retirement? Save for new furniture? It feels like I should be seriously moving forward on answering some of these questions - I'm not going to be in my care-free twenties for much longer, after all.
However, by the time we went to Bodyworlds the next day, I felt like I should have been inside one of the glass cases as an example of a diseased, used-up body. I spent the rest of the weekend sniffling and sneezing through a box of tissues; despite all of our precautions, Brandon fell ill too. We were a sorry pair.
Fortunately, my birthday fun was extended a bit - first, I went to the salon for a birthday present to myself and finally got my hair dyed red again. (It began as super-red red, but now it's faded down to a sort of strawberry. I'm content with it staying there.) And this morning, wearebarnacles took me up to North Phoenix for what turned out to be a three hour chocolate-making class. The chocolatier plied us with coffee and unlimited delicious pastries while she taught us how to make truffles and a chocolate mousse. It was heaven. Later, we brunched at a hip new restaurant downtown with another mutual friend and went vintage furniture shopping.
Twenty-nine feels more... solid than twenty-eight. I feel like I should be figuring out what my thirties should look like. Should I consider kids? Make a firm decision about no kids? Plan to stay in Phoenix? Plan to move abroad and teach again? Save for retirement? Save for new furniture? It feels like I should be seriously moving forward on answering some of these questions - I'm not going to be in my care-free twenties for much longer, after all.