WOW! I’m not even sure where to begin on all of the Favorite Things I’ve indulged in these past few days.
I will admit a few of these occurred all on the same day, my actual birthday, but I’m counting them separately. I’m not sure how it was possible so many of my favorite things came together in one day, but it made for the most swell birthday ever. EVER. No, really, not kidding. E.V.E.R. Forty is feeling pretty good.
#22: Eating a gluten-free sweet not baked by me. This rarely happens, unless I’m in a city with a super yummy gluten-free bakery that I get to visit. On my birthday, Renee surprised me with a pan of Gluten-Free Girl’s Cinnamon Rolls. This recipe was the first gluten-free yeast bread I had success with and it remains on my favorites list but no one has ever baked them for me before. Even though I received this at 7 a.m., it was the highlight of my birthday to have a pan full of one of my favorite sweets on my birthday that I didn’t have to bake!
#23: A margarita with my friend Sheila. I had a margarita and it came in a soda glass. Weird, but it worked.
#24: Eat gluten-free successfully at an ethnic restaurant. Since going gluten-free, I’ve approached my ethnic restaurants with trepidation. The language barrier makes it difficult for me to confirm ingredients. But I have a short list of places I can safely eat and eat I did! I had veggie chilaquiles with a fried egg on top at my favorite Mexican restaurant, the one where the server always winks at me and says, “Ah, vegetarian!”
#25: Lunar yoga with friends. On my birthday, a few of my favorite healthy friends met me for a late evening yummy stretch class. It was great to see everyone and fun to have a bit of quiet time together.
#26: A glass of wine with Mary. And that’s all I’m saying about that. 😉
#27: A Thelma and Louise adventure with Sheila. We’ve had so much fun over the last five years in my little red car, participating in road rallies, driving across the country on a whim…and always managing to get ourselves into some sort of trouble. Sometimes when we are together, adventure jumps in our way. At a red light, we happened upon a fella driving a very sharp car and had a little fun urging him up the hill. (I am not endorsing street racing nor suggesting we participated in anything illegal…but I am guessing the song was right and that car does goes 185.)
#28: Visit a “World’s Largest” thing. Another completely unplanned adventure but it’s on my list of Favorite Things. I really like visiting “World’s Largest” items, like the World’s Largest Bottle of Ketchup, the World’s Largest Shoe Made of Shoes, the World’s Largest Pecan, the World’s Largest Ball of Twine…I’ve been to see all of those and more. I even participated in building the World’s Largest Non-Round Balloon Sculpture in Belgium. Imagine my surprise when the Big Idaho Potato visited my ‘burb! It’s on a 48-foot long flatbed. The potato part is 28 feet long, 12 feet wide and 11.5 feet tall. It weight 12,130 pounds (equivalent to 32,346 medium Idaho potatoes), 1,102 times heavier than the largest potato ever grown. If it were a baked potato, it would take two years and nine months to bake and would make 30,325 servings of mashed potatoes.
#29: Run a half marathon. Alright, so here’s the scoop. I’m actually running three half marathons in a month, the Heartland 39.3. At the end of the third race, I plan to run another 0.7 miles to make it an even 40 miles for my 40th birthday. The first race in the series was this weekend. This is my first distance race after having an icky knee injury at the boxing gym and it was brutal. I was 30 minutes (not a typo, THIRTY) minutes behind my personal record. It was an embarrassing way to finish but I did finish and got my medal. Back to physical therapy I go in an attempt to finish the next two. Even though this is on my list of Favorite Things, I nearly removed it after this race but am hoping to find my mojo again soon.
#30: Spend an afternoon with Samara. She does my hair and she is also my friend. We had a fun afternoon talking about food, feather-y hats, more food and about a gazillion other things.
Whew! See what I’m saying? This has been SO much fun…so much that I’m behind in my sweets blogging, donut blogging and several other things that are required as a grown-up. Oh well, I’ve got ten more Favorite Things to chase down!
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