Please direct all gifts c/o me

Oh hey, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BLOG! A whole entire year of...um, this. I have to say, I'm pretty impressed. At the outset of this thing I only gave you a few weeks, tops. Here, have a piece of coffee cake! You earned it.

Yes, I made "Blueberry Overload Coffee Cake" with no blueberries. Raspberry Overload is just as legit.

Speaking of birthdays, on Thursday I took advantage of my birthday present from the Loontjers, which was: A Perfect Day.

Step 1: Empty house.

It's so adorable when it's sleeping.

Step 2: Awesome destinations.

Occasionally throughout the past month I would just take these out of the card and look at them and smile.

Turns out Step 1 was really hard to abandon in favor of Step 2. Probably because I have actually fit a few tacos and bookstore trips into the past two years, but having the house to myself was pretty novel. And great. Eventually, though, I got hungry and remembered something important: tacos are also great.

Especially the Mojo Fish and Heather tacos from Tacodeli.

After lunch, I basically went nuts and bought everything at Barnes and Noble.

I blame the decaf.

Then, a healthy snack to get me through a matinee of Bridesmaids.

Made of fruit!

It was, obviously, an exceptionally good day. So good that I thought, "Maybe I should also abandon my child for an entire day tomorrow." And I did. It was ladies-in-law joint-birthday day, so I left Anna with Dan and headed to San Antonio for female activities.

I did leave him tons of these things for sustenance:

He ate other stuff instead.

I didn't take any pictures of Girl's Day Out, but it involved massages and queso and me sort of getting called out by a Chico's employee for making fun of one of their hats, so basically a success.

From what I understand, in the two days I was gone, Anna was both happily social and active.

Noted.