My 39th birthday was about six weeks after Q and I first met. There were a few logistics that prevented us from spending my actual birthday together, and he made the 325-mile trip the following weekend. We picked up yummies from Perry’s Meat Market and ate dinner together on my balcony overlooking the swimming pool. That was the beginning of our best birthday ever tradition. On his birthday a little more than two months after mine, we declared our love affair official and exclusive. Birthdays are a big deal around here.

The next year for #40, we shared the day with my entire family, the following year with my pregnant belly, Jon Alex’s soccer tournament and cheap Mexican food. This year, it was just me and him. Oh, and our baby.

Who loved his daddy more than pockets.

We miss him already, both a little weepy as we headed in the opposite direction of the love of our lives, but there are two more birthdays coming very quickly: the baby’s big #1 and Q’s big 3-0.  I’m planning as fast as I can.

Your best birthday ever in comments…

• my favorite story in the midst of it all
• “things I’ve been doing this week” because you do really care what I had for breakfast
• [Updated] I’m giving away a prize today!
• days like these…
• life outside the zen garden

Congrats to all the winners of this month’s giveaway! If all the people who enter the contest win the contest, does a tree still poop in the woods? I couldn’t decide and random.org was so random. Everybody’s happy, right?

March winners are:
Mommy Loves Stilettos
Artifacting
thenextmartha
Not A Momma
Sparkle ‘n Shine
The S.L.C Blog
Adrienne
laprimera
Amy the Bitchin Wife
Kristen
Deb on the Rocks
Psychobabble
A Lot of Loves
Five Blondes

Visit Woo Themes and choose your theme. Then leave your choice in the comments of this post. Please come back and share the link to your new digs after install. Congratulations!

• fringe friday fellowship—thank God edition
• [Updated] I’m giving away a prize today!
• relax yourselves, dairy farmers, we got this one
• I don’t know what you did all day, but for me, let’s sum up
• Fabitat for fumanity

Mr Lady was kind enough to share my giveaway with her readers last week. The contest ends tonight at midnight (yes, it’s always midnight somewhere) and I’ll draw and announce the winner in my weekend wordle post on Saturday. For today’s fringe friday, I thought I’d fellowship with the contest entrants. Please visit their blogs and click on some stuff while you’re there. Don’t you miss the old blogging days when visitors would stay and chat for weeks?

Michelle of Mommy Loves Stilettos shows her belly in her most recent post and confesses she has mom boobs. Love her.

Hubs blogs on Artifacting and is talking about Foursquare, the bane of my Twitter feed. I hope she’s the mayor of someplace cool.

thenextmartha doesn’t have a blog. She is perfect for my plan of world domination through  gifting new bloggers their very first template.

Woman after my own heart, Mary Jo at Not A Momma has a list of  “100 things” that stops at #10. Heh.

Debb at Sparkle ‘n Shine uses her blog as catharsis and wants a new template so she can look good while working it all out.

Lindsy at The S.L.C Blog learned the hard way what baby saliva can do to an electronic key fob. I’ve lost an iPhone and two TV remotes. Baby spit is da debil.

Adrienne is moving to wordpress.org next month, so she also falls right into my world domination trap.

laprimera is ready to tackle her some CSS. Which is good because managing your own blog and template requires a working knowledge of it.

I honestly think Woo Themes templates might be a little too boring for Amy the Bitchin Wife. She’s got a lot going on in her space. It’s like a party for your eyes.

Kristen feels like it’s time to move off Blogger. It’s always time to move off Blogger.

When Deb on the Rocks moves off Blogger, she must.keep.her.header. It’s all kinds of awesomeness and maraschino cherries.

Psychobabble brings Follow Friday off Twitter to her blog, which is all kinds of cool, and I wish I’d thought of it. She’s into sidebars and Woo Themes loves the sidebar.

These 12 lovely bloggers had a comment published on my giveaway post as of 8:41 p.m. on Thursday when this post was actually written. If anyone left a comment on the giveaway post after this writing, they are still entered, as long as it’s before midnight somewhere in the northern hemisphere.

Winner announced in tomorrow’s post.

Your Friday fellowship links in comments…

• [Updated] I’m giving away a prize today!
• following @the_real_shaq has become one of the top ten great decisions of my life
• the day Martin Luther King Jr called Jesus Christ a jerk and they wrestled for control of the Xbox in our living room
• Neil’s Great Interview Experiment finds my twin. She lives in Kansas City.
• It’s hot in here

1. We really enjoy the family time that comes with our Lego Rock Band and Band Hero. Perfect Christmas gifts that didn’t end up under the bed two days later.
2. I shouldn’t challenge my Highlander when the fuel light comes on like I used to challenge my tiny Protege. One day, the SUV gods will pull me over on the side of the road and tell me they installed that warning light for a reason.
3. I should go ahead and make myself at home in my cubiffice. I’m thinking pillows and a down comforter.
4. Four-hour drive with a baby in the back seat notwithstanding, I am excited about my trip tomorrow.
5. I have got to stop spending money as though this new job pays $200 K a year. It doesn’t.
6. This new Gorillaz album had better be as good as my Twitter stream says it is. I downloaded it without a single preview yesterday. Stay tuned…
7. Teething babies aren’t as cute and cuddly as you may have heard. Think piranha.
8. I miss the puppy. 10 more days until she comes home.
9. $1100 navigation systems should not ever get you lost. Ever. Mine never has any idea where it’s going.
10. Things you know to be true in comments…

• bikes, friendship & music
• freebee
• 100 Most Played
• the fringe wayback machine
• I Want to be Authentic

There’s gotta be an easier way to make money than working for it.

I actually don’t mind the job. Once I make work-friends, I’m sure I’ll really like it. For now, I’m just the new writer who rambles on because she’s not yet used to having grown-ups for company. There is no color in my cubiffice, no decor. Who knows if I’ll be there six days, six weeks or six months, so I’m kinda afraid to settle in. But within beige fabric walls, I feel blah. Especially since it feels like I drive to Dallas every morning and there is no mint on my pillow when I get there.

As I complain that this working all day thing is getting in the way of my online social life, Q reminds me I wasn’t making any money at it, which is true. So my blog design remains in limbo with unmatching fonts and unfinished headers. I have no control over my ad campaigns. I feel like I’m living with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long in The Money Pit.

Spring Break is next week and with the kids out of school and the puppy still at training camp, that will remove a little stress from me. I won’t have to inspect for brushed teeth and clean undies at five in the morning, and I won’t worry they are neglecting the dog while she’s pooping in the kitchen. I’ll leave behind a week’s worth of groceries and they will be so full from snacks, I won’t have to make dinner.

I have a birthday date with my husband this weekend. I plan to feel like a whole new person by Monday morning.

Rejuvenation in comments…

• off the top of my head
• A post in two parts
• Normal
• Full circle
• Sneaking in a Saturday post

It’s late, and it’s already been a long week, this whole 24 hours into it thing. I used to ask for one-word prompts in comments on my old blog, and how the words would fly around them. I asked for a prompt tonight from Q, and I had only the energy to search my archives for a post that may have used it. Close enough. Today’s one-word prompt: soft, post dated March 2007.

Boston, circa 1970

I don’t know how Churlita has all those old photos of her family posted to her blog all the time. I don’t have the patience to scan in my pictures from 1968 to the present. This one is the only digital image I have. 1970. Rocking the tangerine bunny overalls and the lemon yellow turtleneck.

This was taken while we were living in Boston right before we were headed back home to Texas. If I can get the story right, we were living in a basement apartment of the married couples’ dorm. It was at the bottom of a big hill. We have pictures of my older brother sledding down the hill. We also have summer pictures of us on that same hill having a little family picnic. I remember none of this. My actual memory, not flashes of intermittent images, begins around age three, maybe a little before.

My father’s first church was called South Park Community Parish. What a great name, eh? My dad has always been quite ecumenical and inclusive. “Parish”, to me, is warmer and more welcoming than “church”. Church can bite my butt. However, I can imagine singing softly to myself inside a parish. Blessed Assurance was my favorite hymn. I could also belt out a mean Battle Hymn of the Republic. Brandishing bayonets in the name of God with that kick-ass tune being played behind you? Victory was at hand, dude. Victory was at hand.

Earliest and best childhood memories in comments. Extra points to the ones who can still play Für Elise on piano or Twinkle, Twinkle on the violin. I still know my first chair saxophone “Star Wars” music. Every school band in the world was rocking the John Williams back in the day.

• The one in which I stop exposing the family jewels
• the day Martin Luther King Jr called Jesus Christ a jerk and they wrestled for control of the Xbox in our living room
• I can’t remember what free time used to mean to me, but now it means this
• I didn’t mean to keep you up all night
• the tipsy blogger

Last year, my birthday went by in such a 38-weeks-pregnant haze that for the entire year, I thought I was still 40 years old. This year, in a half-effort to pay more attention to myself, I’m acknowledging my birthday 1. in advance, which I rarely do and 2. buying myself stuff, which: always.

First up: Animal Crackers, not the cookie, but the board-and-train kennel 50 miles north of us in Spring, Texas. For the past several weeks, we’ve been trying in-home training. That doesn’t work for me. An hour a week does nothing for the remaining 167, and the dog was still chewing up stuff and barking her many displeasures. Michael at Michael’s Dogs answered his Internet-listed phone number at 7 am on Saturday and told me I was using the wrong Google search terms. “Doggie boot camp” was getting me nowhere except a chewed up vacuum cord. Searching “board and train” got us to Animal Crackers dog day care by 4:30 Saturday afternoon. Birthday gift #1.

Do you remember my complaining how straight Ehren’s hair was, and then Erica stepping in with the assurance that around 8-months-old, the baby’s curls would magically appear? How right she was. I cut them all off yesterday. Birthday gift #2.

The kids are walking to the neighborhood gift shop, also known as Walgreens, this afternoon as I listen to the sound of the dog not barking and as I prepare snacks for Oscar red carpet viewing. DirecTV is offering each nominated movie on-demand for $4.99. I have seen exactly zero, so that sounds like the perfect way to spend the 8-hour wait, but have I mentioned doggie day camp? I’m just happy, for free, to see what Gabourey Sidibe is gonna wear. Birthday gifts #3 and #4.

Birthday gift #5: a day’s work in my new cubiffice. Did you know if you factor in the underemployed and those working on temp contracts, no matter how long-term (like mine), the US unemployment rate is closer to 17 percent than to the currently reported 9.8?

I’ll leave the rest of my birthday up to Q, hoping at least some of it involves new shoes and, um, stuff.

• all ears and condoms
• 1:13 p.m. Monday
• Fringe Break 2007: March 7-March 18
• Like watching an elephant take flight wearing lollipop donkey pants
• a little housekeeping