Samsara

Thank you all for your wonderful birthday wishes! It was a great day indeed ;D

My parents took Jared and I to Shango for dinner, a New Orleans bistro with AMAZING food and an extensive beer and wine list. Mmm. So good. Then we went to Butterwood for dessert instead of a traditional cake, and split chocolate martinis and some absurdly delicious and decadent treats. I was so full at the end of the night I couldn't tell if the alcohol was affecting me or if I was going into diabetic shock. (ya never know...) To make things even more awesome, Jared and I went home (yes, it is our HOME now :D) and watched Atonement, which I adore and he had never seen (but he liked it!). It's a rare treat for us to watch good movies these days- we mostly get our kicks from watching really bad movies, like Dario Argento's Phantom of the Opera (Oh Julian Sands... you remarkable actor you... :P). (Two words about that movie, also: Telepathic Rats.... Uh huh.)

Also a reward for making it through 25 years of life (or, "for my birthday gift) my mother got me a Kindle! :D :D :D So now, friends, if you have writing you want me to read, send it this way! I have the means to carry your million page manuscript with me wherever I go! I'm so psyched for this. Also, for travel- how awesome to not have to leave a book I loved/paid airport prices for behind just because it wont fit in my suitcase?

And, as a gift to myself, I bought Scrivener Friday night with some of the down-payment money i received for my freelance job. It was also an investment in my career ;) It. Is. Awesome. I highly recommend it to all my writer friends who have ever dreamed of setting up a war/writing strategy room with cork boards and index cards and filing cabinets full of research and images and ideas... it IS that, but it's all on a single window on your computer. Cats can't come in and rip down your index cards! And you can compile the summaries on your index cards to make a basic outline, which makes writing a synopsis easy as cake. Or pie, whichever you prefer. And, when you just want to straight up write, you can choose "full screen" and it just becomes a black screen with an off-white book page in the middle. Nice. And those are only some of the features! It's only $40, and I think you all owe it to yourselves to invest in your careers.

Apparently Jared was going to take me to Hershey Park this weekend, but then discovered it's about 6 hours from Buffalo (oops). He has a backup plan, but he's all disappointed and thinks he's a bad fiance now, also because he tried to get me flowers yesterday after work but the places he went to only had crappy bouquets. So cute. Also on that front, he absolutely adores his new job/the "consumers" he works with :)

Tonight, swing dance lesson and cuddling! Maybe unpacking some more of my junk? Hanging art/posters? With the excitement never cease?!