Happy 23 to me

Birthdays are challenging, but today is ok. It’s even kind of nice. My godmother took me out for breakfast, and I ordered a delicious salad with mango, banana chips, strawberries, mandarin oranges, and coconut-crusted chicken. Salad isn’t a standard breakfast food, but it was just the thing, and there was so much of it that I ate the rest for lunch. Sadly, my camera batteries had to be sacrificed to the thermostat, but I am resolving to take more pictures of my food in the new year, so maybe that’ll happen. It was a beautiful salad though- very colorful.

Today is also apparently National Haircut Day, because I had to go to five salons before someone was willing to take me without an appointment. I had a short list of things that I wanted to accomplish today though, and a haircut was on it, so I kept trying, and it was 100% worth it, because the haircut I finally got was awesome. I love the feeling of someone else washing my hair, and even though she didn’t do anything crazy as far as changing hair styles, it made me feel pretty. And relaxed. It was a delightful little birthday treat.

I’m still hoping for a birth today, but my mom and I took my mentee’s husband to the store to wrap up their WIC shopping for the month. Tops is usually great, but they’ve taken all the WIC labels off the shelves, and so now it’s extra challenging, and I managed to get the wrong kinds of both bread, and juice. It wasn’t the end of the world, and they are very accomodating, but I don’t understand why the store would do away with a policy that makes a difficult system easier. Earlier today Lillian and I were strategizing for how I’m going to live when I’m in nursing school and can’t work, trying to come up with foods that are cheap and nourishing, and won’t result in my getting scurvy. It sort of reminded me of playing the Sims (without cheating, which I almost never did), but she thought it was grim, so we stopped. The thing is though, that I will manage. Even with zero income, I will make it work. People do it with less all the time. It’s slightly unfortunate that I vowed to never have Ikea furniture (it sounds dramatic, but I seriously hate Ikea furniture. An Ikea dresser nearly resulted in a mass homicide incident in my house once when we tried to move it up the stairs, fully assembled. It was not pretty, and from then on I swore I would never have any Ikea furniture in my own home. Which is sad, because that probably means my apartment will be very empty/I’ll have to make all of my furniture out of stolen wooden pallets), but it will be ok. I remember reading once in Dwell that you should prioritize nice pieces instead of wasting your money on crappy furniture anyway. And I like the look of empty rooms- they’re good for dancing around.

Ok, that wasn’t quite where I meant to end up in my happy-birthday-to-me -I-got-a-haircut-and-now-want-to-buy-a-hair-straightener post, but it all comes back to me feeling lucky today. I’m very blessed. 22 was a good year (for the most part), but 23 feels like it’s going to be awesome. I’m excited to see what 23 has in store for me.