An Excellent Birthday

All in all, I had a truly excellent sixteenth birthday. Yes, all my relatives forgot; and yes, I cried for a while; and yes, I felt my last hope for my relatives to magically become decent people, die. But the good outweighs the bad.

I woke up in the morning to find a Happy Birthday banner across the top of my door, as our dorm does for every girl in the house. In between homework assignments, I made a birthday card for a housemate with the same birthday, and opened my card and my gifts. The card benefitted Unicef, whom I hate at the moment (They stopped adoption from Guatemala without having a backup system in place, and now there are a bunch of stranded children, including those in the middle of being adopted.), but the gift was lovely. I had asked my mother for fabric, yarn, and sewing supplies; given her a few color guidelines; and asked her to surprise me. I wound up with light turquoise fabric with brownish-red dots; light green fabric with small white dots; tie-dye orange and blue fabric; pink flowered fabric; blue paisley flowered fabric; orange, blue, turquoise, white, and pink thread; two packs of buttons in different color schemes; self-patterning yarn varying from green through blue to purple; self-patterning yarn varying from yellow through green to blue; red yarn; green yarn; and a large pack of polyfill (stuffing). Too cool!!!

I spent the rest of the day sewing in between more homework. Many, many people wished me happy birthday in person, or wrote on my facebook wall, or emailed me, or called me. Too many to count! I am in awe at the number of lives I have touched and who have touched mine.

My housemother gave me a card and a giftcard to starbucks. My affiliate housemother gave me a card and a really great keychain. "Jan" gave me a random singing Shrek doll, and "Leeann" gave me a tiny little stuffed dog in a purse. At our dorm's nightly meeting in the evening, I got a cake and a group card. My day ended with the loveliest email ever from "John", sent to me at 10:41 pm.

I am blessed with friends who have become my family. I am blessed!!!