Remind me never to brag about not getting sick again. Because when you do that, sometimes your brother and sister-in-law will come visit you, and they’ll bring a tiny, three-year-old germ machine with them.

And then you’ll find your mom, your dad, yourself, your lovely husband, and even your tiny innocent child the victim of a cruel, cruel, flu-like joke.

Please send chocolates.

Somewhere, in a land where February temperatures average somewhere in the 70’s, a gal’s big brother turns 33. Have a great birthday! 

We celebrated Neil’s birthday yesterday (34!) with some quality family together time (lunch, grocery shopping, reflection on birthdays past) and lots of catering to the birthday boy. There can never be enough of that on a person’s birthday, I always say. Though I did offer to do the shoveling when we woke up to a fresh blanket of snow, but he didn’t take me up on it.

(To put yourself in our snowy day, imagine our cute little pink house in a snow globe. That’s exactly what I looked like throughout the day. Big, big flakes floating through the air, covering everything in sight. Beautiful.)

About halfway through the day, the mailman came by with the usual assortment of catalogs and bills, and one special gift for the Neilster. A while back, I commissioned a portrait of Nola from an artist out in California named Rachel Rifat. I never thought I’d be the kind to buy a pet portrait, but I really liked what I saw of her work (which, by the way, is a lot more than just pet portraits).

I sent this photo out to Rachel along with some facts about Nola’s personality:

And this is what she made:

That’s Dash dangling spaghetti down to Nola, something you can see happening in this house several times a day. Not that he only eats spaghetti. He’s happy to share anything that’s on his plate with the dog.

Neil loooved it (he probably thought he was getting a new sweater or something) and even though it wasn’t anything like what I thought it would look like, I love it more each time I look at it. I can’t decide what I love most: the color, the way she totally captured the essence of Nola even in black and white, or is it Dash’s little baby feet?

Um, yeah. It’s the baby feet.

Anyway, this family is still full from Dash’s birthday cupcakes so Neil opted for birthday scones. Lemon Blueberry scones. My own recipe. Yum! I’ll do my best to get a picture of them before the disappear for good, but no promises. They’re just that good.

And now it’s the day after his birthday and in true perfect birthday form, it’s stretching into a birthday weekend-week. A little bowling tonight (talk of which led to a hilarious joke involving neil and balls that I will never let him forget) with friends is next on the list.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Neil took our car to the dealership yesterday to have them look at our heater which is making this insanely loud (think industrial machine loud) blowing sound.

Technician (after examining the issue): You know there’s a huge rodent nest in there, right?

Neil: Huh. Riiiight.