(Birthday) Weekend Update

Friends, we made it.

We've finally landed in our first big city (a top-ten market!) where we will spend the next five years while I attempt to procure yet another tiny piece of paper. The move itself was insane, involving a 6:00 am departure, a nervous cat, and the worst customer service experience ever with a certain cable company that I shall not name on the internet because I don't want to be sued. However, you cannot truly appreciate the entire moving experience without an understanding of the Birthday Week and its role in these past few days.

Ok, in my family a considerable amount of hoopla goes into anyone's birthday. A few years ago, I described the NFL game road trip that we surprised The Boss with on his birthday. In the spirit of The Boss, who likes to assert that he has more of a Birthday Month or Birthday Quarter than merely one day, Husband has slowly broadened the scope of his birthday over the past few years. You may recall his Birthday Weekend a few years ago. Well, this year, he decided that he really was entitled to a Birthday Week. The catch, however, was that his Birthday Week happened to fall on the week in which we moved. Out of state. As in, from one state into another state.

As you can imagine, much ado was made about the injustice of this move and how it was ruining the Birthday Week. Poor Husband had to pack boxes DURING HIS BIRTHDAY WEEK and go through his clothes to set some aside for Goodwill ON HIS BIRTHDAY. In fact, Husband declined his traditional birthday breakfast in bed because he had to go to work early so he could come home early to pack the Uhaul.... DURING HIS BIRTHDAY WEEK.

Once we got here, to the state where they make you put tags on the back and front of your car (seriously?!), Husband decided he'd had enough: "I'm not going to unpack a single thing. Its my Birthday Week. I'm going to sit on the..... on the floor...... and eat cake." Because, you see, Husband decided he wanted to sell all of our furniture before we moved, and I had not yet procured a couch for him to sit upon DURING HIS BIRTHDAY WEEK.

We'd heard the lore about Ikea (and we now live in a city that has one), so off we trudged to find some furniture. We had previously visited about 7 furniture stores in the area and found them all to be way out of our price range, so you can imagine how excited I was about the prospect of more shopping. But Husband wanted a couch FOR HIS BIRTHDAY, so off we went.

People, Ikea is a land of unicorns and butterflies and I would live there if they would let me bring my books.

After much debate, which included Motha! and I dragging various pieces of furniture across the store to see things together (I thought Husband might go wait in the car at one point), we finally decided on a couch and coffee table, and I found a bookshelf, which The Boss and Motha! were buying for me as a congratulatory "you survived your MA!" present.

Et voila!

Husband was quite content to sit on his couch and eat the cookies that Cass, M.D. (Brother Robby's sweet wife) baked him for his birthday. Later that night when everyone was gone, we were sitting there together, and Husband turns to me and says, "welcome home."