Thirty-Six

I am 36. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I remember thinking 36 was, like, a real adult, when I was in high school. Does that mean that I am now a real adult? It doesn't feel like it. Am I supposed to feel differently? I do a lot of grown-up things, like pay taxes, buy groceries, and take care of my daughter. But am I really not just still a kid? Is this what all those old people mean when they say cliche things like "But I don't feel old"? Have I really become that? Life is so weird.

My birthday this year was shared with the polar vortex, which is some fancy weather related term that means Canada got tired of being cold all by herself so she's pushed all this freakishly cold air down to the US to make us miserable too. Really, it's not necessary. We had a wind chill of 9! That's insane. Texans were not built for this. I've been getting a lot of use out of my new Keurig, making hot chocolate and cider.

Nick and I went to Texas de Brazil for my birthday dinner, mostly because it's delicious but also because they sent me a birthday coupon for a free dinner when you purchase one. Considering that a dinner is pretty much $50, I was all about a freebie. It still cost us around $85 by the time we had a piece of chocolate heaven the size of my face and left our over-chatty waiter a tip. But that was better than $135, right?  It was so good. I might have consumed enough meat to feed a small village. It's so hard to say no, especially to that garlic sirloin and flank steak they walk around with. Yum. Not to mention the ginormous salad bar.

 I spent my birthday shopping with some birthday money I had and spending some gift cards that I got for Christmas. I found some really cute stuff, so in all it was a pretty good day! I wasn't even annoyed when we handed my phone to a random manager at the restaurant and he took a terribly blurry picture of us before we left. Well ok, yes, I was annoyed. It's not that hard to focus.  But anyway...