March 18, 2020

I just want to start by saying that every new day is worth the effort. Despite the craziness happening around the world, it has always been important to me to make every moment count, whether it’s in celebrating a milestone, resetting, or finding healing.

That being said… yesterday was my 28th birthday! …also my 6th day in quarantine… BUT we made the best of it!

Being in quarantine made celebrating my birthday a bit tricky because I hadn’t left my village in almost a week, and hadn’t even gotten in my car to get groceries or see friends/family. Luckily, I have a great community of neighbors and friends around me, and we got together for a pandemic-social-distancing-quarantine themed outdoor movie night. We watched Contagion, which was intentionally ironic because that is essentially real life events right now. We stomached it without too much cringe though.

Initially, I had zero plans for my birthday. I’d been spending most of my quarantine evenings either blogging (so much time to blog these days, I love it!) or watching movies on our rad new projector that Ian’s parents gifted us for Christmas. I thought it would suck to not do anything at all, and asked Ian if we could do an outdoor movie night. He discussed with our friend and neighbor Traci, and we were a go! Ian sent out a message to a few neighbors that we share our yard with so it would still be considered a “stay at home party”. Plus we all practiced social distancing and situated ourselves at least 6 feet apart.

The view, and our cute simple set up: white fabric and string lights taped to a shipping container

Traci and Ano’s cozy couch set up, with Officer up on top

Made some bomb fish lumpia, which Ian was mmMmm-ing so hard lol

Ian was even disinfecting the camp chairs with Lysol hahaha

Photos of me and Ian taken by Traci

Can we all have your immunity, Matt Damon?!

The friends/neighbors all keeping their distance from us hahah

Thank goodness WHO let the dogs out… Yodi snuggled so hard with us during the movie

From earlier that day

 I was in the middle of a conference call for my annual employee performance review–which I’m pretty sure I nailed–when Ian came in with this lovely brunch spread for me! I waved him away while I finished up my call, then Ian came back and snapped this cute flick and told me to open up my sweet gift… also pandemic themed, organic patchouli soap! I’m definitely the type of person that truly appreciates handmade natural bar soaps, so I love that Ian gets me.

I’m truly so grateful for this man coming into my life, loving me the way he does, accepting me for who I am, and wanting to grow old with me too. 

Happy birthday to meeeee!