birthday party!

starting 3:06 p.m.

yesterday was erin's birthday, and we had a lovely party last night. our friend emily came over and brought 90's music, guacamole makings and some chips, and i put together things for making beverages/smoothies from local strawberries and organic bananas and some non-organic, non-local wet goods (seltzer, sparkling cider, pineapple juice) which we sipped from pretty new-to-us glasses with straws and paper umbrellas while we worked on a totally unnecessary dinner. we were so full of guacamole and strawberry smoothie by the time dinner was ready that we each only ate a small bowl of salad before declaring ourselves too stuffed to eat anything more! we soon re-evaluated that declaration when we remembered that christine had procured a vegan cake with erin's name on it, and i had snagged some organic ice cream to go with. yum! there was a lot of laughter and good friends togetherness in the name of celebrating that erin is in our lives :)

oh, there were also presents from emily in the shape of a mortar 'n' pestle and a set of star-shaped popsicle molds that we promptly filled with smoothie!

happy birthday erin!

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another baby step i'm taking: i've given up q-tips cold turkey. i'm on day 3 without them. this is a big deal. i was seriously addicted, and it was dangerous to my health/wellbeing. yes, i'm dramatic. i used to get ear infections through my teen years that stemmed from moisture that got into my ear canal. scared by the pain of some of these infections, i started meticulously cleaning any and all moisture out of my ears at least once a day. then they were itchy... so i soothed the itch by "scratching" it with another q-tip. sad sad story is that i think i've totally stripped my ears of any useful oils and wax that could reside in there, and i'm hoping that they'll even themselves out in time with the discontinuation of q-tip use. i've also heard that a drop of olive oil in the ear can help them stop being so dang itchy until they figure it out. i'm not ready to try that yet, though.