My Birthday weekend!

Greetings everyone! First, I want to sincerely thank you all for my lovely birthday wishes! I am truly blessed to have such thoughtful and caring friends and family!

I would just like to share some pics from my birthday weekend with all of you. 😊

Started off pretty great with my sister Aurora Skye and I spending some time together on Saturday. She brought my some very lovely presents to enjoy as well as a delicious triple chocolate bunt cake - YUMMY! ...

A pair of cute Harley Quinn socks, a pair of beautiful earrings, a cool dragon illustrated book marker, a large Yankee candle of my favorite scent - Midsummer's Night, and a large bottle of Arbor Mist Exotic Fruits White Zinfandel!

Cuddling up with Butterscotch! LOL! ,,,

On Sunday afternoon, Brett took me to go see the movie, "Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey"... Loved it!! He also bought me a commemorative tin with our large popcorn ... 😎

Trailer for the movie, "Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey"

https://youtu.be/x3HbbzHK5Mc

After the movie, my close friend Deb picked me up at the theater and took me out to PJ Whelihan's for a nice birthday dinner ...

... and some more wonderful gifts! A spa set, a two-piece earring and heart necklace set, a beautiful Friendship table book, and a large bottle of Barefoot Moscato white wine with a star bottle cork to go with it!

Finally, we ended the evening stopping by to see Deb's hubby Dave and a few other special friends at The Station at Reinholds Inn.

(L-R) Jimmy, me, and Deb. Pictured below is our sweet friend Mandi!

Posing pretty with Dave ...

Thank you for sharing in my birthday celebration, my friends! Have a blessed week!

Fun Friday!

Happy Friday everyone! Hope all is well with all of you! This weekend is my birthday - I will turn 26 ... um, I mean 56 years old on Sunday. Okay, let's try this again, I will be 26 and HOLDING - LOL! At any rate, I had an early little surprise from my trainer friend at work, Jesenia, who also happens to have a chef's license. Her son, who plans on going to school to pursue a career as a chef as well, has been playing around with his very own cake recipes as of late and she mentioned to him that my birthday was this weekend so he sent a delicious slice of his very own baked cake to work with her to give especially to me for my birthday - how very sweet and thoughtful of him. It was a moist two layer chocolate cake with cherries and homemade icing! It was scrumptious indeed! 

Every week, Jesenia switches up her chef's meal and dessert menu - this week her specials were chicken fried rice with crab rangoons (or cheese wantons to some) and egg rolls - ALL HOMEMADE!

Generously stuffed crab rangoons!

Also on this weeks' menu, was a succulent grilled rosemary chicken breast with roasted potatoes and choice of another veggie or salad. I actually ordered this last week as well and the chicken breast was so nice and big that I was able to get four small sandwiches out of it for lunches.

Last Monday, we had a little baby shower at work for a co-worker and I asked Jesenia to bake these delicious cupcakes for everyone. I had left overs and decided to take them home to enjoy later ...

And last, but not least she brought me a birthday cupcake she baked - chocolate peanut butter!

Boy, after this year's birthday, I will have to seriously go back to my strict diet again. Thank God spring is on its' way - soon I hope! Have a great day, my friends!!

Fun song for Sunday

Saturday odds and ends

Happy Saturday everyone! I hope you enjoyed the Valentine's Day holiday. Yesterday I worked - although eighty percent of my co-workers chose to take a vacation day - and my trainer friend, Jesenia, was kind enough to offer me a special gift of a big chocolate-covered strawberry, gave me hug and wished me a Happy Valentine's Day ...

And in addition, I also received a couple of special little Valentine's Day cards from both Brett and my fur babies ...

After I got home from work, I treated myself to a couple of  Jesenia's hand-made cupcakes and a slice of her baked red velvet cheesecake with cool whip ...

And washed it all down with a glass of limited edition Bailey's Irish Cream's Chocolate Cherry liquor on ice ... YUMMY GOOD!

Speaking of Valentine's Day, here's wishing all a very Happy Lupercalia (for those who celebrate it). For those who do not know what this festival is and/or wish to learn more about it, I have included a link here to one of my past posts regarding the origins of the contemporary holiday of Valentine's Day here.

And last but not least, I did something this week which I have honestly not done in thirty years - I watched the Oscars. The only reason I decided to do this is because the week before, I watched Joaquin Phoenix win the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his role in the movie "Joker" and he also was up for the same honor in regards to an Oscar this year. And, not surprisingly, he won! The movie was also nominated for Best Picture as well, but lost to "Parasite." Quite frankly, I am not surprised about that outcome either as too much controversy scares the Academy - as was also the case when the Oliver Stone film, "JFK" was nominated for Best Picture back in 1991 and lost. At any rate, having seen his performance, Phoenix's award was well deserved! BTW, in addition to the Golden Globes and Oscars, he won the People's Choice Award,  Screen Actor's Guild Award, and BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role all for his performance in the movie Joker. 😁

https://youtu.be/kxyLkWkXO5o

Have a great weekend, friends!! 

Ginger (top) and Merlin (bottom)

Valentine's Day greetings!

Wordless Wednesday (second post)

Wordless Wednesday!

A cool evening 'Out'!

Greetings, friends! Last night was the "Get The Led Out" concert held at The Santander Arena in downtown Reading, PA. Along with my friend Deb and her hubby Dave, we were joined by their good friends of many years, Jan and Mike. We decided to make reservations for dinner before the show at a local Chinese restaurant just across the street from the concert venue called, "Lang's." Deb and I ate snack a little earlier in the day so we chose to split the dinner - we ordered chicken lo mein ... 💜

The show began at 8PM and it was so AWESOME!! 

We met up with our buddy, Kyle in the lobby just before the start of the show. Kyle is the the friend who has a Led Zeppelin tattoo on his arm. He was there with his parents who got him into Zep's music as a kid! WAY TO GO!!

These guys played everything from "Bring It On Home" to "Going to California" to "In My Time f Dying" and "Dazed and Confused," "All of My Love" to "Kashmir," "Living Loving Maid," "Heartbreaker" and "Whole Lotta Love" PLUS much, much more! I would DEFINITELY go see them again given the chance!!

As I said, we had a snack earlier for lunch so we went to Chili's and had some salsa and chips ...

We had a couple of hours to play with so we attended the Valentine's Day event right down the road from my house at a neat little place called, "The Mint Leaf."  They have all sorts of cool little items - gourmet food and desserts and a lot of nice gift shops that remind me a bit of "The Cracker Barrel" (clothing, hand crafted jewelry, etc.)

One of the vendors there was "The Rebel Hive Meadery" where we found some delicious specialty wines such as "Chocolate Cherry Lee Lewis" and "Respect Your Elders." They also had some great snacks such as these little goodies...

And last, but not least, Deb knew what an extremely stress-filled week I happened to have this week at work, and surprised me with this sweet and thoughtful little early Valentine's Day gift. It was from a pic she took from her last company Christmas Party a couple of weeks or so ago. She ordered a 5 x 7 print of it and added a personal message for me on the back of it (it even rhymes - lol) ... 💗

We also had a nice little surprise to help make my day - while out and about, Deb and I ran into my sister Aurora Skye and her good friend Kathy at our local Ulta Store. 😍

)o(        )o(        )o(        )o(        )o(        )o(        )o(

(Gratuitous kitty pic of Mr. Jack - Dave and Deb's fur baby)

Wishing everyone a great week!!