It always makes me sad when I hear that someone plans to not celebrate their birthday or, even worse, just completely ignore it.  As we get older, this seems to be a more and more common occurrence, and I don’t think it’s right!   It’s not as if by not acknowledging the day, the [...]]]>

It always makes me sad when I hear that someone plans to not celebrate their birthday or, even worse, just completely ignore it.  As we get older, this seems to be a more and more common occurrence, and I don’t think it’s right!   It’s not as if by not acknowledging the day, the aging process won’t continue.  We’re getting older every single day whether we like it or not.  You have this one day a year that’s your day… shouldn’t you make it special?  Embrace it!  I actually usually celebrate multiple times throughout the month of February.  February’s my month – I’ve claimed it. 

Anyway I’ve decided to make a small list of things that I like to do every year to make my birthday extra special and also re-cap what I’ve done to celebrate so far this year.   These are just some suggestions… your day should be about you and what you want to do!

1.  Spend time with the people you care about.

I always have two parties every year – one with the family and one with my friends.  The family one is usually a joint birthday celebration with my brother since his birthday is about two weeks before mine.  We usually celebrate the weekend in between- often for the Super Bowl. Some people might not like having to share a birthday party, but I actually like it better this way.  I like sharing and I think it just makes it more fun.  I also like that the celebration is a week before my actual birthday, because it kind of gets things started and serves as a sort of kick-off for my birthday season. 

This year, for my friends party, I had all the usual suspects over (Tom & Heather, Jenn & Dan and, of course, Kevin) plus my BFF Andrea and her husband Ryan , which was awesome and extra special, because I normally only get to see them a couple times a year.  This was great.  I prefer to keep my parties on the smaller side just because it’s easier and less stressful (and my house really can’t fit that many people!).  I probably could have had a few more people over, but in the end, these are the really important friends that I wanted there to celebrate my special day with me.

2.  Take some time off from work.

Please don’t work on your birthday if you can help it.  Take at least a day off.  How can your day be really special if you’re going to work?  There’s nothing special about going to work – you do that every day!  Work is going to totally cramp your style and potentially even make your day a bad day. That’s just unacceptable. For the last few years, I’ve actually been taking a whole week off for my birthday.  I highly recommend it.

3. Buy yourself a birthday gift.

I always like to buy myself a gift for my birthday every year.  I work hard all year and I deserve it.  Now this is partially because my birthday falls around tax refund time, so I have a little extra cash to buy myself a toy – usually a fairly expensive toy.  I do understand that this may not be feasible for everyone.  I do think, though, that everyone should treat themselves to a little something special – even if it’s something small.  You deserve it!   This year, I bought myself a new camera – my first DSLR.  I got a Canon EOS Rebel T1i, and because I took a week off from work, I have plenty of time to play with it!

4. Overindulge.

If there were ever a time to overindulge this is it!  There is a ridiculous amount of chocolate in my house right now, and I won’t lie, I’ve eaten it for breakfast a few times over the last couple of days.  I’ve eaten out a lot over the past week and on my actual birthday, Kevin and I visited a couple of beer bars and started drinking at 2pm.  It was my day and that is what I wanted to do.  There has been a lot of beer, wine, chocolate and fried food consumed over the last few days. Eventually I’m going to have to go back to my old routine, but for now, I will eat and drink whatever I want.  It’s my week.

So that’s it!  Those are my rules for having an awesome birthday.  As I stated above, these are just some suggestions.  Heck, if you really want to go to work on your birthday, I guess you can go to work.  I just wouldn’t recommend it.  The main thing is that you should just enjoy the day!

Here are a few photos from my week!

Seems that things have been more than a bit hectic here in The World According To Kate and blogging has kind of had to take a back seat to more important things… like work – that thing that helps me pay the bills and allows me to keep The [...]]]> Well, long time no post, eh?

Seems that things have been more than a bit hectic here in The World According To Kate and blogging has kind of had to take a back seat to more important things… like work – that thing that helps me pay the bills and allows me to keep The World According To Kate filled with fun and excitement.  Yes, the old work-life balance seems to have become dramatically weighted towards the work ends of things and I have  had neither the time nor the motivation to do any sort of updating as of late.

There does seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel ( I can see it!  I can see it! ) and things should be returning back to business as usual around here in the not too distant future.

In the mean time, I leave you with this: