Melissa's 37th Birthday

Happy Birthday to Me!  Happy Birthday to Me!  Today I turn 37 years old!

When I first saw that my birthday fell on a Saturday this year, I had a bunch of thoughts on how I wanted to celebrate.  I've been through many iterations including weekend trips to Walt Disney World, New York City, Boston, Springfield, MA and more.  But with our busiest part of the year heating up already, that didn't really make much sense.

I've also had a bunch of thoughts about things to do locally.  Unfortunately, most of those things are Christmasy things, and the holiday season isn't fully upon us yet.  Idea after idea got crushed when I found out that L.L. Bean doesn't start their holiday stuff until November 22nd.  Something else I wanted to do, didn't start until the 26th.  (I've been through so many different ideas that I don't even remember what that one was.)  

I won't lie... I was getting pretty bummed out about it.  November 20th is a hard time of the year to have a birthday.  It's too early for most Christmas events, and it's right before Thanksgiving when a lot of that seasonal stuff does kick off.

Yesterday morning, my Mom called to ask about my plans.  I told her we didn't have any and that I was discouraged about it.  Going out to dinner is something Eliot and I do fairly often, so it doesn't really feel "special" to me.  My Mom totally buried the lead though, because she knew of something that we could do, that was opening tomorrow!

Boothbay Harbor's Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens hosts their "Gardens Aglow" event each year at Christmas time.  I've seen it advertised and I've been wanting to go see it sometime!  I was pretty excited when Mom said it was opening this weekend!  So yesterday, as soon as I got off of the phone, I bought tickets for two cars so we could drive through the gardens later on tonight!

Our plan for today is that Eliot and I will travel north a bit early so we can poke around Hobby Lobby in Waterville, and a few stores in Augusta.  Then, Mom, Dad and Nana will meet us at the Augusta Texas Roadhouse for dinner.  After dinner, we'll kill a little bit of time, if necessary, before traveling over to Boothbay Harbor.  Then, we'll enter the Botanical Gardens during our time slot of 8:00 pm!

It's not anything crazy, but I'm pretty excited about it!  Eliot and I have a ton of orders to work on and our house needs a little bit of TLC this weekend.  This will allow me to have a wonderful birthday today, and we can still get a bunch of stuff accomplished tomorrow!  It'll be the best of both worlds!  And, my birthday falls on a Sunday next year... so I've got a whole year to plan ahead if we want to getaway for it!

So, this is 37!!!  ChEARS to me having another wonderful year ahead of me!!!  °o°