Its gotta be better than last year....

Tomorrow I will turn 31.  It feels like only yesterday when I was blissfully writing this post, where I gushed about how excited I was to turn 30.  Although we didn't have any real plans, I was looking forward to spending my special day with the two most important men in my life:  Greg and Parker. 

Sadly, my day didn't go as smooth as I had hoped, and it's something I never blogged about...until now:  Greg had been very un-happy for several months with the management at the wind farm he transferred too in Texas.  So un-happy that he began having a few anxiety attacks.  One happened the morning of my birthday (after I had posted my blog).  He was at work digging up fence posts (which had nothing to do with his job description, mind you), when he called and told me his chest felt tight and that he was having a hard time breathing.  I was pretty confident that it was from the horrible anxiety that his job was giving him, and I told him he should tell his manager.  Well, in the work force, when one mentions that their chest is hurting and they need to leave work, they assume one is having a heart attack.  Which meant the only way the manager would allow him to leave was if someone took him to the ER.

Now, I will never pretend to be a doctor or a nurse, but I was very confident that my husband was not having a heart attack.  However, they required him to go through extensive testing and wanted him to stay over-night to monitor him.  Obviously, Greg's safety is more important to me than celebrating a birthday, but since I just knew he wasn't about to keel over and die, I was a little disappointed that I had to have my birthday dinner at the neighboring McDonald's with only little P.J. as company (granted he's good company, but I would have rather Greg been there, too).

To save on gas, Greg had been driving our car to and from work.  Which meant I was driving our truck.  No big deal, except it kept having issues with the connectors of the battery slipping off, and it always seemed to happen when I was driving.  That evening as I went to leave the hospital, I was trying and failing to start the truck.  It was miserably hot in Texas, Parker was starting to fuss in his car seat, and that was when my sister who lives on the other side of the world, chose to call me and tell me Happy Birthday.   Her first words to me were, "Happy Birthday, are you having a good day?"  Exasperated and on the verge of tears I yelled at her the way a sibling can only yell at another sibling, "NO!  Call me back in 10 minutes!"   Luckily, the truck started a few minutes later and I was on the way "home" sans my husband.  It was definitely not the best way to begin a new, exciting decade and then to cap it off I got to go to bed solo. 

The following day, Greg was released from the hospital, but was told he couldn't go back to work until he saw a heart specialist.  That appointment was three weeks away, so we figured we may as well go to our lake house (which is now our "real house").  And, in typical Greg fashion, since he had three weeks "off" he decided that would be the best time to begin the remodel on the lake house....isn't that what any person who just got released from the hospital would do?

On our drive to the lake house, Greg finally revealed to me what my birthday present was.  The order had been delayed and we knew for several days that it wouldn't arrive until a few days after my birthday.  He felt so guilty for my lack of a "happy" birthday, he broke down and told me he ordered a hammock for me online.  I was so excited, because I have always longed for afternoons of me lounging in a hammock reading a book (I'm a real bundle of excitement, aren't I?)

In order to keep my birthday present a secret, Greg had ordered and paid for it using a checking account that we rarely use.  He then made me promise not to go online for any reason to check that account, because he figured I would google the company he ordered the gift from and spoil my surprise.  I promised I would avoid that account, and true to my word, I did.  On my birthday Greg received a letter from the bank of that account.  It said that there was some fraudulent activity and that Greg needed to contact the bank.  Apparently someone made a $3.00 purchase at a gas station on the East coast.  We didn't know how it happened, but obviously someone had our debit card numbers, and therefore the bank decided to place a stop hold on our debit cards and they mailed us new ones.  The next day the company that Greg ordered my hammock from called and said they couldn't get his card to work.  We found it a little odd that they didn't charge his card the day he ordered it, so he explained the situation and told them that at the time we weren't comfortable giving our debit card number out yet.  It wasn't a very big deal, except that means the cherry on top of my birthday sundae was not getting a hammock (or a birthday present for that matter) after all.

Blah, blah...I know; I'm whining.  But it's OK, because I have tomorrow to look forward too!

Just like last year, we don't have anything special planned for my actual birthday.  And, I hope that we don't have any unfortunate events like we did last year.  However, we plan on celebrating on Saturday by driving up to Norman and staying the night at my in-law's.  Greg is taking me out to Red Lobster for my birthday dinner and then I'm hoping my in-law's will not mind baby sitting Parker after we put him down for bed so we can sneak off to a movie.  My mother in law also informed me that she is going to order me a birthday cake for us to enjoy!  Would you believe me if I said I haven't had a birthday cake in at least eleven years (yes, I'm counting...bitter, party of one sitting right here!)  Then, to cap off what I hope to be a nice relaxing birthday weekend, we get to go meet our new niece who was born yesterday!  Sounds blissful to me, and like the title states: Its gotta be better than last year!!!