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By kilax, June 9, 2009 5:06 am

Today is my mom’s 50th Birthday! Happy Birthday Mamu!!!

Do you think I look like my mom at all?

My siblings and Steven and I threw my mom a surprise party this Saturday in Cedar Falls, Iowa. When my dad turned 50, we threw him a surprise party as well, so I was sure my mother would be expecting it. I sent her a “fake” birthday gift last week (I am not sure why I am calling it “fake” – it was actually two tangible gifts) to throw her off.

My grandma (her mother) who lives out of town told my mom that she was coming to town to watch her grandkids and wanted to know if my mom wanted to meet her for dinner. My grandma even called my mom during the day and said something like, “The kids are behaving so nicely!” Ha. She wasn’t even in town yet.

We held the party at my uncle’s bar. The bar has a main area, an extended seating area, and a partitioned off room with a bar. We set up the food in the room with the bar, and crammed back there to yell “surprise!” when she arrived. I think we succeeded in surprising her. I wish I had a photo of her reaction. Hopefully someone got one.

I also wish I had a photo of the setup. My sister and Steven and I worked really hard all day at preparing the food and decorations. We had cold cut sandwiches, fresh veggies and dip, a wonderful fresh fruit salad (grapes, cantaloupe, honeydew, pineapple and strawberries), chips, pea salad and rye bread cucumber sandwiches that my grandma insisted on making, cookies (photo below!), two cakes and soda and water. We decorated with balloons and streamers and posters I made (I will update them to the photo page later in the week).

A lot of people came to the party -about 35 adults and 4 kids. We had everyone sign a frame with birthday wishes on it, the same thing we did for my dad’s party.

Our big gift for my mom was a purple 8GB iPod Nano (if that’s what it’s called). We put her favorite video – I’m on a Boat – on it. When I showed her the video, she turned to her friends and said, “Did you know these things have video?!” It was pretty cute. I bet she’ll use about 20% of it’s capability in her lifetime. The night before the party, we set up the iPod and named it “Forever 39,” so when we found a “39 Forever” button at the party shop the next day, we had to buy it for her!

Steven and I also bought my mom a big can of beans. Ha.

The party was a whirlwind. I was honestly a lot more worn out than I would have liked to be. Fitting party planning in with my already hectic schedule really exhausted me. I felt pretty edgy on Sunday because of my lack of sleep. I hope I get to catch up… someday. A full six hours of sleep in one night would be nice!

Of course, it was totally worth it. Even though I was totally exhausted, I still was having fun being goofy. My mom and sister are pretty good at bringing it out of me.

Trying to eat ice cream cupcakes…

It would be my honor, to be your new stepfather.

And I have to share this photo of my parents looking pretty bad ass back in the day. Steven really likes this photo for some reason, and we got them to “re-pose.” Ha. When explaining the photo, my mom said they had attitude, before there was attitude. Riiight…

And how is my mom spending her actual birthday? In class all day! She has a three hour math class (with a test!) in the morning, and a three hour speech class in the evening. Boo! I hope she still gets to do something fun today!

More photos…

Me and Steven.

My younger brother, Anthony, and my mom.

My sister, me, my grandma and my mom.

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By kilax, November 26, 2008 12:30 pm

When I was decorating sugar cookies on Sunday, I said “I like how Grandma Ilax’s sugar cookies always look so spontaneous – one will have a smear of frosting and a few random sprinkles – they all have so much character!”

So I decorated mine that way.

Apparently, my mom and grandma didn’t like that too much. They went back and added little frills to decorate them and make them look nicer. I wish I had a photo to show you how awful they looked before, but I don’t.

There was a particularly awful gingerbread man I decorated. He had purple pants, a yellow top, a white face, two chocolate chip eyes, and sprinkles for hair. My mom went back and gave him a red belt and a red smile, but there wasn’t really much she could do to make him nicer – he was UGLY.

I put him in the basket for my older brother, and told my mom to tell him I made that one special for him.

She must have told him. When I opened my email this morning, I had an email called “Cookie Adventures” from my brother.

I guess the cookie didn’t survive his big adventure, but it looks like he had some fun along the way. I think we need some captions for these photos!

This email from my brother made me laugh out loud at my desk for a long time. I really needed that this morning. I was already pissed off when I got on the train at 6:25… and my day hadn’t even started.

I am realizing more and more that I have not been handling stress very well lately. We all have stress in our lives on a daily basis, but I feel like this has been a particularly stressful month for me. I have a lot going on at work. And just having a busy social schedule has been making me stress.

I seem to just sort of… shut off when all of this stress hits me. I can’t think straight. I am angry. I don’t want anyone to talk to me. I want to be left alone. I try to do some deep breathing to get over things. I get anxious. And jumpy. And nervous.

I need to figure out how to handle this, because I kind of doubt things are going to die down at all between now and New Year’s.

I do know that writing things here helps. At least for the moment it distracts me.

All of this stress has been holding me back from looking forward to Thanksgiving AT ALL. Yeah, I am excited to have the time off from work to relax and see family, but that’s it. I feel sad that I am not looking forward to this holiday. That I am viewing it as more of a burden. I hope I snap out of this.