Abbie's Real Life Blog

It is November 1.

I have thirty days until I turn thirty on November 30.  My magic birthday!  How exciting!

I have no idea how I’m going to celebrate (though a plate of Indian food and a good movie would do the trick splendidly) on November 30, but I’ve been mentally preparing myself for this big 3-0 changeover since my last birthday, eleven months ago.  (Was I ever so young?)

My mom came up with the idea of brainstorming 30 things to do on the thirty days, like Phoebe from Friends only less sitcommish.  I think it’s a great idea but I haven’t managed to come up with any of the items yet.  I mean, I can do one thing per day, and I have to fit work in there somewhere.  It’s not like I can jet off to Paris or something, you know.  So I’m thinking on that.

Tracy’s birthday is in fifteen days, and her birthday present arrived in the mail today.  I dropped a couple of hints about it (mostly about its cost relative to our budget) over the last week, and she finally guessed it last night.  A laptop!  A brand new Dell Inspiron laptop with a yellow cover.  (The color choice was an important one, so I did try to get her input on that without giving away the surprise.  I would have picked pink, but she said that she’d prefer a yellow something to a pink something if she was going to be seen in public with the something.  She’s a closet pink lover.) 

I like giving her a laptop, because I get all the fun of setting it up.  So it’s currently sitting behind me on my desk, downloading Firefox and setting up the virus scanner, and then later I’ll have the fun of transferring over her files and installing programs that we have at home.  Then I have the fun of picking out a laptop case.  I’d let her do that herself, but I don’t think she really cares about that, so the fun is all mine.  Nice!

For my birthday, I am likely going to upgrade my camera to something much better and pricier.  But the model that I want (the Nikon D300) doesn’t even come out until the end of December, and then I have to decide if I spring for it or wait a year or so for the Nikon D300XS (or whatever) version, which will likely have twice the megapixels for a slightly higher price, as per Nikon’s modus operandi.  I was thinking of upgrading in the spring, but the price is so high that I can’t justify it except as a birthday/Christmas present.  But that’s my plan.

Thirty days!  Thirty thirty thirty thirty thirty!