||Day Seventy-Four||
Today was my brother's birthday! And since he has a night-owl schedule (thus he was not awake for a large portion of the "daytime"), I spent my day preparing for his birthday.
After running a few errands, I came home and got to wrapping all his presents, which was really more fun than tedious. When I finished with the presents, I took my dog outside to play fetch since the handyman was here working on finishing our bathroom, again. I played until she got tired, but then I started to not feel so well, I've been getting daily headaches, so I decided to just lay on my bed and do nothing. It was just for a few minutes, but it was so relaxing, and even soothed my headache for a bit.
After having not read for a couple of days, due to my daily headaches, today seemed like the perfect day to get in some reading. I sat up in the living room, where the light was pouring in, and delved into my books.
Currently I'm reading two books, which I did the last time I read too and I thought it went pretty well. The first book is called "Smart Money, Smart Kids" by Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruze. My dad had actually given me the e-book as a birthday present. He said that he applies a lot of the Ramsey's methods, and he thought it would benefit me. Managing money is something that absolutely terrifies me, but so far this book has made me WANT to do it. It's well written, has a lot of good information, and is just humorous enough to not make it feel like I'm reading a textbook. Honestly I can't wait until I get back to work so I can start partitioning my money into "Save" and "Spend" envelopes.
My other book, which I just started today, is "Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives" by Thomas French. This was a book that was recommended to me on Goodreads based on other books I had marked as "to-read". I can't say I know exactly what it's about, but I'm fairly sure it has to do with the controversy over whether zoos are for the good of the animals, or if they go against nature. I'm pretty excited about it.
I had just gotten a few pages into it when I realized that I still needed to make brownies for my brother. It seems like for the past year or so, we've ditched the idea of making/getting a cake every year for birthdays. Last year, I'm pretty sure, we spent my brothers birthday at The Cheesecake Factory. Needless to say, as much as I love cake, I'm a fan of this method.
By the time the brownies were in the oven, it was getting kind of late, so I started dinner. I wasn't feeling particularly hungry, perhaps due to scraping the last of the brownie batter from the bowl, so I decided on a simple dinner of guacamole with chips and a microwave enchilada from Kashi.
Before I knew it, it was almost 9 pm and my mom said that she was on her way home -- my brother, for his summer class, had gone to my mom's office to work on a project that I know basically nothing about. So, I quickly iced the brownies, added sprinkles (because that is the best way to eat a brownie), and then we all sat down to eat once they were home.
After dinner and gifts, my mom and I insisted on putting a candle in a brownie and singing "Happy Birthday" to my brother. We may not go all out for birthdays, but there are just some traditions that you just can't do without.
Finally, in literally the last minute of his official birthday, I managed to post this awesome throwback photo of my brother and I at Disney World.
My brother is one of the smartest, kindest, most patient, and all around best guys I know. We have our arguments every once in a while, but we were always been best friends growing up. When we were much, much younger I used to want to be just like him, so much that I insisted on wearing Mickey Mouse underwear just like he did. My mom used to always say: "You thought he 'hung the moon'". And it's true even today. I look up to my brother so much. He is an amazing person, and the best brother I could have ever asked for. Happy birthday, bro.
♥K
