Happy Birthday to Me!

I blog about everyone else's birthday, so I figured I may as well blog about my own. I am only child after all, so it's always been a pretty important day. The festivities started last week when my friend Jen took me out to dinner at this great place in the Short North. One of the things I like best about Jen

is that she is low maintenance and will pretty much go along with whatever. She also shares food, which is rare. We've traveled together and been to many a restaurant and festival, and Jen is one of the few people in my life (besides my mom) who will split food with me. I love splitting food, that way you can each try two things. So we split two dishes: a grilled cheese on whole wheat with 3-cheeses, Roma tomatoes and pesto with a side of skillet corn and grilled chicken with Dijon cream sauce, garlic redskin mashed potatoes and skillet green beans. The food was incredible. I love eating at independent restaurants, so I hope I can go back there again soon. After dinner we walked to Jeni's ice cream which I've always wanted to try. After sampling about 4 different flavors I settled on Thai Chili, which was so good. Now that I just got on their website to post the link, I see I was a week too early for some great seasonal flavors: Apple Cider Sorbet, Pumpkin Spice and Chocolate Marshmallow. Check out her flavors....you'd be surprised at how all the listed ingredients could equal great-tasting ice cream.

Speaking of ice cream.....


Max & Erma's loaded my dining card with a free order of their hot chocolate chip cookies. Jason had to work 2nd shift the night before my birthday, and being the cool mom I am I figured I'd take the kids to eat cookies and ice cream for dinner. What kid doesn't want an ice cream sundae and chocolate chip cookies for dinner, right? Apparently my kids. They also roped me into chicken nuggets and fries because they felt they needed a meal. I guess in the big scheme of things I should be happy they weren't satisfied eating dessert for dinner, but I would have been all over that as a kid.




My mom had offered to watch the kids on my birthday so Jason and I could do something, so he planned a surprise for me....we went to Kentucky for lunch at my favorite Italian place, Pompilio's. Most of you will recall it from previous blog posts, as we've eaten there the past two summers on trips down. I had the toasted ravioli and Jason had the tortellini with chicken, sun-dried tomatoes and artichoke cream sauce. It was fabulous as usual. Then with a little time to spare we stopped at IKEA on the way home. I've always wanted to go there and it was so much fun to walk around and look at all the cool decorating ideas. While we were there I bought this pillow.
It's so tacky, isn't it? But I had to have it. Not only is it the same color as my kitchen walls, but the kids always pick me dandelions when we go on walks, so it reminded me of them and makes me happy. It was a long drive just for lunch, but it was great alone time without any distractions and going out of state felt like a mini-vacation. We had fun!

I came home to find that my mom and the kids had made me chocolate cupcakes, and I had fun kitcheny presents from my mom and step-dad. Tomorrow night my dad and step-mom are taking us to dinner at Carsonie's to celebrate mine and Jason's birthday. What a great birthday it's been.