24

It was an excellent birthday! The day started with breakfast in bed, prepared by chef Larson. NOT a bad way to start the day. Then I opened the present that has been sitting in our living room all week...and it was an art table! On wheels! Which should solve, we think, our living room constantly being a pile of paper/canvas/beads/wire. ...hopefully. I love it and plan on loading it up today!

Then I went to get the community room key which I had reserved about a week before and was told to pick up sometime Thursday. So I walked over about noon. There, I was met by an extremely unhelpful undergraduate assistant who told me the lady who holds the key doesn't work on Thursdays. Her suggestion was that I find another secretary. Lunch time. I walk home and walk back in an hour. No one. Finally someone walks in and helps me, but doesn't find the key.

In this process I find out that I haven't gotten some very important emails because one of the secretaries mentions that I haven't been getting back to her about something. I thought to myself...what a lot of missing emails lately? Silly AU email system. See, as far as I knew, my email address was still kminkkinen@anderson.edu. No problem until some mysterious krlarson@anderson.edu showed up in the system. ...after a lot of office finding, I also found out that about a year ago, AU updated my address to krlarson@anderson.edu, never deleted the old one, and never told me either! So...I got to read about a year and a half of important emails! ...sure did explain a lot though (no wonder everyone else seemed to know but me...)! As I was sitting on my couch reading these emails, I got an email saying they had found the key! So...I guess it all worked out.

Then, I picked up my friend Marcia and we went to "Octoberfest" at the Fine Arts Center in downtown Anderson...you can guess how cool that was. Ha! We wound up at Starbucks instead.
After that, Phil and I went to Texas Roadhouse....YES! I LOVE that place :) They gave me a Texas Roadhouse "Yeehaw!" for my birthday (thanks Phil). Then in the car, Phil gave me another present....a glass bead making kit! They carry one kit at Hobby Lobby, and only one. When it sells, it takes about two weeks for a new one to get in. I noticed it missing this week, too... never thought it would be mine! ...I love it! (...and I go to Hobby Lobby too much. Seriously, I walked in the other day and recognized one of the employees, but I couldn't place where I knew her from...then I realized, oh. I know her from...here. I'm starting to bond with the staff).

Yep. Then a bunch of people got together in the community room and ate Popsicles and watched The Office. Kirsten got me a stress-ball Dwight head...which is SWEET...and also doubles as a really fun thing to throw into a ceiling fan. Seriously, everyone needs to throw a sock in a ceiling fan once. Just do it. IT'S REALLY FUN.

Wow, chatty tonight...might be a little sugar high from the five Popsicles I ate. :) Anyway, thanks everyone for your messages and your love. It was a happy day!