Another Year Come & Gone

Goodbye 30
I said goodbye to 30 this week. I'm not sure why but to turn 31 was especially hard for me. I think because I'm no longer just a number but I've now begun the infamous 30's. There's just something about that apostrophe s that makes me a little uneasy...even kind of panic like. It's like my life's suddenly on this time table and it puts me immediately in freak out mode. None the less, I began my birthday the right way...goodbye 30, hello 31. I had a big party, dinner with friends at the Comedy Club Stardome, and dinner tonight with my married friends.
Let's discuss:

Blarin Karen's Birthday Luau Blast at theBenefield's
Ok, that was a lot of b's. Sorry, I got carried away. My great friends, Jeff and Joy called me a few weeks ago to discuss plans for my birthday party. We decided to celebrate early because they had a lot of weddings planned to go to in June and I figured what better way to say goodbye than with a party at the Benefield's. Jeff and Joy got married March 28th and honeymooned in Hawaii, so I knew they would be experts on throwing a luau-themed birthday.
Jeff and Joy did a great job getting the word out and we had a lot of people show up. We had chicken, shrimp, hot dogs, smoked sausage, mashed potatoes....they went all out! I've celebrated my birthday for the past 3 years at Jeff's and this was my favorite one to date. Everyone came dressed up in their hawaiian shirts and leis . My facebook friend Andy Palys (who is Jeff's college roomate) and his sweet wife Becky made a trip down from Arab for the party too, so that made it even better!
One of these days I'll learn how to post pictures on this blog, so I can show you a picture of the cakes that my friend Jen made. One looked like a volcano and one was a beach scene.
After things started to die down a little we played Rock Band. I, of course, had control of the microphone for a while, and I enlightened all of my friends with Blondie's "Call Me", Bon Jovi's "Livin On A Prayer", Miranda Lambert's "Gunpowder &Lead", and finished it out with Dixie Chick's "Sin Wagon" .
When I got home I had to use the restroom really bad, so I was running into my house. When I ran up the steps one of my flip flops got hung up on one of them bricks and I fell face first into my front porch. I decided that this was the night to bust out my new white jeans (I read they were back in style) and so when I scraped up my knees I wanted to make sure that (a) they were't ripped (b) they weren't blood stained. Fortunately no blood was shed on this spill, but when I fell I hit the door, waking up my roomates (aka my parents), so my mom came to the front door to find me with my pants rolled up stumbling through the door with one shoe on asking me if I was ok. Needless to say, all was fine, just two bruised up knees and a lot of commotion.
All in all, it was a great night, though. Big props to Jeff and Joy for making it a really special night for me. I'm so thankful that I have friends like them. Everyone needs people like them. They are always there to encourage, call me out on things, and push me to be a better Christian and friend. I consider them not just friends, but more like family.

Sunday
I woke up really sore from the tumble I took the night before, so I was running late for church. When I got in the car, the clock said 10:15 and I really didn't think I was running that late, but I just figured time had gotten away from me. I pulled in to the parking lot at 10:40 and thought about sitting in the car for 10 minutes until it was time for Sunday School to get out so I could walk over to the service with all of the good boys and girls that got there on time. I thought about it a little more and decided just to go in to Sunday School for the last few minutes. I expected to get some looks, but when know one said anything, I thought, "gosh, am I late so often now, that it doesn't even surprise anyone?". Andy, our singles minister, was talking when I came in and then said that Linda was going to speak. I thought, "Man, he's only giving her 5 minutes to talk, so she must only be saying a few quick words before we go into the service". She got started off just like she normally does and no one was looking at their watches to see how late we were going to be to church except me. I looked at the time on my phone and low and behold, it was only 10:15. I didn't know it but my car battery was going bad and it kept messing up the clock. I'm glad I was able to make it, though. Sunday was a good day at GFBC. After church, I went to lunch with the whole fam to Brio and then had dinner with Rebecca, John Austin, & Andi the girl at Cocina Superior, two of my favorite restaurants.

Comedy Club
I got the phone call earlier in the week that I had won a few tickets to the Comedy Club Stardome. John Morgan, who has been on the Rick and Bubba Show several times over the years, was the headlining act. I'll be honest with you, John's always been a super nice guy, but I've never been to his show. I was really impressed with his show. He was hilarious!!! One of the funniest shows I've been to in a long time. The hostess for the night was a girl named Michelle Thomas. I don't know if I thought she was funny just because she's a big girl or what, but I laughed at her a lot! She does a lot of big girl comedy too, and I'm pro that. I checked out her website (www.michellelovescake.com) and read up on her. She's a Christian comedian, and she does a clean comedy tour. Anyway, after dinner we had some dessert and cheese dip at Cocina Superior (wow, twice in one week!) and it was back to the house.

The Wrap Up
I would say that all in all, I had a good birthday. For those of you that weren't able to celebrate with me (and you know who you are), you're in luck because I celebrate my birthday for the entire month of June. Aside from a couple of emotional breakdowns at the thought of being over 30, I had a lot of fun, and realized now, more than ever, that my friends are really the best. I had a hundred facebook wishes and tweets to go along with them. Thank you all for being such good friends. I love all of you! Until next week.......


PS: Follow me on Twitter @blarinkaren