My birthday month started off with a bang. To those of you asking “birthday month”? I refer you to the title of this post. Why yes, I do celebrate my birthday for an entire month. Don’t you?

To start it off, Mark and I took a nice bike ride to Mount Vernon on February 1st. I’m pretty sure this is the first year I’ve been on a long leisurely bike ride in February. And for that I can thank the nearly non-existent winter in these parts (and really, most of the country until recently).

Mount Vernon is, for those of you who didn’t major in American History, the home of the country’s first president, as well as a great destination for a bike ride along a beautiful path in Alexandria, VA. We had a nice picnic on the outskirts of the famous estate and wandered around the tourist shop inside. We would have paid the $15 each to go inside the estate as the “four acre working farm and gardens” sounded inspirational, until we realized that despite the fact that it felt like a spring day, it really was just the beginning of February. So we opted to forgo the tour until a time when the farm & gardens would be a bit more lush.

Knowing how much I love birthdays and surprises, Mark also had a few other things in store for me the past few weeks. Here are some of the random fun things I’ve been enjoying this month.

• An amazing chinese buffet lunch in Alexandria, VA, not far from where we were spending our days in late Jan – early Feb. This was the largest (and cheapest most affordable) buffet I’ve ever been to by far. Definitely worth $8 if you’re in the area and in the mood for only eating one meal for the entire day. Especially if you can handle the potential digestive upset caused by mixing raw sushi with spicy soups with fried foods with rich sauces with sweet fruit.
• Rockin’ in style with new car speakers. Technically this was a gift for Jenny the Truck, but I’ll accept them in her stead as she couldn’t be here to accept the honor (and she doesn’t know how to type). You’ll have to ask Mark but apparently when I opened the box I didn’t react the way he expected. My reaction was more like I don’t know what this is but it looks like some kind of technological doodad. How lovely. But once he explained what was inside the box to this technophobe, and installed the speakers on a frigid morning before a long drive, I realized how much I really wanted nice speakers to go along with the new stereo I installed a friend of mine installed for me before I left Vermont. (Thanks again, Rocko!) Now thanks to Mark, I get to listen to my favorites like NPR, farm podcasts, and The Beatles without the annoying buzzing and crackling sounds coming through the old speakers.
• Knowing that I’m on a preparedness kick these days (more on that in a future post) and that a working flashlight is always a good thing to have around the house, Mark surprised me with a solar-powered-radio-and-flashlight-and-cell-phone-charger thing that I had randomly added to my Amazon.com wish list at some point. This in addition to the other hand-cranked/solar-powered lantern we received from Mark’s mom for Christmas, ensures we’ll never be left in the dark!

• Mark went back to the aforementioned lunch buffet one day without me (I do have work to do on occasion) and surprised me by bringing home a takeout container with some of my favorites like crab rangun, spring rolls, and veggie dumplings.
• We caught some live music not once, not twice, but three times this month. As you can see, I’m taking my goal of seeing live music at least monthly very seriously.
• While not specifically birthday presents, if you count Valentine’s Day and moving to the farm as part of the fun birthday month activities, this month has been more festive than usual. Here I am on move-in day, starting to unpack Jenny the Truck.

• Mark knew that the short list of things I wanted before moving to the farm included a hat to keep the sun off my fair-skinned face. I had already treated myself to a thrift shop straw hat, but he decided to double my fashionable hat collection with a blue corduroy cap from the Gap. The blue brings out your eyes. Aww.

• There has been one birthday wish I’ve been asking for, for at least a few months: to go snowshoeing on my birthday. In what has become somewhat of a tradition, I’ve gone snowshoeing on my birthday for the past two (maybe three?) years in Vermont. A few days before the big day, our new town of Scottsville received about 5 inches of snow. Would my snowshoeing dream actually come true!? I excitedly put on snowboots…

• We had a fun celebration the night before my birthday, drinking wine and listening to loud music while baking up a storm in our new farm kitchen. I made an amazing chocolate cake recipe by Heidi Swanson (with a few of my own tweaks), and Mark made gourmet chocolate chip cookies. He also created a banana-peanut-butter-chocolate icing for my cake that was superb. For a guy who doesn’t like sweets, he sure knows how to please someone with a sweet tooth!
• After the late night blast of wine and sugar I stayed up pretty late that night, so what I really wanted on my birthday was to sleep in. Mark gave me the best present of all by letting out the chickens at dawn so I could get some more beauty rest.
• When I finally awoke, I felt refreshed and excited for the day. If my memory serves me, It’s my birthday! may have been exclaimed more than a few times that day. Yes, I am like a little kid when it’s my big day.
• Funnily enough, someone else at our new home shares my birthday, so we had a nice big lunch celebration at the Local Food Hub office. The lunch was a surprise to me, and Mark did a great job of helping cook and prepare – generally playing it cool around me. I kept asking what’s going on? while I excitedly puttered around the house, knowing he had something up his sleeve. Did I mention I love surprises? Lunch was delicious, and a fun way to spend a bit of social time with our new friends at the Local Food Hub.

• Later that day we took a beautiful drive in the country, went antiquing (what that means for me is looking at stuff I can’t afford, but dreaming of the day when I can!), and then hung out in Charlottesville for food and drinks.
• Despite my wish for snowshoeing, on my actual birthday all the snow had melted and it was over 70 degrees! This was the first birthday I’ve ever spent wearing sandals!

• Even now, after my official birthday has passed, it’s still my birthday month, and there continue to be presents coming my way. Mark recently ordered homebrewing supplies so we could get our brew on while living at the farm. He bought me all the ingredients I need to make a milk chocolate stout: one of my favorite beer styles/flavors.
• Yesterday we checked out a cute thrift shop in Scottsville and found a pasta maker. Oh yeah! I meant to include make pasta on my goal list! Consider it goal 102.

The month’s not over yet, of course, but it looks like these gifts will keep me busy: I’ll be eating cookies and cake for the next week or two. When I’m done making homemade pasta I can wash it down with homebrew. When I need to check on the chickens in the dark I can take my hand-cranked flashlight with me for safety. During the day, I’ll protect my skin by wearing my new blue cap. And anytime I’m in the truck I can listen to the stereo and be reminded of all the sweet gifts my sweetie gave me this month.

Who needs snowshoeing when you’ve got all this?