Who thought the two went together? Certainly not me. Which explains why I was so surprised to get these yesterday.

I realize that I look like I’ve already been sipping those margaritas, but truth be told. . . I hadn’t even left work yet. And no, I wasn’t on crack either, although I can understand why you might think that too. Nope – the cold hard truth is that that’s what I look like when I’m giggling while trying to keep a straight face. It ain’t pretty.

Okay, let’s start with the flowers. Aren’t they preeeettttttyyyyyy??? Yesterday was my birthday. I officially turned 248 years old. I wasn’t going to talk about it at all. I thought it could slide under the radar. I was just going to go to work, then my youngest was taking me out to my favorite Mexican dump (who have the best margaritas!) and that was supposed to be IT. Yet all day, my dear, dear friends sent me Happy Birthday messages and videos and ecards. People that I didn’t even realize KNEW that it was my birthday. There was no sliding under the radar with these people. You know who you are!

Then as I’m winding up my workday and getting ready to head out to Margaritaville with my youngest son, I was paged to the lobby. I NEVER get paged to the lobby. There’s no reason for me to ever get paged to the lobby. Nonetheless, I walked over and there was this dude with flowers. . . for ME! I couldn’t believe it. They were from my dear, sweet friend, Mo, who I met on a blog almost three years ago. She wrote on the card:

“My Friend! I wish I was there to have a margarita or ten with you. . . some day!! Love you! Mo”

Now tell me if that’s not the sweetest thing. Twenty years ago (when I was only 228 years old), you would have never been able to tell me that I would make friends, good friends, on the Internet. Such a strange, bizarre concept. But . . . the stories I could tell. . . One being when I jumped in a limo in the middle of the night in Las Vegas with six ladies that I’d never met before. Yet, there was not one second of awkwardness. It was like we’d all been friends for years. I’m tellin’ ya. . . this Internet stuff is awesome.

There are still people that I would love to meet in person even though I feel like I know them as well as if they were sitting right beside me. Momma in Florida and Julz in South Africa. Momma is a Southern girl through and through and she reminds me so much of me when I was young like she is. If she were several years older, I’d swear we were separated at birth. And Julz, my South African rockstar friend, is a shoot-from-the-hip-live-life-to-its-fullest kind of girl with a heart of gold. Even though I could be her mother, she’s who I want to be like when I grow up. Love her!

All of this is to say THANK YOU for all my birthday wishes! Ya’ll totally ROCK!

I will end this post with my life mantra:
“Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, a margarita in one hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming “WOO HOO what a ride!”

HAPPY NEW YEARS FRIENDS!!!!