Birthday Celebration

My birthday was a few weeks ago. January 30th, to be exact. I turned 31. And I'm writing incredibly short sentences for no apparent reason. The weeks leading up to my birthday (and those following it) have been rough. I haven't been in any mood to do anything but wallow in self-pity. I've avoided outings just so I don't have to hear about anyone else's happy life. My life is happy except that Jason & I are living off of savings.

Did you read that? We've been living off of savings for 6 entire months now and we can possibly go 8 or 9 more. That is plain depressing. That's 6 months of Jason not being able to find a job and makes over a year and half for me. Our prospects are not looking good right now so we've buckled down and tried to be very frugal.....and patient. With both of us in the house all the time, we are constantly reminded of our situation and it's downright depressing. I feel guilty even thinking about spending money on non-essentials, so it was hard for me to get excited about my birthday. I'm not trying to make this a depressing post, but these are the things that are constantly in my mind and it really brings me down.

Anyway, I wasn't in the mood to go out. I was actually just going to stay at home. But my friend Shana told me that she was going to break down my door and make me celebrate if I didn't make up my mind. My friend Stacy actually had the entire weekend off and I don't get to see her enough. I decided that we could make it a small celebration....just us and our significant others. Stacy's sister, brother-in-law and nephew came in town that weekend so they ended up coming, too.

The plan was to go to PF Chang's for dinner. I hadn't been there in FOREVER. Like, well over a year and possibly closer to 2 years. I called early in the day to see if they took reservations, knowing that no place in town took reservations on a Saturday. I was in luck! They took reservations. Hooray! But they couldn't seat us until 10. Boo! I didn't want to wait that long, so the girl said we could just come and get on the list. I asked if they had call-ahead seating at least. After all, I was bringing 9 people! You'd think they would want to know that.

No, they don't. They don't take call ahead seating. So, we showed up there about 7 and the wait time was 1 1/2 to 2 hours. REALLY? We left and drove around the corner to Paloma Blanca. The wait time was about 45 minutes, which was much more reasonable. I had a beer (on top of the 1/2 bottle of wine I consumed earlier) before we got seated.

Finally, a table! We ordered and waited. Someone ordered guacamole and it was the best I've ever had in a restaurant. Honestly. I could've eaten that stuff for dinner. The server brought out the ingredients (including an orange slice for the juice!) and ground it up at the table in a huge molcajete. (Yeah, I linked the Wiki definition for anyone that doesn't live in Texas.) I had enchiladas verde and was not disappointed. After the dinner, we had cake! Shana made me a German Chocolate Cake and it was delish! Here's the pic of me and Jason before we dug in:

 

After all was said and done, I had a good time. I was glad it was just a small celebration, though. It's about all I can take these days. I truly hope that this time of my life ends soon because I have plans!