This weekend, I turned forty-eight. It made me think about all of the birthdays I’ve shared about here on my blog, and if you’ve been with me since the early years, you’ve followed me through most of my 30s and now well into my 40s. Dare I say, almost fifty? We’ve been through a lot together – my boys going from diapers to driving and college classes, two big moves, three different homes, and lots of twists and turns in my creative work and business. Whether you’re new here or an OG follower, thanks for joining me in my little corner of the internet.
So, if you’re like me, you don’t just have a birthDAY. You have a birthday weekend that can stretch out all month. The Birthday Card isn’t just something other people give you. It’s the thing you can play to get little perks and favors. My guys already do a lot of nice things for me, so it’s mostly in jest, but everyone plays along. I didn’t have anything specific in mind for a birthday present, so Jeff and I went out to breakfast and browsed at a local antique store to see if anything caught my fancy.
We ate breakfast at The Showroom in Frederick, MD, and it was really good.
We shopped at Emporium Antiques in Frederick, and also popped into a few small shops in the downtown area.
I found a lot of things I liked, but nothing that ticked all the boxes. Either I loved it, and it was within budget, but I didn’t really have a place for it, or I loved it, and it was too expensive. Nothing was in the sweet spot.
As always, though, I enjoyed looking around.
My favorite find was this antique oil painting, but it fit into the loved-it-but-too-expensive category.
So, I walked away empty-handed, and I’ll save my birthday money for another day.
While walking around downtown, we came across Twin Beads Bakery. Our philosophy when it comes to local bakeries is that you should always go inside and check them out. They had an amazing assortment of homemade bagels and breads. I think you have to get there before noon to try a cookie because they were cleaned out. We did get a couple of bagels to try, a loaf of sourdough bread, and some salted, French-style butter.
I made a bagel sandwich using one of the bagels for my birthday breakfast at home the next day, and it was delicious.
I also spent my birthday morning baking a lemon cream cake to have on Sunday for our birthday/Easter family lunch. I used to love the Italian lemon cream cake from Oliver Garden, and I liked that I could just buy one slice instead of having an entire cake in my house! But they discontinued it a few years ago, much to my disappointment. Now, I have to make it myself.
I tried THIS RECIPE. I selected it because it used whole ingredients and seemed pretty simple. I followed the recipe faithfully, except I used light olive oil instead of canola oil, and I skipped the crumb coating. I never liked that part of the Olive Garden cake, and it’s sort of a weird crumble made with dry-baked flour. In my opinion, the cake just doesn’t need it.
The cake turned out great, and it is delicious!
I mean, look at this gorgeous cake. I liked that it isn’t too sweet or too heavy.
I spent some time painting in the studio and a little time in the garden on my birthday, too. We have some cool spring weather this week, so I’ll take advantage of that and get more pruning, weeding, and tidying done.
As a little bonus, the fragrant viburnum bloomed on my birthday! I’ll have to make a note of that in my gardening notebook for future reference.