Happy Birthday, dear Talli!

It was my dear friend Talli's birthday on Wednesday, and while I will not reveal her age on the internet, I will say that she is lookin' good! Today she, another friend, and I celebrated by going to lunch and shopping! We left husbands and children watching football and playing at her house (which wasn't the best part of the birthday festivities due to the chaotic mess caused by the combination of unsupervised children, fathers, football games broadcast on television, and a large screen TV). We dined, child (and therefore, distraction)-free at The Cheesecake Factory. Then we took our sweet time browsing through any shop where we felt like stopping, and staying as long as we pleased without having to stop once to a) apologize for running over someone's foot with the stroller b) wildly tear open a second (third?!) bag of fruit snacks to halt the budding temper tantrum or c) search desperately for a potty, then wash the little hands that couldn't resist touching the toilet seat.

Ah, heaven.

Unfortunately, the birthday girl fell victim to Murphy's law of shopping, which I believe states something to the effect that when you actually have money to spend and don't have children to hold you back, you will not find anything you want to buy.

I did not have the same problem. The damage: one shirt and pair of pants on sale from Anthropologie; one pair of screw-back earrings for Smidget, who has taken to removing her earrings on the sly; one tube of Nars vanilla concealer from Sephora (third bottle in 18 months--love it!); one pageboy style brown hat from Ann Taylor Loft--a little daring for me, but I was inspired by my friend Ginger's stylish ways; one darling outfit for Chatterbox from Naartjie (that's okay, I hadn't heard of it either)--she doesn't need it, but I couldn't resist. It'll be for her birthday. And D doesn't read my blog too often, so he probably won't even know. And just in case he does--love ya, honey!

And so, I want to close my day by thanking Talli for turning another year older, for being my cherished friend, for being in the same city as me, and for a fabulous day of girliness. Happy birthday!