Tootin' my own horn

Squee! It's my birthday! I'm so excited!

It's not about the loot, it's about feeling loved

On this day that's my birthday, my True Love gave to me:

• A display made of coloured, corrugated cardboard with the digits "29" standing on a round base, and a lit candle
• 29 muffins, roughly half each raspberry-and-yoghurt and banana-and-hazelnut, to share with my family when they come by this afternoon
• Two advent calendars, one with the regular small figures and one with bigger figures inside
• Knitted, woolen bed-socks
• A flannel shirt from Lands' End
• And a partridge in a pear tree well, no, not really

I also got two birthday cards (from my ward's Elders' Quorum and from the sister missionaries), and Elaine had sent me a generous gift certificate for Amazon.de yesterday.

I was happiest about the bed-socks. Stella only recently learned to knit, and these are the first ever socks she's completed. (She started two for herself but hasn't finished them yet, and the first heel she knit for practice became part of a snake that lies in front of our window to stop the draft coming in.)

So I was touched that she had made them for me; my previous bed-socks, bless their soles, have served me well for many years but are starting to fall apart, though they've been darned several times. Sister Sparr from Pinneberg Ward hat knid them for me for my mission, so they must be about eight years old now. Stella had never made complete socks before, and she got them ready for me for my birthday, and they seem to have turned out very well indeed. A bit large, but that's not so bad since they don't have to fit into any shoes. Now I'll have to try them out to see whether they keep my feet warm and don't itch.

I also appreciated the gift of one of the Advent calendars. I'm not sure whether they have those elsewhere, so I'll ( describe them. )

More gifts

My family was here this afternoon and we had a little get-together, celebrating not only my birthday but also Elaine's, which was yesterday. My parents came up from Friedrichsdorf for the occasion but only arrived late yesterday evening (since they didn't get off their shift until four or so), so they couldn't be there for Elaine then.

Jennifer gave me a copy of Geoffrey Sampson's Writing Systems, which I had heard about on linguaphiles, I believe :D. Ireen gave me some chocolate biscuits and a Dilbert page-a-day calendar. Elaine had sent me an Amazon.de gift certificate by email yesterday. Daddy and Inka gave me some blank CD-RWs, a CompactFlash card for my PDA, and a copy of Unicode Version 4.0. Whee! I wasn't wholly expecting that, because that book is expensive ($75 or so, IIRC).

I was hoping that some people could pool their money and give me half of the money I'd need and I'd pay the rest or something—now I have to tell people not to buy me that book since I already have it.

A while ago, we had got an AOL 8.0 CD in the post. For some reason, I didn't through it out but kept it lying around in the hallway. That came in handy today, because Elaine wants to install her own copy of AOL on her laptop or something, so I gave her the CD. 100 free hours in the first month; she's welcome to it. I'm not interested in getting AOL for myself. I'm probably put off for life because of the associations it carries with me.

At any rate, we had a nice time, they enjoyed the birthday meal Stella had prepared at my request, and we had some nice cake later. (Ireen had made some nice apple cake the way my mother used to do it.

So, I'm well chuffed :)

Update: I just had a look at Amazon.com for the Sampson book and saw a positive review by Sean M. Burke. That's worth a lot in my eyes.