Studies have shown that people who have more birthdays live longer.

Um wow.  So that was an amazing weekend J

Short version:  lawyers, house, wedding, house, birthday, house J

Long version:

Let’s see…

Thursday night we met with the lawyers to do all the paperwork re the new house, we also had our final walkthrough.   Friday we got possession of the house!  Woohoo!   The dogs love their new abode – or more accurately, their private park ;)   Ashley’s wedding was Friday afternoon, so Mum picked up the keys for us when they became available at the lawyers.  Wedding was super close to our place and was really nice – it overlooked the lake, but was high enough so the view wasn’t interrupted by beach goers *g*   Then Chris had to go to work so I took a load of boxes over to the house and started unpacking. 

So – Thursday – Lawyers and house walkthrough – Check

Friday – Ashley and Kyle’s wedding – Check.

Saturday.   Saturday started with house stuff, of course.   Moved some more boxes, packed some more stuff, and started prepping the bedrooms for painting (filling holes etc).  All good.  Then was my levelling up ceremony!  Woohoo!  Lol otherwise known as birthday party for *gasp* 40^th.  Oh my god, how did that happen?  Ugh.  Let me  refer you to the fact that I was ID’d not too many weeks ago ;)   

Birthday parties aren’t really my thing, and I was trying to remember if I’ve ever actually had one before (other than immediate family of course – that’s an always J)   But when we were kids, it was usually a friend or two over to do something (esp with a summer birthday – kids scatter in the summer), and once I was old enough it’d become not my thing *g*   But this one, mainly cause I was struggling with it, I wanted to celebrate.  My awesome husband was left to the planning and pulled it off – I was slightly overwhelmed and very honoured by the number of people who came!  Lol it was awesome.  

We had our own little room in the restaurant (our house(s!) being in shambles at the moment) so we could mingle and walk around a bit which was nice.  Lots of people from various social circles had met at the wedding, so seemed like there was some catching up going on.   She who only ever meets with her friends one or two at a time, didn’t get nearly enough socializing time with anybody, but I at least got some time to chat with everybody.  Amazing night!   And then to top it off – my Mum made me a scrapbook ranging from when I was a tiny child to now.  So cool to look through and so many memories!   Admit it made me kinda sappy.  Also, reading all the cards when I got home – very cool.   Aileen gets bonus points for the Spanish ;)  So yeah – the night passed in a blink; I was so surprised by how late it was when we finally left lol.  But it was amazing and I’m still grinning.  So thanks all J

Then Sunday, my actually birthday, started with blueberry pancakes – yum!  For the win J   Lol Em had spent the night so she didn’t have to drive all the way home after the party, and the three of us went out for breakfast.   Then was back to load up vehicles (my parents generously traded with Chris and I, so far fewer trips are required) and off to the new house to unpack and paint.  Feature walls are pretty much done, now we just need to do the neutral ones and we’ll be good to go.   Actual movers will do furniture on Friday.   I’m so excited – kinda love both the house and the yard.   Will be even better in a few years when we can do some updates, but even right now, it’s great.   And watching the dogs love the yard was even better!

And today, LIFT 4, the latest exercise program started.   Lol would’ve been a whole lot more convenient if it had waited till next week, but I’m still going to try!  It’s only four days / week instead of the six or seven most of them are, so may be more manageable.

Home is where the heart is... Even if you don't know which box you packed it in ;)

So…   We get our new house on Friday!!!   It’s also Ashley’s wedding on Friday lol.  Have been doing all the pre-move craziness, calling all the utilities and service providers, dealing with banks and lawyers, fun stuff like that.   Whether or not I managed it all?   Well – time will tell…   Actual move isn't till next Friday :(   Which is logistically good, but I Want It NOW!!! *foot stomp*  lol   I am pretty excited about the new house though J   Less excited about the new mortgage L

Duolingo released a whole ton of new topics the other day.   So for those not familiar, each topic, has 5 levels.  And each level has 3-20 mini lessons.  So that’s a TON of new content.   And once you’ve done level 1 of each, the next area is open.   So I promptly tested out of the first two checkpoints, which got me to level one of about 13(?) topics and reopened the whole tree so I can do whichever lessons I want.   All good.  Lol and I was pretty pleased to pass J

So then I discovered, that you can also test out of each level on any individual topic.  So now I’m working my way through those.   So what’s the point?  Well I figure if I test out of everything I know, I’m left with the ones I really need to work on.   AND I’ll tell ya, the low levels are pretty painful.  There’s only so many times you can translate “the cat drinks milk” before you want to throw the phone out the window.   The higher topics are complex enough that I’m still learning and won’t likely manage to test out beyond level 1 or 2.

But it is nice after much effort to see that I can pass a fair number of them with no errors and no effort.  Also nice to now be able to provide answers in the duolingo forum that helped me through the basics when I was starting J   Of course, I went and found an intermediate/advanced one and promptly got entirely lost again.  And heaven forbid anybody speak at native-speaker pace.  Even if I know every word I won’t understand any of them *sigh*  Lol but hey, baby steps right?