Birthday!

Yesterday was my 30th birthday (I keep on feeling I should be making a bigger deal of this or freaking out or something but I really don't mind being in my 30s at all. In fact I'm looking forward to it) and I had a lovely day full of electronically sent well-wishes and phone calls. One thing that did come via mail was this:

The very nice Bunny got me a new TV! It's funny because she has been the source of all the TVs I've ever owned (ok two so far). The first she gave me when I was moving to Philly. She had gotten it free from one of her friends and passed it on to me. I don't even know what those TVs are called, tubes? It had a thick back. (Look how smart I sound! Thick back!) Anyway, I am completely delighted with my present and finally got around to watching Ponyo last night. It was a beautifully drawn movie, but the story was pretty boring I thought. I didn't think it was one of Miyazaki's best efforts. I still have Firemen's Ball to watch and then I'll be back on track with my Netflix.

For my birthday dinner, I decided to make myself cupcakes (using the recipes from allrecipes for Simple White Cake and Chocolate Frosting) and they turned out exactly the way I hoped. I'm pretty basic when it comes to sweets, and all I wanted was some old school easy-ass cupcakes. And these were it.

Dinner was homemade pizza. Now, I love all kinds of pizza: fancy thin crust pizza, Papa John's pizza, Pizza Hut pizza (which is sort of like pizza but is really it's own thing), New York style pizza, deep dish pizza, etc. But I have a special soft spot for the pizza I make myself in my little cast iron pan. It's taken me a few tries to get it to how I like it, but now it is something I fix fairly often, as you can see from previous blog posts. So after several weeks of not having a kitchen at my disposal, I was very eager to make pizza for my birthday:

Might I say too, what a joy it is to cook in my new kitchen?? I still find myself using small bits of counter at a time because I'm sort of used to being scrunched up, but even still it is more space than I've ever had for cooking before. And I love that I can throw stuff into the dishwasher after instead of facing a giant pile of messy dishes and measuring cups and bowls. Woohoo! So far being 30 is great!