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Kimberussell.com

a blog by Kim Russell

September 9, 2013

Birthday wrap-up

Sweet merciful crap! I turned 41 last week!

This is what 41 looks like – no makeup:

Still having fun with rosacea, but not gray yet. I'll take it.
Still having fun with rosacea, but not gray yet. I’ll take it.

That was taken on the train platform.

WM got me a lovely Fossil charm bracelet.
bday-bracelet

I wanted a charm bracelet, but not a Pandora one because those are so expensive and only start looking good once you get 4 or 5 beads on it. This is stainless steel, so I don’t have to worry about dinging it. It’ll also be a source of no-brainer gifts for me as the years go by. (Just get me a charm.) The love charm is self-explanatory, and the owl charm reminds me of the scholar I married.

I can confess here that I wanted to make cake pops to bring into work, but the logistics of getting them there in one piece scared me away. Instead, I brought in some donuts from Federal Donuts on Sansom Street.

bday-donut

While I waited for them to be made, they gave me one free to try. This was strawberry-lavender — a flavor that seemed a bit scary but was SO GOOD!

When I made it to work (a little late, but HEY GUYS FRESH HOT DONUTS!) I found cupcakes from coworker DR:

bday-cupcake

My cubicle was decorated:

bday-cube

(note the eye-candy)

And waiting for me was a handmade card featuring none other than Bill Clinton!

bday-card1

bday-card2

And you’re all, “Wait, aren’t you a Republican or a Libertarian or WHAT are you again anyway?” (Answer: I’m a social liberal and a fiscal/defense conservative so I fit in with neither major party. I registered as a Libertarian a few years ago, and I count myself one of their less-extreme members.)

Bill Clinton came up a few weeks ago, and I mentioned that I missed young, meat-eating, sax-playing Bill Clinton. Speaking of being 41 and decrepit, you need to know that the college students I work with had no idea Bill Clinton played the saxophone, and had never seen the Arsenio Hall show clip. So I had to gather them around and show them. Bill *still* has a way with college ladies.

So my birthday card featured young, hot, meat-eating Bill Clinton! And Socks the cat.

I also received a lovely purple scarf courtesy of coworker DB (I work with more than one D) which I don’t have a picture of. But I wore it to my 3-hour meeting with an outside consultant. Nobody blinked twice. Couple that with the accidentally mismatched earrings that nobody mentioned either, and you can safely conclude that I have failed in hiding my freak flag at my new job. It didn’t even take 18 months for my facade to crumble.

Dinner was at the Tortilla Press, and I have no pictures of that either because I was too busy eating and smiling. I scored enough DSW gift cards to buy a pair of slamming black boots.

When I was in college, I wanted to be a talk show host. I preferred radio, but I’d have settled for television. I wanted to live in New York or LA or Boston and have piles of money and celebrity. For many reasons that never came to pass. The decades flew by and here I am — a mere office worker still in New Jersey. I didn’t land very far from the nest, and I didn’t make any “50 under 20/30/40” list. About ten years ago I realized that I never was going to have that big life that I initially wanted. But I vowed to myself that I was going to take this small life I was given, and live it as BIG as I possibly could.

Looking at the BIG love I felt on my birthday — from family, coworkers and friends both in person and in pixel — I know I’m doing something right with my little BIG life.

Posted In: Home and Family, Life · Tagged: 41, birthday, life, philadelphia


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Comments

  1. Jenn says

    September 9, 2013 at 1:33 pm

    Love this! You rock, Kim! Wish I had gotten to know you better at the C-P. Happy Birthday!

    • Kimberly says

      September 11, 2013 at 12:55 pm

      (hug!) Thank you!

  2. Joe Emerson says

    September 11, 2013 at 8:27 pm

    It would be hard to say how long I’ve been following Cookie-Cam Lady and Lady Gypsy (multiple versions), but you’ve always entertained, Kim. I do miss looking for the new webcam photo (and subsequent collection of those). You SHOULD HAVE made one of those 50-under lists, you have the smarts, for sure ๐Ÿ™‚ Thanks for being my friend, albeit here ๐Ÿ™‚

    • Kimberly says

      September 15, 2013 at 7:55 pm

      Aw, thanks, Joe! And it’s neat seeing you on FB and seeing how our friends circle touch. Thanks for sticking around! ๐Ÿ™‚

  3. scrivener says

    September 13, 2013 at 1:50 pm

    …and 41 looks a lot better on you than it did on me. Happy birthday.

    • Kimberly says

      September 15, 2013 at 7:55 pm

      Thanks so much, newest FB friend! ๐Ÿ™‚

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About Me

I've been blogging for over twenty (2 decades! 2-0!) years and I'm apparently one of the few over-50 female bloggers who haven't sold out to THE MAN yet; hence this blog remains quirky, homespun, and unprofitable. No big. However, if you're from Disney, Doritos, or Dave Matthews Band, I'm open to talk about selling out.

I live in Southern New Jersey with my husband WM, and our dog Murphy. I'm an adult who likes Disney but not a Disney Adult. I used to work a fun (really!) office job in Philadelphia, but since March of 2020 I'm a work from home hermit. So if you're looking for a childless, slightly round, marginally boring GenX woman's blog to follow, you've come to the right place! :)

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