a 24-hour party was a good idea in theory...  Well, not exactly party, but more of a celebration.  It started off good- I'd slept 2ish hours before hearing someone call 'honey,' in conjunction with my birthday surprise.  Can't say I could go back to sleep after that.  So when Amber had to sleep soon (originally, we were going to hang out at midnight) I went to her half-expecting to see a person.  I mean, there was a person.  Amber is very much one.  And she had a bag full of goodies for me :) :)  She's very thoughtful and gave some fun and some practical things (like a butterfly (mini stuffed animal) bookmark and water bottle and red roses that light up...)  So, Amber went to sleep, and I began the 24 hours.  I sorted and washed dishes for an hour, and then started organizing my files (aka some folders and a bunch of lose papers and misc. things).  To my great joy, my MIA USB drive was there!!  I thought I'd left it at a library months ago, and already today I've saved things to it.  (USB drives can be compared to floppy disks or CDs, etc.- you can save files, etc onto it and open them on other computers.  they tend to hold a lot more info, too.)  I drank milk the first hour and apple juice the second.  I played sudoku.  Around 2:30 I thought, "A 20-something minute nap sounds good."  That turned into restless sleep, with the nearly-constant 'snoozing' of the cell phone going on.  The last thing I remember is a message on my phone to the effect of 'maximum alloted time to SNOOZE has been reached,' to which I asked, "So?" and proceeded to sleep until 6:03 (the time I normally am walking out the door.  What happened to those 3 hours in which I could have made great progress on cleaning or eaten more of my (symbolic) party food?  Thank God I woke up then.  I threw on a dress and grabbed a couple of purses and some food and ran out the door, but missed the bus.  I ended up being a little late.  So much for doing my hair this morning...  I'm slightly bummed that I'm missing out on some of my food-memories, like egg whites.  I didn't have time to stop at the store and pick up a few things on the way, so I'm compromising, and will represent and think of my past 24 years in one form or other. 

I'm very happy and in a good mood and all that today.  I have an interesting (if nothing else like unhealthy),  co nnection with food.  I love it and associate just about everything (including memories) with it.  You'll often hear me ask, "Was that when we tried that cheesecake?" or something of the sort.  I have some sort of fear about not having enough to eat, even though we probably don't need to grocery shop for a while (except for variety).  When I was a newborn, though, I went into a stubborn or anti-food phase.  I wouldn't drink milk- just water and apple juice, and I lost weight (not good at that age) but that's about the only time I haven't thrived on food.  Coherent thoughts...  My original focus in this 24-hour celebration (at least as far as food goes) was to reflect on the years that have passed.  While I am still doing that, a number of things have come together to show me the importance of looking to the future.  'The future' to me has mostly been an obscure concept.  About the only solid things that I've anticipated were graduating high school and college, getting married, and having kids.  Nothing else was all that important to me.  I will reflect on the future a bit more today, and may share some revelations/refelections, etc as they come.

For now, I'll leave off with a food story.  As a small kid, I used to love hard salami, especially tearing it so it was a springy, wide 'string.'  Then my brother and I would pretend it was a fishing line and we were fish.  I'm all for playing with your food.  :)

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Haven't spent too much time thinking about the future (today).  The hours have just flown by.  One of my highlights today was when a good friend called up and started singing Happy Birthday to me.  To me, that shows that she's comfortable enough around me to not have those walls of self-consciousness up, and that rocks!!