Celebrating Pi (on my birthday...and a few days beyond))

 
Another birthday has come and gone, and I finally have a few minutes to reflect upon (and blog about) it.  My birthday is (and has always been) on March 14th.  It's a day I usually look forward to, and don't dread the "another year older" stigma.

Inrecent years, though, it has been called "Day of Pi."  Hmmmm.  I was a bit of a math geek in my younger years, and it never occurred to me to think of March 14th as Pi Day.  It makes sense...March is the 3rd month in the calender year, and the 14th day is special (to me and anyone else who has had the fortune of making their appearance on this day), and the numeric for Pi is 3.14.  Funny how I never made that correlation.

My day started out great, in other words: the hair cooperated and looked better than most days. 

The husband left me a nice card. I took two pans of brownies to work to share with the co-workers, and was pleasantly surprised to see a bunch of beautifully-frosted cupcakes waiting for me.  Another co-worker had made a sweet card with a picture of a race medal on it (she knows I like my racing hardware).  Yet another co-worker started singing the "Happy Birthday" song to me.  And then I noticed something simply grand.....somehow, Jon Bon Jovi had gotten in the building and left several autographed photos on my desk.  He'd written a few sappy sentiments on them, too (that I won't publish on here).


The day progressed.  I was finished around noon at work, so I headed home.  It was fun to read
85 greetings on Facebook from various friends, family and acquaintances. The weather was most grand, around 50 degrees, which is warm for March in Iowa. It was perfect for a run outside in the sunshine.  In celebration of Pi, I ran the obligatory 3.14 miles.

Later, we had dinner at one of our local Mexican restaurants.  Of course, there was the mandatory feliz cumplianos celebration, complete with the celebrant (myself) modeling a sombrero the size of our table (Sorry, those pics are private, LOL)  I don't embarrass easily, so it was more fun than anything.  My parents were there, as well as the husband, our son and the oldest daughter (home from college, a day early for spring break!).

The younger daughter didn't join us for dinner because she had dance class.  She is my resident manicurist, though, and had given me a fancy pedicure the evening prior.

What most don't know about my birthday is that I was supposed to arrive on St. Patrick's Day.  Apparently, I did not want to share that grand day with all of Ireland, so I made my appearance 3 days early. None the less, I have always felt some degree of loyalty to St. Patrick, and enjoy celebrating his day (though I have zero Irish heritage in my gene pool).

This year, myself, the husband, and a few others gathered together and ran in St. Patrick's honor.  It was nothing grand, but we had plenty of sunshine and the company of fellow runners, all dressed in green.  And, for the first time ever in my running career, I did a warm-up run prior to the actual run with the gang. I have seen "elite" runners do this at events, and I never understood the significance of using all that energy BEFORE the race itself.  But I was advised to do a warm-up at an easy pace, and it would actually enhance my performance at the start line. And, guess what! It worked!  I violated my comfort zone and it paid off.