Thirty and thankful this Thanksgiving

I am honest enough to tell you that before my birthday, I had the bluest of all birthday blues. If I have to hang on to dear 29, I would.

You see,  I have all my birthdays figured out. For the past years I've spent my birthdays in Manila, Davao and last year Boracay. I was supposed to go to Cebu-Bohol this year, but something came up. Then I had another plan and booked myself at Nurture Spa Village in Tagaytay, but Typhoon Yolanda came to our country and I decided to use the money to donate it to victims instead. On the actual day of my birthday, I was scheduled to see my spiritual adviser but the day before our appointment, the schedule got mixed up. Therefore, plans A to C went down the drain.

Then I get a BBM from my guy friends. Jimmy is almost rarely in town and was just in elbi for the graduate school registration season. So it was an instant pick me upper seeing them outside my office building waiting for me. We had an instant pre-birthday dinner with lots of interesting catch up.

Birthday Salubong with my favorite boys

The next morning I have no plans at all. I mean, it's the big three-o and no plans at all. I decided to have a "do-as-you-please" day and have the day all to myself.

First stop: Donate old stuff toys to Jollibee.  I've always wanted to do that. I keep telling myself that I want to donate my old childhood toys to Jollibee. When I finally did it, the lady manager ran after me as I was heading to the door.  They gave me a pin after I donated. Thanks Jollibee!

 

Next on the menu: I decided to go to the nearest mall and treat myself to a good coffee. Actually, I just had my Starbucks card registered and it entitled me to a free hand crafted drink and because it's my birthday, I get to have a free slice of cake.

One word: Avail!

I also decided that I want to watch a movie by myself. What's my instant pick me upper movie? A Disney movie!

Not my first time watching alone in the movie house, but my first time to watch a 3D movie alone.

I decided to stay away from the social media for most of the day (but managed to read a few). Thank you for all the birthday greetings and for taking the time to greet me via Facebook wall post, Twitter, private message, text message, BBM and instagram. Thank you also to Facebook for reminding my friends that shawty it's my birthday.

I love all the greetings but I must admit I have to hand it over to the people who are responsible for the highlights of birthday greetings via social media:

1. The instagram post of my sister, Aprille:

2. Birthday greeting wall post of THE (Atty) Raymond Fortun:

Oh did I tell you we were both at the wedding of my friends Claire and Pietro? I was their wedding blogger and he is their official photographer:

3. Very heart warming instagram post of my friend in graduate school, yeye:

4. Another heartfelt post of my BPO bff, Karen.

5.   I am so glad I was able to read this post from Thadie, first thing in the morning:

6.  And of course the amusing post of Paolo, who I haven't seen since 2009. It's very timely Pao, because I had too much of Starbucks' products that day. 

7.  The very early birthday greeting of bff Mina, while she is my Samantha Jones, I am her Carrie Bradshaw!

By night, we had dinner at the nearby restaurant, courtesy of inay.

The next morning, post birthday, I am officially thirty.  When I came to the office, I saw this:

 

It turned out that it's a surprise bouquet for me from my Mom, sister Aprille, Aunt Daisy and Achi Helen.  I was supposed to take another picture when my camera conked out. I was really bummed about it. My Canon S100, exactly a year and three months old, had lens error out of nowhere and I kind of knew that it will no longer work. And I don't have budget this year for a new camera. I was hoping to take photos because I have a post-birthday lunch at the office and invited selected friends and my advisory committee.

Good thing I work at the Office of Public Relations where we must have a DSLR camera. But still, it means my blogging would take a backseat until I get a new one. I would like to thank Kuya Karl Cadapan for the following photos:

Thank you to my thesis adviser and current supervisor, Dr. Serlie B. Jamias, for the opening prayer and the Mernel's cake!

Thank you to everyone who came (even though some are on a short notice) to my sort-of post thesis/post-birthday/thanksgiving lunch and most especially to my Inay, the ultimate party organizer.

I am thankful. 

I am thirty.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!