The Almost Nearly Sorta Kinda 40th

I was telling Carmel-from-creche about my forthcoming party, and she said to me:

"It's bad luck to celebrate your birthday BEFORE the actual date!"

(Because she's Italian. Can you tell?)

I said "How much bad luck? Are we talking death or dud presents? What's the scale?"

(Because I'm a smart-arse).

Carmel thought we were probably in the realm of dud presents so I decided to risk it.

Saturday morning and quite a lot of Saturday afternoon was spent setting up. The Perfectionist Team otherwise known as Elda and Nell got to work, making sure it was Just Right. Fixit and I helped as directed although I got to skive off for almost 2 hours while I got my hair done At The Hairdressers. And I will just state for the record that getting your hair done professionally before an important event is definitely worth it! My hair looked fabulous in every single photo.

The hall looked wonderful. It's amazing what you can do with some painted cardboard stars, some fishing line, some cheap purple sparkly fabric and fairy lights. I also put up a big photo wall where I tried to have photos of me with most of my guests, as well as lots of milestone photos.

My sister travelled from interstate to celebrate with me, and brought with her the professional photographer's gear to capture the event. I think she was too busy dancing during the mass Charleston dance lesson so I'm pretty sure we have no photos of that but I can tell you it was a LOT of fun! And it got every one laughing and mingling which was fantastic. Fixit and I were turning and 3-stepping like we were born to it.

And then suddenly after that, I started to feel dreadful. I still don't know what it was. I know what it WASN'T. It was definitely NOT alcohol because sadly I had only had one glass of wine. And I was planning to have much more than that. Could have been gastro, because let's not forget my Stealth Vomiter from last week and add in that the Climber went on to chunder Sunday night. And we all know what germ-spreaders kids are. Or maybe it was too stuffy in the main hall and it made me faint and nauseous. Possibly stress from the lead-up was just too much for my delicate constitution. I dunno. I do know I spent the remainder of the party feeling ill. Which meant that I had none of the party food (apparently it was very nice), none of the alcohol (you should see how much is left over) and none of the drunken socialising I was hoping for, not to mention frenzied action on the dancefloor.

But anyway. I pulled myself together enough for the formalities and sat, like the Queen of Sheba, draped in my shawl to stop the shivering, while my speakers (my Mother, my Father, Nell and Fixit) spoke. The speeches were just lovely and did all that good speeches should - made people laugh and cry. Then I blathered something incoherent and forgot to thank Jenny for my cake ...

... and Dad for the alcohol ...

... but did remember to thank Mum and Bron for travelling down specially and for helping out with the photos, and Nell and Elda for all their work, and all my guests for being gorgeous friends and/or family.

Now. Slight drumroll for this part of the evening's proceedings ...

Fixit was the last of the speakers and after Elda announced him he suddenly knelt down beside me and took my hand. OH YES HE DID!! You should have heard the gasp that went round the room. You should have heard my heart somersault in my chest.


And I think that he nearly almost proposed to me and that at the last moment he backed out. He said later he wanted to but was worried that I'd say Yes.

(Umm.. Seriously. If you ask a girl in public, in front of all her friends and family, after 14 years and 2 children together, do you think she'd be able to say NO?)

Anyway. He did make a really beautiful and heartfelt speech about how much I meant to him which touched the hearts of everyone in the room.

And then they brought out the cake and I blew out forty candles. It took 3-4 goes. That's a lot of candles.

Did you notice the sexy back detail on my frock? And here's a front-on shot so you can see the bodice detail featuring pretty amber-like beads. It had an uneven hem, above the knee at the front and longer everywhere else and the skirt flipped out beautifully when I danced. Also pictured here with my frock is the maternal side of the family - my Mum is on the right of the photo. A couple of aunts in this picture were later observed putting some gentle pressure on Fixit to go through with the proposal. And I don't think they were the only ones to do that.

So the next day, I had no hangover, but still felt seedy. Which is just unfair. But I did get to unwrap my presents.

At least there were no duds.