Post-birthday eval

Well, Ms Irene decided to make her wonderful debut this weekend... and left everything in eastern NC in complete devastation.  Of course that means that my birthday plans were completely demolished: Thank you, Irene! Hah! It's normal for my birthdays to be less than perfect; if it were any other way, I think I would have been shocked to say the least!  For 4 years straight, something always goes wrong... either a very bad event or in this case, natural occurrence. Haha!

My 19th birthday (freshman year) was marked by a terrible internal hordeolum in my left eye (a really bad sty on the under-side of my eyelid) that hurt like CRAZY!  And what was it caused by, you ask?  My new face wash: Neutrogena pomegranate facial scrub.  Never again... haha!  20th birthday (sophomore year)? My boyfriend (at the time) left for Korea for a year.  That day was absolutely terrible and I don't even consider it a birthday... I literally didn't want to do anything.  BUT my best friends that year (Al Lanier and Sierra Adams) threw me a huge birthday party at the Landing to cheer me up.  Gotta say, that cheered me up a LOT! (:

My 21st birthday (junior year) was marked by my fiancé (at the time) coming home.  You might say this was a GOOD thing... which, it was at the time.  But, on my actual birthday... my mom's gall bladder decided that it wanted to try to bust and make her go septic (which ultimately could have killed her if it happened).  So, last year I was cooped up in the hospital all day worried about my mom. Haha! She's fine though, thank God.

This year (senior year), Irene just had to demolish everything and make it absolutely impossible to do anything that was planned.  Boo on you, Irene!  BUT, despite the horrible hurricane this weekend... I'd have to say it was a pretty good birthday.  Nothing special, but the people who were there made it special.  We had my birthday dinner at the amazing Mi Cabaña; they made me wear a sombrero that weighed like 500 lbs.  My mom, nephews and niece, Morgan, Elaina, Christa and her husband, Brandon all made it to that.  After, we went back to the Peppers' humble abode and had cake! (Christa makes amazing eclair cake... yumm!)  As soon as I got home, I get a phone call from my besttttie, Lauren offering free drinks for my birthday at Applebees.  Seriously, who is going to turn THAT down?  Ultimately, it was a very good birthday... even if it didn't go as planned!

What I'm most thankful for on this day of my birth is that neither me nor my family were hurt in the hurricane.  We didn't sustain any damages here in Greenville and only had a slight disturbance at mom's house in New Bern.  Compared to what people went through and are still going through right now all around eastern North Carolina, I have to say that we are very blessed to be so fortunate.  There are houses, cars, businesses under water; people are trapped in their attics in the lowlands of Pamlico county, unable to escape because of the flooding.  Houses are demolished, people have been found crushed by trees that fell into their houses... it disturbs me that a hurricane that was predicted to be a category 1 hurricane could do so much damage in so little time.  I'm just thankful God was looking out for me and my family/friends.

P.S. Classes are canceled tomorrow for ECU.
happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me...