Beautiful Anne and Happy Birthday to Me

My Anne of Green Gables, painted by Geri Uribe in about 2010 or 2011, started to have slightly foggy eyes, as can happen with a few of the older dolls.  I sent her in to Geri and she touched up her eyes, but also touched her paint up generally and she's like a new doll!  I was so happy.  She's beautiful, more beautiful than before, even!  I was just stunned when I took her out of the box because she's so much prettier.  I love her even more now.  Here's a photo:




And a picture of her before her touchup job. The photo is a few years old so her eyes were not dull at all in this photo:



She arrived yesterday.  Today is my birthday, so it was a lovely birthday present!

I have had a great birthday this year!  My little Olivia has been such good company all day. We opened presents this morning (she helped unwrap them, of course) and we made a chocolate cake with raspberry filling and raspberry buttercream frosting.  After lunch we went for a walk and then played outside for a while.  It's been over 50 degrees here today, which is unprecedented in my memory for February 28.  It's usually still definitely winter.  This afternoon we had some visitors, which was a lot of fun, especially since they brought homemade cookies!  I had two different renditions of the happy birthday song over the phone sung to me and some lovely flowers were given to me on Friday night in honor of my birthday.  This year I feel very appreciated and loved by all those around me.

To make the day more unique, this afternoon we watched a mink in the backyard poking around.  It was a unique sight since I don't see them that often.  They live in the beaver pond, and sometimes when they are hungry enough they come up.  This one was digging into a chipmunk hole repeatedly, trying to get the little chipmunk.  He had no success and finally ambled back down into the swamp.

So today I am 37.  A good age to be, and a new year of life to start with my ever-present optimism.  It was a hard year last year but I've come through it better than ever.