This year my birthday was weird. Not because of anyone else–totally because of me.

Usually I insist on a week-long (at least) extravaganza involving travel and excess. In that respect, I suppose I was on track– we really considered my tagging along for the fiance’s work trip to be my big birthday affair.

But here’s the thing; we went several weeks before my birthday so in my mind, I couldn’t quite resolve them being the same thing. I like to celebrate my birthday ON my birthday.

I realize this is sounding horrible as I say it, but I’m going to continue on. The fiance and I had off/took off Independence Day and Friday to create a little lead up to the celebratory weekend.

• We went to Tall Ships in downtown Cleveland and watched the fireworks Thursday night
• I spent the day putting things in order and we went and saw the Lone Ranger on Friday (I don’t think it did well, but I actually really liked it)
• I woke up Saturday, my birthday morning, to a card from my cat and a trail of sea salted caramel chocolates leading me to my card and gift from the fiance before we headed to Cleveland’s West Side for a day of exploration

On Sunday we recovered and headed to East Harbor in Marblehead, Ohio, to meet my family for the afternoon to celebrate my birthday and a belated Father’s Day for my dad and grandpa.

The beach was a little cool and windy for lunch, which worked out perfectly because there were fewer people and we were able to land a couple picnic tables. We headed to Mon Ami after for wine and dessert. The band– the Pop Tarts– was, ummm, just ok. We ended up making fun of them most of the time. I love bubble gum pop, but the outfits and some of the singing left a little to be desired.

Here were some of the best moments:

It turned out to be a lovely four-day, low-key celebration, but overall I guess maybe I just wasn’t that excited for 29. I usually put some time into mapping out a trip, etc. so we can get away and relax/enjoy the birthday weekend, but this year I wasn’t in to it.

I guess most of my effort has been going into wedding planning. Or maybe I felt guilty still wanting to go through with a birthday weekend when we had just returned from such a nice trip.

Either way, I was not ready to celebrate 29, and I’m still sort of longing to be a bit farther away from 30. So it was perfect timing when I saw the following quote on facebook this morning from Oliver Sacks, a neurology professor at NYU:

I do not think of old age as an ever grimmer time that one must somehow endure and make the best of, but as a time of leisure and freedom, freed from the factitious urgencies of earlier days, free to explore whatever I wish, and to bind the thoughts and feelings of a lifetime together.

I hope to embrace that sentiment, as well as 29, and make this another incredible and memorable year!