The best birthday present ever

My sweetie made me a chocolate cake. Not from a box. A REAL (unbelievably moist and delicious) chocolate cake from scratch. :

(He LOVES to have his picture taken. This is the only one I got where his mouth wasn't open in a threat of bodily harm.)

Anyway, this is the first chocolate cake I've had for my birthday since moving out of my mom's house. I lived with a chef for 13 years and not once did he make me a chocolate cake for my birthday. hhmmpphh.

It's been several days of birthday fun: David took me out for a wonderful Italian dinner, we decorated our tree while listening to "A Charlie Brown Christmas" with the fire going, and tonight my dear friend Christina is coming over to celebrate with me and we're having a sleep-over! Yahoo!!

This time last year, I had NO idea what the hell I was doing with my life. Eric and I were in the midst of divorce procedings (two years after having decided to divorce), I was living alone in a house we could NOT sell while he and Anna lived 30 miles away due to having enrolled her in school in a town we thought we were all moving to. I refused to make her change schools mid-year which meant she lived with him over there and I only saw her on weekends. I can't tell you how hard that was. I had been dating here and there but just didn't have my heart in it. The night of my birthday, I'd gone out to dinner with a friend, and we lamented the miserable dating scene here. (She's gay and I swear it was better for her than for me!). So the day after my birthday, I decided to take my profile off match.com (eegads, yes, I admit it, that is where I met the love of my life.) So on December 11th, I got online to take my profile down and there was an email from David. He lived in Alaska but was moving to the town I live in. He loved everything about my profile (and MAN was I specific about who I am and what I was looking for); he said he couldn't have written a profile himself that better described the woman he was looking for. He included a photo that looked like he was wearing a camouflage hat. I'd been contacted by far too many N. Idaho rednecks. Ooohh....my "delete" finger was twitching...but dang...those eyes...those LIPS! And his profile was so smart and funny and real and interesting. I could tell that he was a GROWN UP! He was unlike anyone I'd ever met. So I wrote back. We emailed approximately 48 times that day. Then he called and we talked approximately 20 hours on the phone over the next day or so. And then, two days after our initial e-mail, he called to tell me that he was flying down for the weekend, from Anchorage, to meet me. If this was what we both thought it was, we needed to find out. I had absolutely no doubt whatsoever that he was he man for me. And now, after spending a year together, I've never been more certain of anything in my life.

Happy Anniversary, love. You are the best birthday present I ever got.