Birthday Gifts
I received quite a few lovely birthday gifts, including the lovely necklace in my previous post. (Did I mention it was made in France? I didn’t buy it there, but loved that detail.) Among my favorite gifts were the flowers above, a new iPad and keyboard(!!!), and some lovely earrings.
Flowers – I always thought my favorite flowers were tulips, until I discovered peonies. Now I go back and forth. And gerbera daisies are just so joyful! I love them all.
iPad/keyboard – My old iPad Mini was from 2015, and was showing its age. I’m a grouch and want anything I buy to be perfect and last forever, but I do understand why this doesn’t work with technology in the same way that it might with a rolling pin. A few months ago, Ted brought home a new iPad that his company gave him for work duties, and I suddenly wanted one. Not a mini, a regular sized one. One that was new and would play more nicely with my WordPress app. One where there wouldn’t be a conflict, and I could somehow post comments on Blogger blogs. I thought about it for a day or two, and then my iPad started behaving a bit better, and I forgot about it. Ted, however, did not, and he and Maya went out and bought me a new iPad, plus a keyboard to use with it. YAY! I was SO surprised and happy! I love love love them. Sadly, I still have trouble with the WordPress app, and I still cannot comment on most Blogger blogs. But at least I don’t wonder if these are issues due to my iPad, and everything else appears to be working very well, and the battery is lasting longer. Also, Ted’s parents came over to bring me my birthday tulips, and it turns out my MIL would like my old iPad mini, to play games on. So I wiped it clean of my data, and set it up for her. A win/win!
Earrings – my brother, Richard, is an interesting gift giver. Most of the time he goes off of a gift list. He will say, “You want a massage? Let me know how much and I will send you the money.” Or he will say, “You want a new iPad Mini? I’ll buy it.” (He gave me my last one. He has given us DVD players and game consoles. He gave Maya a Mac laptop for her High School graduation, so she would have one for college. He also sometimes forgets birthdays entirely, which you wouldn’t expect as Maya is his only niece, and Ted is his only Brother in Law, but he does. He will give you one tiny item off of a gift list. But usually, not always but usually, he wants to know what it is that you want, and he will try to get you that. That’s a long winded way of saying that I was shocked to receive a lovely pair of earrings from a jewelry shop near him, in Juneau. I think the only other time he has given me earrings, I had them on my Amazon wishlist.
We celebrated my birthday and New Years Eve with some friends, who thankfully got a room at a hotel down the street. It rained a LOT on Saturday, as you may have seen on the news. San Francisco got 25% of their annual rainfall in 2 days. California ALWAYS needs rain, but we truly do not need it all at once. Too bad, because it is looking like we are going to have another big storm (called an ‘atmospheric river’, which we used to call a ‘pineapple express’ for some reason) tomorrow night/Thursday morning, and then there is rain in the forecast every day on my 10 day outlook. I feel horribly for people who have lost trees, or who have lost their homes, or who have had damage from the rain. I feel glad about our snowpack. Hopefully this will mean that this will not be a drought year for us.
23 Comments
Margaret
I’m still not used to the atmospheric river versus the pineapple express. Here it gets unseasonably warm with lots of rain hence the pineapple part of it. I had to make up a fake blogger blog to be able to comment on blogger sites. Ridiculous. WP is almost as hard although I could make up a log-in for it. Do I remember my user name and password? No, but my laptop does. However, if I’m on my cellphone, forget about commenting anywhere! What a great batch of birthday gifts! Glad it was such a wonderful day.
J
I had forgotten the warm weather aspect to a Pineapple Express. The storm that hit last week was warm. This next one will be colder.
I have a blogger blog, plus I am an admin on my late mom’s blog, plus some really old reading challange blog. I suspect something in there is confusing the issue, but I don’t know what to do about it. For some reason I can comment fine using my work computer, and I’m not sure what is different. Sigh.
Nicole MacPherson
I have so much to say. First, I love Gerbera daisies.
Second, I have NEVER been able to get the wordpress app to work. Never. It always times out, it always gives me problems, it is very frustrating. I also cannot comment on posts on my phone if they are blogger posts, which means that if I’m travelling, sorry everyone, peace out. I am strangely elated to hear that the app doesn’t work for you because I thought it was me and something I was doing. Maybe the app is just a piece of shit that doesn’t work! It should not be this hard in the YEAR OF OUR LORD 2023. Honestly.
Your brother reminds me of my mother-in-law in that she a) often forgets one of my son’s (but not the other’s!) birthday, and she has exactly two grandchildren, and b) almost always forgets my birthday and she has exactly one daughter-in-law. You would think that maybe we have a bad relationship but we don’t, we get along fine. I had to really get over the birthday thing because birthdays are HUGE to me, not just mine but everyone’s, and they are incredibly unimportant to her.
This is a very long comment for so early in the morning so I hope it’s coherent. Happy happy happy birthday to you!
J
Well, I am glad that my issues with the WordPress app make you feel better, because I feel the same way knowing that you have similar issues. I mean, I wish none of us had to suffer, but at least I know I am not suffering alone. You made me laugh with your ‘YEAR OF OUR LORD 2023′, I think I am going to start saying that (unless you have a copyright?)
My brother is funny, because HIS birthday is very important to him, but not so much other peoples’. I mean, he is pretty good about mine, and his wife’s, but not so much other peoples’. He forgot mine once or twice, and I suggested that perhaps we might stop exchanging birthday gifts, that was fine with me, and he said, in a hurt voice, “But I LIKE getting gifts!” HA! He has actually been a bit better since that happened, but still misses my husband or my daughter about every other year.
Elisabeth
What a lovely selection of gifts; the flowers are gorgeous and while I don’t use an iPad, I think it would be my husband’s desert island item!!! He uses his iPad every single day for both work purposes and leisure and if it broke today, he’d be driving to an Apple store to replace it immediately.
I have lots of issues commenting on some blogs, too. Sigh.
J
I am glad that I kvetched here, it is good to know I am not alone about commenting!
I am in the pink puffy heart love phase with my new iPad. She can do no wrong. I think I may have to give her a name.
NGS
WordPress and Blogger! Why do they make it so hard to comment?! Also, Disqus, too. There’s one blog I can’t comment on because I can’t get Discus to work from any device I own and I want that blogger to know that I read what she writes and I have thoughts, but I just can’t figure it out. Maybe that should be my blogging resolution for the year – figure out how to comment on that blog.
Meanwhile, I am still confused as to what makes a tablet superior to a laptop. There’s an iPad floating around our house, but my husband is the only one who uses it because I either use my phone or my laptop and see no need for a middle thing. Can you explain it to me like I am a small child?
J
I see no benefit to an iPad over a laptop, actually. Except that I can play games using my finger, which I know you can do with some laptops. It’s a little smaller and more portable. It’s sometimes cheaper, if you are an apple household. My brother uses one for art, and I think for that it is far superior. But who knows. So, advantage? I don’t know. I first got on the iPad train when I won an iPad mini in a NaBloPoMo at BlogHer, which meant I could blog without using my work computer, which I LOVED. When it became too slow and its battery drained to quickly and so on, my brother bought me a new iPad mini, mostly because it is so easy to keep things on one platform. Then my husband brought home a regular sized iPad from work, and I started drooling over it. My old iPad mini was giving me some grief (though honestly, what I thought were iPad problems are still happening, like the wordpress app and the commenting), so he and my daughter bought me a new one for my birthday.
I feel you on the commenting thing. I try so hard to be good about it, but some blogs are almost impossible. You could perhaps link to this person’s blog from your blog, and let them know that you want to comment but cannot. Even if they can’t fix the issue, perhaps they would get a pingback and see your post?
San
If it is any consolation, Engie: I have never owned a tablet (other than an Amazon Fire, which I soley use for reading, as I was too cheap to buy a Kindle)… I do everything I want to do either on my phone when I am on the go, or on a laptop. I really prefer having a laptop over a tablet.
nance
Happy Birthday! I’m so glad you were pleased with all of your gifts.
As far as the commenting on Blogger blogs, if your commenting ID is tied to an old Blogger ID that was part of Blogger Groups or Hangouts, that feature was discontinued, so that ID will no longer be recognized. In order to comment on Blogger blogs, you have to have a Google ID/Blogger ID, or comment anonymously, and some bloggers (like me) don’t allow anonymous comments. (They’re usually spam, and I get hit hard.) I have several commenters that set up a Blogger ID just for commenting; they don’t have a blog or anything.
I love peonies, too. They are gorgeous, easy to grow, and smell heavenly. I can’t have them, alas! because Rick is allergic to them, along with one of my other favourite flowers, the hyacinth. Luckily, he is well aware of the sacrifice(s) I make for him. 😉
J
Oh Nance, the blogger thing is maddening. I was never part of Blogger Groups or Hangouts, and I have a Google ID, and if I am on my work computer I can use it to comment, but not from my iPad. I have no idea what is different. I have cleared out my cache/cookies, etc. I am definitely signed in with my Google ID, but when I try to sign in on your blog (and a few others) I cannot. Sigh.
Oh, Rick is allergic to Peonies and Hyacinth? That is horrible! Ted has allergies to quite a few flowers too, though I have never figured out which ones. Sometimes I bring home something that gives him trouble, so I put it outside. Sigh. There are definitely a lot of sacrifices that we make!
Jenny
Happy belated birthday! These are some amazing gifts. I love that your brother unexpectedly sent you earrings. I don’t own an Ipad and do all my blogging (and everything else) on my laptop. I do have trouble commenting on wordpress blogs sometimes- I thought it was just me.
I don’t normally have fresh flowers in my house, but yours are beautiful! Now I want peonies.
J
Thank you Jenny! It has been a revelation to me that others are having similar issues. Perhaps I will figure it out one day. I would certainly like to!
Fresh flowers are such a mixed bag. I love them, but watching them die can be depressing. Peonies are rarely available, so when I see them, I will sometimes splurge.
Lisa of Lisa's Yarns
OMG, the blogger comment issue is driving me insane. It must be something with apple products. I can’t comment on my iPhone either! But if i am on a pc, it’s fine. I don’t understand.
You got some truly terrific gifts for your birthday! That is so amazing that your brother gifted you earrings. What a thoughtful guy!
That is nuts about the amount of rain you guys have received. That is too much in a short period of time! We had a horrible draught here this summer for the 2nd year in the row. Now we are getting a ton of snow. It’s feast or famine, I guess!
J
Oh, Lisa, I hadn’t thought about it being a mac vs pc issue. I also have no trouble on my work computer, which is a pc. Interesting!
I love my earrings. I’ve been wearing them a lot. 🙂
I love rain. I love love love it. I don’t like trees falling on people’s houses and so on, though. I wish we could have more days between storms so the soil can dry out a bit.
Meike
I was kind of happy to read that others have the same experience with the commenting (wordpress, blogger, etc). I don’t have a problem commenting on yours but came across others where it was an issue. It seems very random.
Besides that, hurray for the rain! But yes, I also wished it could spread out more instead of coming down all at once. I hope you stayed safe during the storm yesterday. We had a pretty widespread power outage over where we are but it was back in the morning (I was already expecting worse).
J
Meike, I also am glad to not be alone regarding the commenting!
Yes, YAY FOR RAIN! And really, do we need a year’s worth in a week? It’s insane. So many trees are coming down because the ground is saturated and now we are getting wind. Scary.
Not scary for us personally, so far we are fine. Sorry you lost power for so long…we lost power yesterday for a few minutes, but that was it.
Jan
Happy Belated Birthday! What lovely gifts – I share a birthday with my daughter and so it’s generally all about her!
J
Goodness, what a way to spend your birthday (at least that one year!)
My mom was born on her Aunt’s 18th birthday, and that same Aunt was in the birthing room at the hospital when I was born. 🙂
Ally Bean
You mention the Pineapple Express and I start thinking about Psych, which just happened to take place in California, and had a pineapple reference in every episode. Not the point of your post, but that’s where my mind went. Happy Birthday!
J
Ally, that’s funny because of course, you can’t grow pineapples in California. I’ve never heard of Psych. Thank you for the birthday wishes!
San
Peonies are so pretty! One of my favorite flowers for sure.
I am glad you got such great – and thoughtful – gifts for your birthday, Julie. I love when people make an effort to really make the birthday person happy 🙂
Stay dry and warm. We’ve been hit with a lot of rain here in the CV and while we personally weren’t affected in the city, I don’t know if you heard that Highway 99 was flooded in South Sacramento and three people drowned. I know we need the rain, but please not all at once.
J
San, AMEN on the not all at once! I had heard about one person who drowned in their car on 99, I did not know that there were more. So tragic. I also peeked over at Instagram for a brief moment a few minutes ago (I rarely go there) and saw the tree that came down on your block. UGH. Yes, we need rain. I just wish we had a bit of time between storms for the soil to dry out!