Happy Birthday Maya!

March 29, 2025 /

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, today is Maya’s birthday! This is her ‘Golden Birthday’ or ‘Champagne Birthday’, which is the year your age and day of the month match. She turns 29 on the 29th. I don’t remember what year the picture above is from, but it’s not new. I considered taking her shopping for something gold, but took a look at her jewelry and decided she has plenty and likely won’t wear it, so I bought some Veuve instead to enjoy at her party.

Bonus photo from 2022. Note the candle is not on the cake. I didn’t think we’d ever go back to blowing germs all over cakes and then serving it to people again, but I suspect we will do just that today. The cake was a fancy Milkbar cake that we ordered online and had delivered for a ridiculous amount of money (started that in 2020, when we felt bad about her having a pandemic birthday and didn’t realize we were ALL going to have pandemic birthdays that year…) and it was good but not my very favorite (tasted like a really good ho-ho), and I’m glad that this year is back to carrot cake.

2nd bonus photo because I clearly can’t leave well enough alone, so I had to add this picture to show you the HUGE hunks of cheese we bought at Costco for the party. The (delicious) Humboldt Fog and Laura Chenel are here for size. Clearly I will cut these hunks down for the cheese board, there are only 8 of us, after all.

26 Comments

  • Birchie

    March 29, 2025 at 5:49 am

    I didn’t know about golden/champagne birthdays, and sigh it’s too late for the four of us – Hubs and I exceeded the age limit a long time ago, and the boys both have birthdays early in the month. Oh well.

    Heck yeah to candles on cakes. It’s ridiculous/germy, but it just feels right for a bday. That reminds me, we have a bday in May, and now would be a good time for me to make sure that we have candles. I get roman numeral candles, and I need to make sure we have enough 1’s.

    • J

      March 29, 2025 at 10:02 pm

      I’ve never heard of Roman numeral candles, that’s great. Maybe I’ll get some for Ted’s birthday in May…

      I only heard of golden birthdays when Ted’s cousin celebrated her 28th birthday several years ago. I didn’t know about it when I was 31, that would have been fun!

  • Ally Bean

    March 29, 2025 at 6:04 am

    My golden birthday happened before anyone celebrated golden birthdays. Maya looks happy on hers. I cannot believe how long I’ve known you now. I remember Maya at age 10 [12?] looking like a kid with a plan. Now she looks like a woman who accomplishes things.

    • J

      March 29, 2025 at 10:04 pm

      Ally, I don’t remember what year we ‘met’, but I know you knew my mom’s blog and she died in 2008, so clearly it was before that. I started blogging late in 2005, when she was 9, so 10 to 12 sounds about right!

      • Ally Bean

        March 30, 2025 at 4:55 am

        I recently used the Wayback Machine to see what it had on my earlier blogs and I can tell you that in March 2006 you were on my blogroll. How’s that for longevity, my friend!

        • J

          March 30, 2025 at 8:23 am

          Nice! I’ll bet if I went and looked at my old blog, which I shuttered in 2006 when I switched from blogger to wordpress, you would be on that blogroll…*checks other blog* – nope, that blog is in such disarray, there is no blogroll. Anyway, clearly we were blog friends then!

  • Margaret

    March 29, 2025 at 10:17 am

    Happy Birthday to Maya! I love the beautiful photos. I’ve read about the Milk Bar cake and it sounds kind of boring to me. Carrot and hummingbird cakes are my favorites!

    • J

      March 29, 2025 at 9:59 pm

      Agree, Milkbar cake is kind of boring. I’ve never had hummingbird cake, but I recently listened to a book where that was their favorite too. I do love carrot cake though.

    • Lisa’s Yarns

      March 30, 2025 at 2:26 pm

      Happy Golden Birthday to Maya! Mine was when I turned 6, Paul’s was age 1, Will’s was age 3. So we were all very young. Phil’s was when he turned 18. We do put candles on the cake and they blow them out which is rather gross but people roll with it!!

      I hope everyone had the best time at the party!!

  • nance

    March 29, 2025 at 3:22 pm

    Maya is lovely. I suppose it couldn’t be helped with you and Ted. 😉

    Looking at both the brie and Humboldt Fog cheeses makes me incredibly jealous. I’m trying very hard to give up cheese for the most part and be mindful of my cholesterol (thanks, Dad). Did you ever eat HF with a bit of chocolate? Heaven.

    My eldest, Jared, turned 40(!!!!!) yesterday (the 28th). I wonder if he and Maya share similar traits since they almost share a birthday.

    Isn’t it something how quickly things went right back to Normal Life after the pandemic: blowing out candles, shaking hands, ignoring social distancing, etc?

    • J

      March 29, 2025 at 9:57 pm

      I choose not to believe that we share traits with people with the same or close birthdays, because I share a birthday with D Trump Jr. Ack! However, you and Ted share a birthday and you do have similar traits I think, so we’ll say maybe Jared and Maya share traits (Happy Birthday Jared!) and that if Trump Jr and I share any traits, they are something like we both like Coke Zero or something stupid.

      HF with chocolate? WHAT? I have never considered it! I’ve had it with fig jam, or honey, but not chocolate. Going to give it a try!

  • Karen Meg

    March 30, 2025 at 4:37 pm

    Happy birthday Maya!!! Wow, she’s so stylish, I love that hat 🙂 . I’d never heard of a Champagne birthday, guess I’ll never have one going forward, my birthday is on the 14th LOL … but my son will have one in just over 3 weeks turning 25! I’ll have to mention it :). I love cake and cheese… I hate to admit it, but I usually tear through one of the those Costco sized cheeses all by my lonesome.

    • J

      March 31, 2025 at 9:54 am

      LOL, that’s a lot of cheese, but I could totally see myself finishing one off before it goes bad.

      Yay to your son’s champagne birthday, just in time!