Today is my birthday.  I am 39.  Or, perhaps I should say this is the first time I am turning 39…

Actually, I’m not really one of those people.  Of course, I love it when someone thinks I am younger than I am, and if I get carded I do a little dance (even though I know I look closer to 41 than 21), but I don’t long to be any other number than what I am.  Birthdays are easier when you are where you want to be, or at least close to where you want to be.

This year, from 39 to 40, is going to be a big one for me.  For starters, I’ve decided that it’s going to be “The Year of Yoga”.  I left my much-loved yoga practice behind after I had my first son.  I was able to get back to it after he was a few months old, but I let it go again around the time he celebrated his first birthday.  That was 3 1/2 years ago.  I have missed yoga and I have missed teaching.  There are people in the yoga community who celebrate birthdays by doing as many sun salutations as the year they are turning.  When my good friend Rachel turned 40, I promised her we would do 40 Surynamaskara A’s together.  If you practice yoga, you know that this is no easy task.  I was at the peak of my yoga shape at that point and it was still hard.  Next year, I would like to do 40 A’s and it will probably take me the whole year to get in good enough yoga shape to do so.  Along the way, I will also reclaim my practice, and possibly get back on the road to teaching.

In addition to yoga, I plan to challenge myself with some cooking tasks.  This will be the year of homemade pasta, croissants (maybe), Holly B’s cinnamon rolls and almond butterhorns, crèpes, sourdough starter and the breads that follow, perfecting layer cakes, making all kinds of ice cream, and other delicious things.  I hope you will come along with me for the ride.

Before I hit “publish”, I need to tell you how sweet my husband is.  I have been pining away for an iPhone for about a year now.  The desire started slowly, then escalated to a full-blown need.  I kept telling Randy that I wanted one for my birthday.  Of course, I could have just walked in and bought one.  We already use AT&T, it all would have been very easy.  But for some reason, I just really wanted it for my birthday.

Randy works for Microsoft.  He drinks the Kool-Aid there on a regular basis.  Whenever anyone we know uses “google” as a verb, he will say, “You mean bing it?”.  (Actually, I am thankful we now have bing.  It is much easier to say than “Live Search it” or “MSN Search it”.)  So whenever I told him how much I wanted an iPhone, he would start in on how we don’t allow Apple products into our home, how that would be like taking food out of our childrens’ mouths.  He calls my father, who has always had Macs and has an iPhone, a traitor.  Now, he is kidding.  Kind of.

This morning, Randy brought me my birthday gift in a large Williams Sonoma bag.  Inside was a new Cuisinart food processor.  My old one is 16 years old and while it still works perfectly, I have really been wanting a new and bigger one.  I was very touched.  Then I opened the gift from my brother and sister-in-law which was a clock radio which you can plug (and re-charge) your iPhone into.  He said, “Oh, what’s that?  A clock radio for an iPhone?  Well, then I guess you need one of these…” and out came my new phone.  What did I do?  I started bawling.  This is unlike me.  I am not a crier.  I just couldn’t believe he caved and bought me something I so wanted and that he kept it a secret from me.  Now I just need to figure out how to use it…and keep it away from that secretly-coveting-an-iPhone husband of mine.