Blessings in abundance

This weekend I turned 50. Ouch. It is one of those cut off ages. I am now officially over the barrier and properly old.
Fuck.
My aching body attests to this. Today I am just so knackered and sore it hurts to get off of the settee.
But it all started so well.....
Friday when I arrived at work I received an email saying that my daughters and I were formally invited to dine at our home with Chef Norman in attendance.
I arrived home and was ushered through to the lounge and told in no uncertain terms to stay out of the kitchen. The girls and I sat watching 'So You Think You Can Dance'. Then Norm brought us a still warm meringue! Oh my god since when did my husband learn how to cook such a moist chewy meringue - or any sort of meringue for that matter?
When we met he could make toast and that was it.
He then proceeded to spend the evening spoiling us - first with a starter of steamed asparagus, wrapped in proscuitto and stuffed with mozzarella cheese inside the ham. It was drizzled with some slightly sweet but acidic sauce, it was just divine. My fave things all wrapped up in one.
For mains we had 'Italian Chicken' which was chicken in a casserole with mushrooms, in a white wine sauce, on a bed of mashed potato topped with steamed tenderstem broccoli.
For dessert he brought out a creme brullee which is my favourite dessert. It was made with white chocolate lindt and was one of the best things I have ever eaten. He just followed the recipe and he did a brilliant job.
I wish I had one now lol. And the meringues are what he did with the leftover egg whites after he made the brullee!

I felt he had surpassed my expectations and thought the next day might just be presents and a family lunch. Josh came down to visit Lily for the weekend and I thougth we would all just go for dinner.

However I was informed I had an agenda. I had to get dressed to go to the waterfront for shopping - he wanted to buy me a dress 'for that evening as I needed to look nice' when we went for dinner. We lucked out and found 2 at Edgars which looked great and bought them both. One of them is 2 sizes smaller than I normally buy, the other is 1 down. That made me pleased as punch.
In high spirits we then went onto Balducci's for lunch. We grabbed a table outside and I ordered some sushi.

We had a lovely lunch and a glass of wine then did a bit more shopping and headed home. I had a little nap then showered and headed out. We arrived at the venue where I assumed we were just joining our usual group of about 5 couples for dinner, but when I walked in the whole room sort of stood up in one long mexican wave type pattern...it was a bit overwhelming! I started tearing up and got a bit freaked out as I had not expected that at alll! The girls had put together a slide show of pics of me from childhood up to now, it was brilliantly done. I just felt so loved and so overwhelmed by it all.

I was given some gorgeous and brilliant presents but I opened them when we got home and I was rather tipsy and I kept thanking the wrong people for the wrong presents! Oops so embarrassing. But hopefully I have been forgiven :)

I went to a women's event I really like this week called Extraordinary Women and it is always loads of women giving talks about how they became who they are and it is very inspirational. Everyone was asking 'Are you where you want to be' for example. I reaalised yes I am. I have the life I have been visialising for decades - living with my kids having a normal life. I have a man who adores me and will do anything for me, I have my girls here at uni so with me for a few years and we are such good friends and so close. It is brilliant.
My son is settled with a woman he loves whom the family also love. She fits right in with us. They've bought a house and are happy.
I have amazing friends. And a beautiful home. If I wanted anything else I would just be greedy. I am so blessed and so grateful for those blessings.