A veritable birthday bonanza

My husband's 29th birthday was on Sunday - Friday kicked off what will be a 3-week birthday fest for him involving no fewer than 6 birthday meals with family and friends. This is not because he's some kind of egomaniac who expects the world to revolve around his date of birth (I'm the egomaniac in this relationship, not him) but because... well, just because. Let me list:

1. Friday dinner - birthday with wife
2. Saturday dinner - birthday with friends
3. Sunday lunch - birthday with parents and one sister
4. Sunday dinner - birthday with other sister
5. following Saturday dinner - birthday with crazy mother-in-law
6. following Saturday dinner - birthday with father- and brother-in-law

That doesn't include colleagues from current and previous contracts who wanted to meet up for lunch in honour of the occasion. It's madness.

Anyway, his birthday made me think back to last year at this time. I was trying to write some awful article for Insurance Hell and was going mental. I had stayed up all night writing it, and when I went into work, found out that the manager who had approved the topic hadn't gotten VP approval, and now I had to start from scratch on a new, but equally awful and difficult topic that needed to be approved and submitted to the magazine by noon the next day. One of my managers told me, "I hate having to tell you that you'll have to work on this tonight, but you'll need to manage the approvals process, incorprating changes and such tonight so we can meet our deadline." I was nearly in tears in his office, because that night was my husband's birthday dinner and I couldn't miss it and I have spent way too long on this awful thing and and and...

And I'm so glad I'm not there anymore. My new job is awesome. That is all.