Beth's birthday was last week and she had declared it a birthday week, so I sent her stuff home through her boyfriend on a near daily basis. The last day of birthday week, I sent home a big loaf of zucchini bread and Jeremy said,"OK, that's it! Birthday week has ended!" I simply replied,"I know," and I handed him a hunk of zucchini bread from the second loaf stash I had at home. In light of the enthusiasm with which Jeremy said Birthday Week was over, I believed him when he told me today that I saved his ass a few times. Today, he saved my ass because he drove Mike from work to the daycare, where I'd locked my keys in the car, so what goes around comes around. Thankfully, I had removed the baby from the car first, otherwise, we'd be paying for a broken window. ("Gee, Mr. Insurance Adjuster, I have no idea how that big brick got on the front seat."

Wednesday was Angelina's 13th birthday (Angelina is Pauline's daughter.) Angelina's party was supposed to be this weekend or something, but her father's a flake and she doesn't actually know if it's going to happen. Pauline keeps offering to throw Angelina a party, but she's also trying not to diss Angelina's father, in front of Angelina. Angelina stopped by last night to show me her brand new birthday rollerblades and I took her shopping for her birthday. I had been planning to give her a gift certificate for $20 to buy some pants she'd liked, on the weekend at the party. But when she said that she wasn't sure if her dad was going to come through, I decided I would. The pants turned out to be $40. I don't even buy $40 pants for me, so I let her choose other things for the $20. I had also offered to give her the gift certificate, if she'd like to come back and team up certificates to buy the pants, but she wanted jewelry -- a girl after my own heart. Although, she doesn't like dangly earrings and I happen to wear nothing but dangly earrings, I still can appreciate a desire for jewelry.

I say that rather tongue-in-cheek because I am the Earring Queen. I have so many loyal subjects (earrings), I finally built them a dwelling (cut a piece of wool fabric, hung it on the wall) and furnished it (hung all my earrings on it). Mike knows that a safe bet for a Wendy gift for any occasion is earrings. I am partial to those handcrafted peculiar ones and have a LOT of them adorning my earring tapestry.(Hey, look! It's living art!) So, being that my birthday is coming in September, I'm fully within my rights to expect to receive dangly earrings from my husband, though he hates resorting to standbys and I did request a digital camera. (I hope he reads this today.)

But there are all these other birthdays, too. Yesterday, was my brother-in-law, Chris' birthday. Regular readers are asking,"Rude nasty Chris who takes great pains being mean to you and Bear?" Yup, that's the one. ( Although, now that he's got the name "uncle" he's being nicer.) Kevin the second youngest of Mike's brothers has his birthday on August 2. My mother-in-law is August 11. My brother's twins are August 13. Pauline is August 25. Bear is August 30. I am September 11. Mike's youngest brother is September 17. Mike's grandmother is September 19.

I think I am going to fertilize my zucchini bed and just make everyone, except the twins, loaves of zucchini bread. The two year old twins I'm willing to go out and buy some cute outfits for, but I may just make something for them, too. I have no idea how I'm going to afford my family. With the car on the fritz, we can't. I may just go berry picking this weekend and make jam.

Wendy adage of the day: When all else fails, make jam.

Wendy's recipe for gift giving when the budget won't stretch that far: