Yes, the blog has swag! Except that it’s so exclusive that I’m the only one that has it. While I would love to say that t-shirts are here, in reality, it’s a single, amazing t-shirt. For my birthday, my friend Teresa designed and hand screen-printed the most thoughtful gift I’ve received in a long time. She captured so many wonderful things: Max riding on a Wild Thing’s back, the bicycle with a kid’s trailer, and even a baby in the trailer! And the shirt is my favorite color. (Weirdly, it’s much brighter in person.) I was flabbergasted when I opened it.

Astonishingly, it wasn’t the first time I was flabbergasted on this specific birthday. On the actual day of my birthday, I had to be into work a bit early for a conference call. Opening my door afterwards, I almost walked into crepe paper hanging down from it. Then I saw the same someone had brought in brownies and scones. While I was on my call, my friend Natalie had snuck around so quietly that I didn’t hear her at all! It reminded me of the other girls getting their lockers decorated for their birthdays in high school, except no one ever did that for me. So to have someone do it as an adult was terribly sweet and unexpected.

Feeling that support and love from my friends was actually one of the reasons I was so hopeful and confident in the post about my birthday. Especially in a time of big transitions, we’re so blessed to be surrounded by people who love us so much.