Lordy Lordy . . Look Who's Forty (and in the 140s!!)

This has been THE best birthday that I've ever had! The party was a complete blast, I received so many nice messages, cards, presents and flowers, and just felt so completely loved and happy to celebrate this event with so many close friends.

The tables! I got the flowers for 1/2 off through a deal on ideeli.com and made the menus and CD favors (you can just see them under the napkins) myself!

I always wondered how it would feel to turn 40. I heard that expression "Fair, Fat and Forty" years ago and was scared that I'd be very fat on this landmark, but I'm not. Thank you, band. It's kind of amazing to come into this decade in better shape than I was ten years ago, feeling stronger and more confident than ever before. What a total blessing.

So. . let's talk about the party! Keep in mind that I held a dinner for TWENTY-SEVEN people in my friend Marjorie's ONE-BEDROOM apartment! Those of you who don't live in NYC (and heck, those of you who do) may think I'm totally crazy for trying to pull this off, but it worked!! And we had enough room!

Here is a before photo. We moved out most of the furniture to make room for two big tables, then put a third in the dining room.

Before

After!
The dining room, before: After! Note the twinkle-lights on the terrace! It was warm enough that we were able to be outside as well. So nice!

Tess, the amazing chef who was instrumental in bringing it all together!
With my friend Maria

Erica and Emily

The theme of the party was "Old Enough To Know Better, Too Young to Care," so I printed that up on the covers of the CDs I made, as well as on the menus. Here is a closeup of a menu. . .

And, another shot of the table with the candles lit!

And, here are my friends, sitting down! (That's Chris on the far left -- not the best photo of him, but you get the general idea!)

With my friend Jessica . . and, you can see my Tracy Reese dress!

Dessert was a sundae bar with vanilla ice cream, home made chocolate syrup, brownies, crushed toasted hazelnuts, Luxardo cherries, two kinds of sprinkles and whipped cream that was infused with fresh strawberries. YUM!!! Bizarrely, I only had a few bites! I was too excited talking to everyone to do too much damage on the dessert front. . . but I did have a sundae the next day when we did the clean-up. It was deel-ish!

Everyone seemed to have a fantastic time, and judging by how many of my friends "friended" each other on Facebook the next day, everyone really liked one another! I was also really happy that -- by and large, the party went off without a glitch. Not to say that there wasn't one. . . the kitchen sink not only got completely stopped up, but DROPPED OUT OF THE COUNTER (!!) after dinner was served! We wound up being unable to use it, and had to get Marjorie's building to let us use a vacant apartment so that we could clean up and get the dishes done before the party rental folks picked them up!

Fortunately, that actually turned out to be kind of fun! The valets from the building got luggage trolleys and carted things back and forth for us. We brought music and wine down to the apartment and sang along while doing the zillion and one dishes! And, the valets wound up being very happy because, in addition to tipping them nicely, we fed them like kings on the delicious leftover soy-glazed salmon, root vegetable lasagne and -- of course -- ice cream sundaes with homemade brownies!