Happy Birthday to Me

Yesterday was my birthday. I have long held that the definition of "middle-aged" is 25 years older than me, and "old" is 50 years older than me. Thus, I am still not approaching middle age. So there.

A couple of my presents:

My old mixer didn't work so well once the mechanism to lock the beaters in place gave out, so this is what I asked my parents for. My mom was thrilled that for once I actually let her give me kitchen stuff. The first thing I did with it was to make my own birthday cake, because, my mom being 2/3 of the way across the country, who else was going to do that for me?

I am lucky that my apartment is on the end of the building, so I have windows on three sides. However, I have no west-facing windows, so my tatting/ reading corner gets really dark in the afternoon. I have always longed for an OttLite, but always felt that there was something more important to spend the money on. Well, Sunday I was in Jo Ann Fabrics picking up a few things I needed, when I noticed that this model was on sale better than half off. It was still kind of expensive, but I figured it was the best price I'm likely to see, and my eyes aren't getting any younger, so I might as well splurge and give myself a present. I love it so far.

Here's the progress on the "Starburst" doily. (Not "Sunburst" as I erroneously called it in the previous post, thinking that it couldn't possibly have the same name as those god-awful candies.)

On the top is the completed round 3. The new color is Majestic 837. On the bottom is my first attempt at round 4. I have cut this off because I didn't make the spaces between rings long enough to lie flat. I did mention that this would be trial and error.