{"id":1102,"date":"2007-07-06T06:56:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-06T11:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lawrencem94.sg-host.com\/?p=1102"},"modified":"2007-07-06T06:56:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-06T11:56:00","slug":"zip-a-dee-do-dah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/?p=1102","title":{"rendered":"Zip-a-Dee-Do-Dah!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, today&#8217;s the big day. Not exactly, I suppose, that&#8217;s next year (the big 4-0!) Even if it wasn&#8217;t my birthday, I&#8217;m going to a day spa, AND the plumber&#8217;s coming to fix my shower, so that right there makes it a banner day. Add to that dinner tonight, with my bestest girlfriends, followed by cake (there must always be cake), and undoubtedly, knitting, and you have a five-star day. (Please, just cross your fingers and whisper a little wish for me on the plumbing project. That&#8217;s the only wrench I can foresee, and I&#8217;d hate to undo all the relaxation from the spa&#8230;)<\/p>\n<p>The best news I can report is that on Monday, I was having a conversation with one of my bosses, and he asked me how I was doing. I said, &#8220;OK!&#8221; and for the first time in over a year, it didn&#8217;t feel like part of me was lying. Sure, there are still moments, even hours and days that I don&#8217;t feel &#8220;ok&#8221;, or that something reminds me of dad, and I am sad, melancholy, even grief-stricken. But I&#8217;ve passed all the first anniversaries now &#8211; including last year&#8217;s dreadful burglary &#8211; and there&#8217;s something solidifying about standing in the present and not having the year-ago reflection feel like a soul-sucking monster bearing down on you. <\/p>\n<p>So let there be cake! And friends! And love. And healing, and joy, and perspective. The best gifts in life can&#8217;t be bought.  (You are, however, welcome to shower me with presents.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, today&#8217;s the big day. Not exactly, I suppose, that&#8217;s next year (the big 4-0!) Even if it wasn&#8217;t my birthday, I&#8217;m going to a day spa, AND the plumber&#8217;s coming to fix my shower, so that right there makes it a banner day. Add to that dinner tonight, with my bestest girlfriends, followed by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}