Zen Kitty's, Folkcat Birthdays, and Coooooookie!

I received the first of my items from my Cafe Press store the other day, and I'm really pleased with how they turned out. Here's the "Zen Kitty" t-shirt:

Not a tent, just size 3x

It looks a little baggy because I've worn it already and it's waiting for the wash. I'm still getting used to the idea that I probably want to grab the camera as soon as any packages get opened!

Sunday was my birthday. As regular readers know, things have been very tight financially, but we managed to squeeze out a little from the budget so I could have some celebration. Within that limitation, Gryphon picked up this great top for me from The Purple Turtle, a clothing shop here in Wilton run by a friend. (She has an eBay store, too.)

I love these things

We even managed to squeeze a cake into the grocery budget, even though it was a significant percentage of that spending this week. I actually figured out a little loophole: at Shaw's, the 2-layer, 7" birthday cakes are $9.99. But, you can get a single-layer, 7" cake for only $3.99. Well, it doesn't take Isaac Newton to do the math; buying 2 single-layer cakes comes out cheaper than buying 1 two-layer cake. Plus, the single-layers are just as heavily frosted as the doubles, so you actually get a higher ratio of frosting to cake. Sounds more festive to me!

We picked over the choices, and got a gold cake frosted with swirly mounds of white frosting all around the top, covered with confetti sprinkles. For our second choice, we went with a classic: COOOOOKIE Monster, with marble cake inside.

Two days later, here's what's left of the two cakes:

Coookie looks confused, I think!

Poor Cookie, maybe we should have eaten the eyes first? I think they're accusing us of something!

Aside from cake and the top from Gryphon, I received a birthday check from my parents, too. I really didn't expect that after the way we had to tap them for money only a couple of weeks ago. They did, though, and I've spent it on some nice things for myself. But they're fiber things, and I'll be talking about them over in Folkcat's Fiber Crafts in the next day or two.