I don't know if I've mentioned this before but I have a largish family at a little over 40 members. The thing is that our birthdays tend to get grouped. For example, in the three weeks between the end of May and mid June, there are 6 birthdays in a row. This year some of these celebrations were halted because of the whole situation with grandma but yesterday it was my mother's birthday. As she's entering a new decade, we planned a party for her. Actually, two parties.

First we took her to lunch with a couple of her best friends. We managed to surprise her and we had a nice time. The food was really good. One of her friends bought a cake with candles that were very obviously not depicting her real age. The staff got a kick out of our little show. Just imagine presenting a somewhat mature woman with a cake saying that she's in her teenage years... It also didn't help that we had some balloons that stated her real age, which absolutely and thoroughly offended her. That didn't stop us from following her around the streets with said balloons all afternoon. When she said we were embarrassing her we stated it was our chance to get back for some of that embarrassment that parents put on their kids all the time.

At night we had a surprise party with the family. She didn't expect it at all, as she thought that lunch was all she was going to get. She was wrong. The party was on for about 5 hours, or so I gathered from the group chat as I left a little early because I was way too tired to keep coping. There was a lot of food. And when I say a lot, I mean A LOT. As in we didn't realize or measure it and ended up with around a kilo of food (2lbs) per guest even though half of them were kids 12 and under lot. And two cakes. And today the lady who used to take care of grandma visited and gifted my mother a handmade cake. When I say every single person left with leftovers to last for at least two days... In my defense, there were two cakes because some of my cousins have celiacs so there was a small store bought gluten-free cake and then our usual bakery birthday cake. Still, though. So. Much. Food.

I got full fairly quickly and to my surprise even though I ate a lot, I ate food. I didn't touch the sweets except for the cake, obviously. And even then I only tried one of them. I got a piece of the other one today at lunch. I also had to bring home a very big bag of sweets and chocolates which I fully intend to make my partner's problem when he comes visit in a few days. I've also kept in mind that I ate an awful lot and haven't force fed myself today. Let's remember that I may eat without feeling hungry or just because it's meal time instead of feeling the need to eat, so this is a little step in the right direction for me.

Because of how nervous I was with planning not one but two surprises (I find lying quite hard and am extremely rigid when making plans so depending on other people and keeping secrets are not my strong suits) I forgot to weight myself yesterday. I also forgot it this morning but I don't know if I would've dared stepping into the scale while thinking about everything I ate yesterday...

As always, thanks for reading.