My birthday was yesterday. And it was actually pretty great this year, despite my literally not planning anything until Saturday when three separate people asked what I was doing for it.

For some people, this would have been a point to cue sad violins and perhaps shout ‘I DON’T KNOW, WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR IT?!’

But I don’t roll that way.

Most of the time.

So, my usual plan of sitting in a pub or restaurant during a three or four hour window and inviting people to join me for some or all of it was made. Everyone from siblings, to cinema staff, to trivia folk, to oldest friends, to, well, Kirk. There was even a baby there, which was a first (Matthew is still wee enough to be very portable). It was exactly what I wanted.

Aside from the singing of ‘Happy Birthday’. Those Hill ladies have a lot to answer for.

I do feel slightly delicate this morning (post-party Euchre at a stupendously noisy bar didn’t help), but pretty damned pleased for it.

As part of the self-indulgence I felt I deserved* yesterday, I read through some old blog posts. Holy hell, I wrote a lot last year, including months’ worth of days in a row. Some of it was actually legitimately funny and clever. I had no idea.

And I have no idea what I will do with this knowledge either. What’s a blog worth? Not a whole heck of a lot. But it keeps me off the streets and out of prison, for now.

And it did get me thinking about setting a blogging challenge for myself over the next little while too.

You might have noticed the 100 Happy Days trend has taken over huge swaths of the interwebs.

I am not doing that.

I don’t at all begrudge those looking for a chipmunk to feed in a park after finding out their work hours are being cut, or expressing gratitude for a mug of coffee in the morning (because, c’mon), but the umbrella of it doesn’t reflect my attitude.

I think that life is about balance, good and bad, and that, generally, the best we can hope for is a neutrality we can work with without going crazy. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

So I’m opting for something else. I am going to challenge myself to blog for 100 days in a row, but let’s instead call it 100 Days of Benign Mundanity. It’s more accurate by far.

And that makes me pretty fucking happy.

* Actually just me having a 20 minute lull at work during which I dicked about on the internet. The idea of ‘deserving’ anything makes me cringe and/or laugh. Should the prize for eating a salad at lunch be a chocolate chip muffin at 3pm? Or for a rough work week be downing a bottle of wine on a Friday night? Can’t these things just be rewards/crutches/things we want instead of something we ‘deserve’?