So, today is my birthday. We don’t make a big fuss in our house about them but we always make cake. The birthday person gets to pick what kind. I usually pick carrot cake. My favorite recipe is this one from King Arthur Flour. 
The only modification I make is to leave out the pecans and press them into the frosting. I do that because a couple of people in our family object to them in the cake and my second son has peanut allergy. What I do is cut out a quarter of the cake and leave it plain and then add the nuts to the rest. 
It is the best carrot cake recipe I know. Turns out perfect every time and even a less experienced baker would have no trouble with it.
What goodies did I get? Well, I treated myself a week or two back to a new pair of headphones that I have had my eye on for awhile. They are still in the “burn in” stage, but are totally awesome already. For the non-audiophiles out there, these are the highly regarded Sennheiser HD650’s. They are my constant companion whenever I am at my computer. I am actually listening to some music with them as I am writing this post. You should hear what they do for a movie played from a Blu-Ray. It’s like being in a theater. 
Another thing I recently got isn’t a birthday present but it DOES have to do with getting older, LOL! I finally conceded that I needed a pair of reading glasses, and man, does these help! Who knew? 
I was working on the Pei Scarf and was on the rows with the nupps(hate those little buggers) and they were making me crazy! So, I got this CRAZY idea to put on the glasses. Whoa! Why didn’t I think of that earlier? I didn’t realize that some of the stress was because I COULDN’T SEE clearly where to position the needle to get those 5 stitches to knit together through the back loop. I still don’t love doing them, but it did help.
My oldest son took this shot of a squirrel raiding our bird feeder this morning. I don’t really mind if they sneak a meal. I saw a couple blue birds and a titmouse feeding from it yesterday, so I guess they don’t mind sharing either.
