38
December 13, 2007 by Wendy Cooper
I turned 38 today and it was a pretty busy day. 
I woke up early and opened Jordon’s gifts for me. I love my iPod Shuffle but the Apple earphones really bothered my ears and fell out when I was doing much of anything. He gave me a pair of JVC Marshmallow headphones. They are an in ear design but a lot more comfortable than the Apple ones.
My other gift was the DVD for Live Free or Die Hard. I love the Die Hard movies and I was ticked that Jordon was able to watch it on the flight to Toronto a couple of months ago. I never knew this before but apparently the movie was based on an article in Wired. Any movie that involves a car taking out a helicopter has to be good. That and Jordon generally doesn’t like to watch a movie twice so if he wants to see it again, it is worth watching.
Mark got me a pretty special gift. He is old enough that he has pretty strong opinions on what he wants to give Jordon and I. He likes to get me jewelry and after looking at a series of necklaces, he talked Jordon into footing the bill for some ear rings for me that have my birthstone in it. I haven’t blogged about it but over the last month Mark has been helping out Jordon go around one night a week and collect up a bunch of kettles for the Salvation Army at night. Jordon has been paying him $5 a week which gave him some spending money this holiday season. Mark is taking his first job pretty seriously and him and Jordon get to spend some time together “at work”. At the end of the night, Jordon takes him into the Centre and they grab a pop together.
Lee gave me the funniest but crudest card I have been given in years. I am glad I am teaching him well. He knows of my iPod love so with the card was a iTunes gift card. More music to rock out to.
I worked at Safeway for most of the day so tonight I am relaxing at home but I hope to celebrate with friends Sunday night. Of course at my advanced age, I am not sure what partying looks like anymore.
Thanks Jordon, Lee, and Mark!
Happy Birthday, Wendy.
Here’s a trick with in-ear earbuds - the kind that actually go into the ear canal.
First find a pair of earplugs you are comfortable with. These are the foam ones that you squeeze down and poke in your ears, not the molded plastic ones with the ribs and baffles. There’s a bunch of foam ones, some are big, some are small, some are soft, some are harder. Find your favorite.
Once you have ones you like, take a pair and squeeze them a few times under water. Let them soak up lots of water. Then freeze them. Once frozen, drill them out with a 1 mm drill (or 1/16 inch will work). Then thaw and dry them out - a sunny windowsill works fine, squeeze them a few times in the drying process. Sometimes, crumbled foam will clog the hole, just use a loose drill bit (not in a motor) and open up the hole.
Use these as the inserts for your earplug headphones. With some experimentation, and maybe timming them shorter, you can find a comfortable fit, that does not fall out.
Happy Birthday Wendy
I hope your year is a good one. In every sense of the word.
I appreciate that the journey has occasionally been less than fun. So well done on making it this far, in fine form.