Swedish, French, Chinese

My birthday is coming up and, as usual, I'm dreading it.  No, not because I'm getting older.  And I guess 'dread' is a pretty severe word to use...more like I could take it or leave it. 
The decision to do or not to do something in celebration is always an issue for me.  On the one hand, it is fun to hang with a bunch of friends and have cocktails and cake and whatnot.  One the other hand, for me, I hate being at a function that's purpose is to expose me to everyone around me!
So, i generally have my sisters and aunt come over and we have a little tea party or an early cocktail party...or, sometimes one flows over into the next!
This year, I took the day after my birthday off just in case I decided to do something, even though this year I am leaning closer to hanging out by myself, possibly sleeping, the whole day.
Then this weekend I thought it might be nice to not work on my birthday, either...take TWO whole days off!  And, get ready for a shocker, maybe leave the Cape and spend a fun day with Hubby!  Oh my!
We need a new duvet cover, desperately...i realized that ours has ripped from one end to the other!  Through all the washings over the past 8 or so years, it has become completely thread-bare!  You can probably guess our bedroom is not one of those that you might see in a magazine!
We haven't been to Ikea in forever,and it's always a fun place to spend a day, in my opinion.

Even though we never get to buy all the things we want to (though, I always want a cinnamon roll, and I always get one!), we do need to find the cover, and we have broken half of our soup bowls, so there are things we need. 
My thought on the day was to go to Ikea and then we could hit this restaurant my friend has been raving about, on the way back.

It's a French restaurant and she says everything is fresh (the kitchen has little refrigerated storage, I guess...everything comes in fresh daily!) and she and her son had been going for lunch nearly once a week and said the prices were good.  But, that is for lunch...I think the dinner menu is a bit pricey.  We are still deciding what to do about that...we do like to have drinks with dinner, and that can get expensive.
One way or another, though, I will have cake!

I LOVE peanut butter mousse cake...but this is, well...just look at it!!!

And, for the Chinese bit....

No, I'm not getting a puppy for my birthday, but this adorable 8.5 week old pug came in for an exam and vaccines yesterday!!! I saw her on the schedule and I was giddy all day waiting for her to show up!  She looks just like my Moxie did when we got her...so soft...so sweet...such a cute little pink belly!!!   Puppies are the best thing in the world, bar none!
Well...off to work; but, sadly, no pug puppies are due in today.