My mail today

 Good mail day today. So I guess I mark today as the start of my birthday (which is officially on Saturday). 

Something I had been waiting for for a long time came:

I preordered this - heck, it might have been as long ago as July? It's a doll version of Human!Fluttershy, created by the artist Abigail Starling. I'm not as big a fan of the human versions of the Ponies but you have to admit she is super cute. (And detailed: you can't see it but she has little ears behind her hair. 

I do prefer plush dolls with this style of hair to the "dollyhair" kind (which the Build a Bear pony versions have) because the dollyhair tangles and gets messy, whereas the 'shaped' sewn hair stays neat. 

I also got the tiny "Toothless" plush I ordered from an Etsy seller, sort of in a fit of sadness and also wanting some kind of a minky plush critter. He is very tiny, you can see him on my shoulder in this photo:

One thing I like about the quadrupedal versions of Toothless is that they look kind of catlike. Cats would be dragons if they could be, I think.

I also plan to buy a little bit of Minky when I get to JoAnn's this weekend - I found a pattern for a small stuffed T-Rex for sale on Etsy and the idea of a Minky fabric T-Rex amuses me a lot. (Also, since we don't know what color dinos were - though most people assume they were brown or green like most modern reptiles - I can buy whatever color grabs me, so if they don't have a "nice" green I could even go with purple or blue). I should also get some stuffing beads if they still make these, the pattern warns he gets top heavy (big head) and a baggie of plastic beads in his butt would probably help him sit up. 

I also plan to go to Kroger; they sometimes have reasonably good cake slices for sale, and maybe I buy myself a slice for my birthday dinner. I might also go to Ulta; supposedly I can get a free gift on my birthday (usually a sample of something, often something I don't use, but I think you also get a discount)

It's weird; it doesn't feel like my birthday in the way previous years' approaching birthdays did. I think it's because I've experienced so little of what was usual life in the past year that time feels out of joint. At least I am able to celebrate in a way; a few weeks ago I thought I'd not even be able to go out (other than maybe drive somewhere and hike if the weather were OK) because I didn't know I'd have a surprise chance at a vaccine (and you have half way decent immunity two weeks after even the first dose) and I was worried about the new variants (which, several of them at least, seem not able to defeat the vaccine, so that's good)