Well, friends, tomorrow is my birthday! And is the case at least 50% of the time, it’s supposed to be cold and possibly even snowy tomorrow. (The other 50% of the time it’s 70 and feels like a heat wave. Ahhhh, April in upstate New York!) So while I’m anticipating a birthday that feels very little like spring at all and should be rather gray, I’m channeling all of the bright, happy spring-like things today in the run up to Easter in a couple weeks.

Hey, friends, it’s my birthday week! On Saturday (which, yes, is April Fools’ Day) I’ll be turning 34. (That happened fast!) That day will also mark the 28th year that my mother has made me the same birthday cake. As she tells it, my sixth birthday was the first time I had a party with some of my little friends from school and she wanted to make a really special cake. She knew I loved strawberries so she decided to make a strawberry poke cake, since apparently poke cakes were all the rage back in the 80s. Who knew? Since then she’s made me this cake every single year, even when I haven’t lived in the same city, even if it’s a week before or a few weeks after my actual birthday.