Tag: Birthday

And you don’t stop, you keep on eatin’ cars.

Sara Mazariegos

We had a nice birthday celebration for Luis last weekend. It was laid back and fun, and not so jam-packed with activities that we couldn’t relax and enjoy it. Sometimes, we pack a lot into our weekends and/or vacations, because we want to get a lot done, but there’s something to be said for just getting a fancy drink and seeing a movie. We still went to a bunch of different food places around town, for all the birthday deals. My favorite was a Redbull Sunrise, which I paid for because it wasn’t part of a deal. I also got two giant coffees which weren’t part of birthday deals. Maybe I’m bad at getting deals. 😂

The news for DC has been scary, because I work there and we go there so often. It really isn’t that violent compared to other cities in the country. People there are nice and easy-going, for the most part. I think this is some sort of aggressive move to prevent protests and groups of people gathering to dissent. But it’s putting everyone in the city on edge and it’s not pleasant to worry about this crap when I’m trying to get my work done and travel to and from work safely. And that’s only one of the issues from this week. He’s giving all of us issues.

We have fun future plans, but of course they come with anxiety now. Everything comes with anxiety.

This coming weekend, we’re going to celebrate with friends for Luis’s birthday, including a neighborhood block party that just so happens to also fall this weekend. We’re going to bring our friends from our own party to that party. Hopefully it won’t rain. He’s planning to make a bunch of empanadas to bring, since it’s potluck. He makes them with crescent rolls. So good!

Then we’re going to a great local Japanese place with his family for more belated festivities. They have a delicious vegetarian dragon roll that’s so good I wrote about it in my novel. I used to wonder if it could be done, but of course it can be done!

Speaking of writing, I’m now within the last 30K words of my novel draft. I had fun writing about a side character last night, describing him and showing him in person for the first time in the story. I wondered if I was committing the Dickens sin of introducing a character too late in the novel. He’s featured in several chats and texts with the main character beforehand, so I think it’s okay… Sometimes people don’t hang out with other people in person as much. His late introduction reminds me of Maureen Johnson in Rent. I’d argue this character matters less to the story than Maureen does. But he’s nonetheless interesting!

I’m toying with the idea of a romantic subplot featuring the two side characters. It might be too cheesy, but it’s the kind of cheesy that the genre is known for!

Until next time. Stay safe.

Can you help me occupy my brain?

Sara Mazariegos

Luis and I attended the annual Esther Day Virtual Party on Sunday. Esther Day is a birthday celebration of Esther Earl, a Nerdfighter who died of thyroid cancer when she was sixteen. When asked how she wanted to be remembered, she said she would like everyone to take the day to celebrate platonic love and saying “I love you” to people who you might not say it to as often as you want or should; maybe it makes you feel a little uncomfortable because it’s not said as often. It’s a really sweet way to celebrate Esther and her family and the people we love in our lives. It’s just nice. It’s a nice hug of a day.

Do you want a personal example of how kind John Green is? He and his wife Sarah were guests in the virtual party livestream, and he did a Q&A like he often does, because he loves to answer questions and offer “dubious advice.” Luis has been anxious about home repair stuff, as I think I’ve mentioned here, so I casually asked John if he has any advice for dealing with the anxiety. John not only gave us some advice—watch YouTube videos on home repairs (which we can’t really do for our roof, ha.)—he also took the time to give us a shout-out like, “Sara and Luis! We’re fully invested in their marriage.” Which made us both very touched and smiley for the rest of the livestream. And so now, when we’re stressed about home repair stuff, which of course we will keep being stressed about but it’s normal and it will be fine, we can think about John’s shout-out and words of advice, which boil down to us not being alone. 💚

Luis’s birthday is this Saturday! We were originally going to have a birthday party for him because it’s a Saturday and how convenient, but it’s unfortunately a Saturday in summer so all our friends are busy*. But we’re going to see The Naked Gun which is a remake of one of his favorite movies, and we’re going to a restaurant he really likes, and I’m going to make the weekend all about him and what he wants. That’s my other gift to him this year. (I also got him a Switch 2 back in July, which he’s been playing every day since I told him he needed it and we rushed out and got it.) We also also might go see Inter Miami play DC in a few weeks, if we can muster up the enthusiasm since Messi probably won’t play. Busquets will still be there! And De Paul! And Alba! And Suarez! Plenty of fun players, but no one’s as cool as Messi, so we’ll see about that.

We’re still thinking about Ozzy Osbourne. Luis is a big fan, so he’s been showing me all kinds of stuff and playing songs for me. We started watching The Osbournes because I figured it would at least be amusing. It was my idea. It’s fun to learn about the family. It’s definitely silly, but it’s also kind of sweet in a weird way. They had way, way too many dogs and didn’t really know how to take care of them. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.

My writing is still going well. I can see how the story plot is progressing as planned, which is very exciting. I’m almost to 50K words. I was looking through my calendar the other day and realized it won’t be long until I’m finished with this draft. September 26th is my goal end date, and that’s not so far away now.

I wish there was a word to describe how good it feels when everything seems to fall into place.

* We are still going to have a party with friends, it’s just not going to be on his actual birthday.

“I’m thirty-seven.” “What?”

Sara Mazariegos


“Well, I can’t just call you ‘Man.'” “You could say ‘Dennis.'” “I didn’t know you were called Dennis!” “You didn’t bother to find out, did you?”


It’s my birthday! 🥳 Today, my husband and I are going to our favorite Italian restaurant and then we’re going to watch Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs. (It came out in 1937. That’s my theme this year.)

This weekend, we’re going to celebrate with friends and see the new Ghostbusters movie and do an escape room. It’s going to be a lot of fun. And then next weekend, we’re heading to Disney World!

I’m spoiled.

Currently, I’m listening to Carly Watters talking about how to get started in the publishing industry. That’s right, I know how to party.

Luis finished alpha reading my manuscript, so I have a few more tweaks to make, and then I can send it out to a few more beta readers. Then I can enter the query trenches again.

When we come back from our trip, I’m going to switch gears and work on rewriting my other novel. It’ll be a nice change of pace. I’m excited to play with those characters again and use what I’ve learned to make the story better.

I’m feeling optimistic. ✨