How do you celebrate your birthday?

For me my birthday is much like New Year's. It's a great time to reset goals and make changes, and it's convenient that it lands at the mid-point of the year. I've always admired Chicago Art Girl Anne Leuck Feldhaus who tries to celebrate her birthday in a different place each year. Birthdays are not always big celebrations for me, but sometimes it's just the perfect time to try something new. I've never had a consistent thing I like to do, and lately it seems like my birthday always falls on an art fair weekend.

That was true again this year, where setup for the Marin Art Festival landed on my birthday. The nice treat is that my sweetie decided to join me for that show, on one of his non-show weekends... what a great guy! That way we knew we could setup quickly and enjoy the rest of the day.

More than that I decided I wanted to head to the coast a day early so I could end year 38 in daredevil style by skydiving! The plan was that we would jump together, but Sky just wasn't feeling it that day... his fear of heights got the best of him even though he has skydived twice before. That wasn't going to stop me, and it was great to have a photographer and supporter on the ground.

So, 1 week ago today, here I was floating through the sky tandem-style, which was great to have a tour guide to point out the sights.

I don't have a fear of heights per se, but there's still something bizarre about hanging out of a plane and then leaving said plane for a freefall. It's rather overwhelming, and the sensory overload caught up with me at various points throughout the day. My favorite part was pulling the parachute and slowly floating to the ground. I could really relax, and there was a beautiful sense of levity.

The landing was truly smooth, thanks to my tandem partner Charlie Brown at Skydance in Davis.

Do you have any fun crazy ways you like to welcome a new year? Whatever you do, I hope you get to feel special for a day or a week, which I definitely did.