1. After the bike rally meeting on my birthday, the whole family went out to dinner together. The restaurant wouldn’t let us bring the cake that Ken baked in, so we walked to where his car was parked and had cake there. 
2. This turned out to be more fun than having cake in a restaurant, which probably says a whole lot of things about relaxing and letting go and making the most of situations, which I will try to remember. Again.
3. I love this picture. 
4. In case you didn’t notice, Ken and I put our ages (now that we are older) onto cakes in binary. Yes, we do think this is cool. 
5. Yeah, we know it probably is actually dorky. 
6. It was a very happy birthday.
7. Saturday Sam and I went to a Romni Wools, where I had a big of an incident (more on that tomorrow) which is not at all surprising.
8. What was totally surprising was that while we were there, Sam asked me to buy her yarn. Sam knows how to knit, but seldom expresses and urge to do so. I bought the yarn she wanted and successfully resisted the urge to kiss her or even make it sound like a good idea. As a matter of fact, I have been a mother long enough to have managed to look annoyed. (Sam’s only 18. Parental disapproval still makes a few things look delicious.)
9. Lest ye think that Samantha has taken all leave of her senses and experienced a radical personality shift – after we bought yarn she tried to get me to buy "matching tattoos".
10. On Sunday I rode my bike 110k. (About 68 miles, for my American friends.) That’s the longest ride I’ve ever taken in my life. The training rides are all that long now, as we come into the last 6 weeks of preparation for the big ride.
11. I sort of wanted to die.
12. But I didn’t.
13. As thanks for everyone who’s donated to anyone on our little family team, today marks the first Karmic Balancing draw. If you donated to us you should have gotten an email explaining how to enter. If you didn’t, or it got chewed up by your spam filter or something, just send me an email and I’ll explain how – and you can enter for next week (and the week after, and the week after – every Monday until the rally, and one Monday after.) I’ve sent everyone who got lucky an email.
For this week – Susan S and Chery H will each be receiving $100 of their choice of knitting needles and hooks from the generous souls at Lantern Moon. (Isn’t that nice?) 
From Jeni at Fyberspates, a wonderful gift. One of her pattern books, and the yarn to make one of the sweaters in it. (Knitters choice!) 
Those will be going out to Erika P and Gail G – with many thanks.
The kind and remarkable Carrie at Irish Girlie Knits is donating three packages of three downloadable patterns each (and she has some beauties) and the random number generator says that those will go to Jennifer L, Leslie B and Linda F.
Lovely Amanda, at Crabapple Yarns has lovely yarn, and lovely gifts.
These beautiful skeins (Pizzazz yarn) are her colourways "Kent" and "D’arcy Spice" 
and they’ll be going to live with Renee P.
These two beauties (also Pizzazz) are "Champlain" and "Cameo" and will be going to live with Susiannah B.
Thanks so much for playing along everybody, and I’ll do another draw next week. If you were still considering donating, the links for our little family team are here:
Me
Ken
Erin
Amanda
Samantha
Pato
Katie
Thanks to everyone who donated. We’re very grateful.
Hood-of-car cake is the best…extra points if you baked it on the engine itself.
matching tatoos! and you didn’t go for it!
Great pictures and I love that you are a dork! I think most cool people are!
many happy returns!
can you remind us how to email you? i know there’s an @ and a dot, but i can’t remember how to put it together. Yes i donated and yes, i didn’t get an email of “how to enter.” Sorry to bother….
wow 68 miles!!!! my high is 31miles and i was in a lot of pain at that point. Good for you! best wishes for the long ride!
How long does it take to ride 68 miles??
I cannot even imagine…
Well, if she wants a tattoo that matches one you get, that is something….did you suggest a ball of yarn with needles stuck through it? I have on one those on my leg 😉
It is totally dorky to put your birthday on your cake in binary. It is also totally awesome. (Although, I should maybe admit that I’m a little biased in favour of binary things… my husband and I chose our wedding date so that our first and second anniversaries, including the year, would be binary).
I don’t think I could make it 68 miles on a bike, even if I had mutant zombies chasing me. My knitted hat’s off to you.
Karma is a wonderful thing! Thanks Stephanie!! I was thrilled to contribute to a few members of your team, and I’m delighted to be one of your first winners. I’ll be following your tweets during the ride, and celebrating your success vicariously…. (And Happy Belated Birthday!! Binary candles on a cake in the car, rocks!)
Stephanie,
It’s GREAT that you survived that LONG bike ride!
I donated to your sister the day she wrote your column – oh yeah, that was your birthday – and would like to enter the drawing.
When I was a fulltime geek, we just used regular candles for our binary candles: unlit= 0, lit = 1
Kate (storyteller of the sweater -> vest -> scarf -> Xmas ornament story)
Of course that’s geeky, and I’ve done it too, only , instead of 1s and 0s, I used candles that were either lit or not lit.
Love the binary candles!!! great idea 🙂
Happy Birthday! I’m a June baby too, and it’s a great time of year to have a birthday I find (mine’s next week). And a birthday isn’t much of a birthday without cake – looks like you had a blast!
The bestest of luck and padded shorts for your cycle ride. It’s an awesome thing to do things for charity – I’ve been knitting some hats, but that’s pathetic compared to you and yours. I salute you all. Let us not forget that: cycling is the answer, and so is knitting – and cake.
Happy Birthday! And wow–you really go the distance!
Great pictures, looks like a perfectly wonderful birthday evening.
68 miles? Seriously? I’m not in the mood to even drive 68 miles, let alone do it on a bike. More power to you and the team!!
What a great celebration! BTW, my daughter also wanted us to go for tattoos, for her 18th birthday. And we did, together with my daughter-in-law. I don’t regret it in the least.
My husband had his candles lit in binary for his last birthday, too! Very fun. He also wore his nerdiest t-shirt for the occasion (it reads “there are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who count in binary, and those who don’t”…get it? yuk yuk)
Good luck with the bike ride. I’m thinking of doing a big one for the leukemia/lymphoma society next year in honor of my SIL.
You Go Girls and boys!! We are proud of you all!!
I also donated to Erin and didn’t get an email–sorry to bother you, but you know how we knitters are about the possibility of winning yarn 🙂
Also no email and I haven’t been hanging around long enough to even see the secret coded message that is meant to foil the spambots. Would love a chance to win one of these great thank you’s! And I am totally gobsmacked by the idea of 68 miles! You go, Girl!
I am proud and know that you can do this ride and do it well. Why do I know this? Because you are a knitter, that’s why. I sent a donation your way 🙂
Glad to see you had a wonderful birthday!
Also no email from you guys, but two lovely emails from the organization. It sounds like a fabulous event!
Happy birthday!
I love the idea for binary ages and might do that for my bf next year when he turns 32 (it’ll be 100000).
Btw I sent an email when you first brought up donations but did not hear back. I’d like to donate a knitting bag from my etsy shop.
Poop! My weekend was so hectic, I completely forgot to send you an email, though your email neither got lost nor chewed up by a spam filter. Grrr. But I did get to hold a baby. And I was pretty friggin’ excited about that, so it’s (almost) okay. Congrats to the givers and now the recipients!!
I hate to point out a mistake in your most excellent writing, but I think it was more of a Freudian slip… a BIG of an incident? hmmmmm…..
I love the binary!!! My boyfriend recently taught (or perhaps tried to teach) me binary over a romantic candlelight bottle of wine. And, no, I didn’t find that odd.
A recommendation for you & your bike riding brethren (if you aren’t already familiar) get something called Anti-monkey butt. I have many a friend who has bicycled the great state of Iowa and they swear by that – & diaper cream. 🙂
Steph, do you have more fun than anyone else in the world, or do you just know how to make it look that way?
Those are beautiful prizes! And lucky winners. I, as someone above me, want to know how long it takes to ride that far! 🙂 Personally I can’t imagine doing it, but I can imagine you doing it. 🙂 You’re much braver than I am. Ride on Fearless Harlot!
Happy Birthday! ‘Tis great to see you all had a wonderful time! Best of luck on your bike!
Did you notice how “your girls'” dresses and pants choices made like a K1P1 ribbing pattern?
I may have a problem…
Glad your birthday was filled with love and cake!
I think binary on a birthday cake is cool. There is a distintion between geeks, nerds and dorks. If I remember it goes as such Geeks:understands, creates and fixes really cool stuff, nerds:understands and collects really cool stuff, dorks:confused by really cool stuff. I don’t think your in the dork catagory:)
Binary on cakes is cool! It looks like you had a great birthday party with the ones who love you – and that’s all that matters.
Gorgeous prizes! Thank you very much to all your generous donors and sponsors – and to you for organizing all of them.
I need to remember number 3. I love number 4. I’m seriously impressed by number 10. (I’d have died.) And I’m happy for everybody and the karma included in number 13.
Love the happy family photo with the city lights! Cake looks good, too.
Eve from Carlisle
I love the binary cakes (must adopt this for myself!) And I love ‘big of an incident’…because it looks like a Freudian slip!
And I suspect that telling us about it on your blog completely counteracts the effect of managing to look disapproving about buying Sam yarn. But yay, Sam, anyway! (I hope she’ll let us see what she makes :).
you’ll be getting those matching tattoos…just wait until the end of the ride when you get to Montreal… and if you don’t, you should. 🙂
this post made me laugh *and* cry! love your writing.
I’m so glad you had a good birthday! My Daughter was also born on June 14th. She was actually due June 21st but she must have seen knitting and spinning in her future and decided to jump out on your birthday! I started teaching her needle arts at age 6. Now I’m teaching my Granddaughter to knit. She’s 8. It’s a wonderful thing. I believe you may have sparked my Daughter’s interest in spinning. My only part was to purchase the wheel for her! One of the best things you ever did for me was send me an email address for the lady that sent you the wood “socks in progress” suitcase. We have become VERY good friends and travel to eachothers homes as often as we can. Thank you for all the wonderful things you do! Happy Birthday!!!
Wonderful prizes to some lucky Knitters!
Love the candles… I do binary birthday candles, too, but just with regular candles either “on” or “off.” I wonder if there is a high correlation between knitting and nerdiness?
If I ever get a tattoo, it is going to say “Knit fast, die warm” I saw a picture of one like that, with a ball of yarn with 2 needles stuck into it, right where the comma would go, and I loved it! Course, that’s a huge IF…
every year i ask if my mum wants to get matching tattoos and every year she says no and that i have too many tatts, (i have 1 and had 1 removed) mark my words. one day.
Great birthday cake … and love that photo, too!
And about those prizes – they are stupendous! Every winner should be over the moon.
Thanks for reminding me about the pledges for the bike rally and tempting me with the gorgeous pictures of karmic balancing gifts. I made a small donation to Ken’s total. Wish it could be more…
And Happy Birthday!
I love that your cake was on a bright yellow car. It’s like extra sunshine.
If Squam is late enough next year, I’ll bring cake. All of us June birthdays need to stick together!
Happy Birthday Ms. Harlot. PS to Sam – if you suggest ‘yarny’ tattoos, she might go for it.
Love the binary digits for your ages. Hmmm … a simple 110000 right now. I can just see my family’s eyes rolling now. But my degree is in computer science, and I’m a math teacher. How have I not thought of this before? Thanks!
Last time my parent’s visited my mother and I got tattoos together (not at all matching). It was her first, and a cool bonding experience.