Birthdays Aren't Common - How I Spent My Birthday

 Hello friends, Anne Shirley once said "It isn't as if birthdays were common things."

In some ways, she is very right. On birthdays we celebrate beautiful individual people, but yet, everyday is someone's birthday. This past weekend, I celebrated mine and am excited to share about that with you.

Last year I did a blog post about my birthday, and I'll be honest, it was a very strange birthday (we celebrated on a day that wasn't my actual birthday). Click here if you want to read about that. This year was different in the best possible way.

Last year in my blog post I mentioned that no birthday of mine is complete without doing something bookish, that, unsurprisingly remains true.

I love the homes of my favorite authors, I think it's so much fun to go and be inspired by the landscape and the rooms that inspired them.

So, my family and I traipsed over to Amherst Massachusetts to visit the Emily Dickinson house. I have been wanting to visit the poet's home for a while now, and was so excited to go.

Here's an awkward picture of me outside of the house -

The tour was pretty good (though the guides pushed an LBGTQ+ agenda that I didn't appreciate and I felt like didn't really reflect Emily well.) There are two houses at the Emily Dickinson Museum, first is the big yellow house which is called the homestead. This is the house where Emily grew up and spent most of her adult life. 

The other house is called The Evergreens and this is where Emily's brother Austin and his wife Sue lived. 

The homestead is a reproduction of what the home would've looked like in Emily's time, and Evergreens is a preservation project, so pretty much everything you see there was there at the time of the Dickinsons.

Both of the houses are really interesting and give a background to the life of one of literature's most mysterious figures. And no, Emily wasn't afraid of people and she did leave her house.

After the tour I got this really cute sticker... I love a bookish sticker.

Once the tours were over, my family and I made our way to downtown Amherst and got lunch at a local Thai place. 

Afterwards we went to a really cute boba spot. I got a matcha latte with brown sugar boba, and we also had croissant waffles which were really good (but I didn't take a picture of.)

The rest of my day was spent hanging out with my siblings in the car singing and being silly, reading quietly, opening gifts, and eating a very nice dinner with my family.

As the evening wore on, me and my siblings did a video call with our close friends which was a lot of fun.

We watched a movie, which I of course got to choose. I was really craving Pride and Prejudice which was even better than I remembered it.

If you have a free evening, go watch it! Everything about it, the English countryside, the Austen humor, Keira Knightly, Jacquelyn Durran's amazing costumes, the music, it's all so good!

My Mom made me this delicious raspberry cake that we ate while watching P+P ( side note: is it just me, or do you also hate it when people sing happy birthday to you? I feel like it's the most awkward and embarrassing thing and if we could just stop there would be a whole lot more peace on earth.)

I got a lot of really sweet gifts from my friends and family and thought I would share them with you! I am only sharing the fun ones like books, not the boring (but useful) ones like packing cubes, and shoes. 

​In sharing this with you, I'm not trying to brag, just to share some fun little things.

I recently saw that my favorite illustrator Anna Bond had collaborated with Puffin for yet another gorgeous addition to the Puffin in Bloom collection. The new addition consists of three Jane Austen novels, I was so excited to get these GORGEOUS books for my birthday. I am obsessed with them, and am so grateful!

My parents got me this beautiful Louisa May Alcott quote pin that I will be wearing on all of my cardigans from here on out.

If you couldn't guess, I got a lot of books for my birthday. This one is a new release I have been trying to get my hands on. That book is of course, The Luminous Life of Lucy Landry by Anna Rose Johnson.

I also was gifted a copy of Loch Monster from my Grandmother. This book is by my blogging friend E.G. Runyan and I am so excited to read this book for so many reasons. 

I was on the street team for this book's release and I feel so proud of E.G. and the whole team because this book is beautiful and it feels kinda unreal to hold something in my hands that I've only seen picutres of.

This might be my favorite gift. It's a collection of bookish stickers, they are all so pretty and I can't wait to use them in my reading journal.

As an obvious Emily Dickinson fan, I loved receiving this small pocket size collection of her poetry.

I love old cookbooks, and a few months ago I made a blog post where I cooked out of American Cookery which is the earliest American cookbook. I read the recipes off Google Books for that post, but now that I have a paper copy, experimenting with more Amelia Simmons recipes will be far simpler.

Last year for my birthday I recieved a record player (whom I affectionatly call Quincy), I'm always trying to add to my record collection, and I've always been a big Beatles fan.

Less exciting to the general audience, but actually very exciting to me, I received a knock off of the Lululemon belt bag. After going to NYC a few weeks ago, I realized that having a small bag close to my body like this would be super beneficial, also great for upcoming vacations.

If you couldn't tell from my boba order earlier, I love matcha! My brother (who for some reason is obessed with Japanese food and culture), fittingly bought me this matcha set.

So there's a little tour of my birthday gifts, thank you to everyone who thought of me!

That's all for this week friends! Hope you enjoyed this little ramble <3

Belle Thomas

​Belle is the writer and dreamer behind An Old Fashioned Girl. She is passionate about reminding girls of their identity in Christ, classic books, history, Louisa May Alcott, and earl grey tea.