Year of retail therapy

Thank you to everyone for all your birthday wishes on FB, Twitter, LJ, and everywhere.

I turned another year older on the 4th. My mother and I were going to the southside shopping centre for the day.

First we stopped at the Bruce Peel Special Collections Library, which has a museum exhibition currently going on, Spacious Margin : Eighteenth-Century Printed Books and the Traces of their Readers.
The website has a few web exhibitions and resources available online to everyone.

I've only been to this library three other times, and the most recent was two years ago. This time, I noticed part of the exhibition in an open room which normally had the door closed. The room, which I'd never been in before, had an adorable owl painting. I'm unsure if I missed the section the previous three times or if it was a place newly opened to the public. Maybe the latter, as I do vaguely recall a closed door and a staff only or private sign. I also think I'd have noticed more artwork or artifacts through the room's large glass window if it was open to the public. Either way, I'm glad I found out about the room and the owl painting.

Outside the library, I stopped to look at sociology posters.

At the southside shopping centre, I had Arby's for lunch and my mother had fish and chips from Joey's. I've always loved Arby's food but haven't had it in over a year for some reason.

I purchased these beautiful green chandelier earrings from Banana Republic. They are the ones listed as teal but are more of an emerald (the Pantone colour of the year).

The sales associate in the BR shop was very helpful and knowledgeable. I was uncertain if the earrings would show up against my dark hair. She took an earring off the display card and held it up to my hair, asking me to go to a nearby mirror and see how it looked. Meanwhile she looked at the other earring and said that as the backing was clear, the emerald wasn't too dark, and the jewels had a gold outline, it would likely show up against my hair.
I also asked about the weight of the earrings. She said they weren't the heaviest type of chandelier earrings they carried; although, they were more heavy than typical earrings. Some people weren't able to wear chandelier earrings if they had sensitive ears. I'd worn even larger chandeliers before, so I decided to purchase them.

My mother got me to pick out texting gloves from Sears as a gift. I chose a dark purple pair.

Dinner was with my parents at a Japanese/Vietnamese restaurant near a tourist district. I had a signature sushi meal combo and half an avocado cone. My mother shared a bit of her Japanese fried noodle dish with me. I didn't really like it, and my mom thought her meal was only "okay". My father said his beef pho was great. My own meal tasted good but was around the same quality as T & T Supermarket sushi. The avocado cone was delicious. A downside is I became really thirsty afterward. I don't think I'll be back.

My birthday cake was a yummy fresh cream one with fruit ordered in from a local bakery.

My father surprised me with a Samsung mini-tablet! It will be great for reading eBooks and better for surfing the net than with my new phone. He'd given me a rectangular weighty box. I thought it was perfume, but was wowed to find the tablet.

The day after, my father made a call and had Wi-Fi enabled for the whole house so I could use both my tablet and laptop. The latter was mainly used for listening to podcasts and music previously along with writing, which was saved onto my thumb drive and uploaded later.

My friend, @Anastasoula0110, gifted me two gorgeous handmade journals from India. Thank you so much! ♥