Half a Century...

3 weeks ago

As I mentioned last week, I had a birthday this past weekend. It was a pretty big one too. Well, sort of. There was no big party, or grand gathering, I don't honestly know enough people for there to ever be one of those. I remember when I turned 40 we had a little gathering with maybe 20 to 30 people. Ten years later I think I would struggle to find even five people who would show up (family not included). I guess that's just the way it goes.

While I do feel a bit of sadness for that fact, I think it would hurt a lot more of if I realized I was only surrounded by fake friends. That would probably sting even more to be honest. Despite all that, I still had a pretty great day with @mrsbozz. She had been bugging me for I don't know how long about what I wanted to do for my birthday. I hadn't really given much thought, because the idea of turning another year older isn't my favorite, it's more of an inevitability, so why celebrate it? Ultimately, I made a decision about how I wanted to spend my day, and that is what I am going to share here with you.

We started off with breakfast at a local place that we have come to enjoy. This is one of those places that only stays open for breakfast and lunch, then they shut down at 3 PM or so to get ready for the next day. They don't have a huge menu, but the stuff they do make is quite exceptional. I had just seen on their Facebook page the day before they had these massive cinnamon rolls, so I decided to get one to go instead of your traditional birthday cake.

My wife encouraged me to try something new versus getting the omelette I usually get, so I got the breakfast that had two pancakes, two eggs (over easy), and ham steak slices. It was fantastic. They serve cinnamon butter with the pancakes, but I still put a bit of maple syrup on them anyway. @mrsbozz got an egg white western omelette with potatoes.

As I said, I decided to get a cinnamon roll to go as my birthday cake, but I couldn't decide if I wanted the oreo one or their original recipe. I ended up getting one of each. At $6 USD a piece, I was a bit hesitant, but they ended up being more than worth it. You can't really judge the size from the photos, but believe me when I say each roll was about 15 centimeters in diameter if not more and around 10 centimeters in height. They were huge! In fact, my wife ended up cutting them in half when we got home and freezing half. When I had a bit of one later in the day I cut it down to a quarter or less and that was more than enough.

After breakfast, my wife said we should go disc golfing, so she walked one of the local courses with me listening to her audiobook and carrying my disc bag while I played a round. I ended up playing a decent round finishing about 4 over par and I logged a nice two miles of walking on my fitness tracker.

When I got home, it was a beautiful morning, so I decided I was going to rotate the tires on our travel trailer because I had noticed the ones on the passenger side were wearing differently than the ones on the driver side. After I finished that (no pictures sorry), I gave my wife's car a nice hand wash and wax. It didn't turn out the best, but it's still better than those overpriced drive through ones.

Then I just couldn't help myself and I decided I had to at least mow the front lawn. That added another mile to my step count for the day.

After all the hard work was done (honestly, there was a ton more I should have done, but it was my birthday), I finally decided to relax. I fired up the Weber kettle and threw on a rack of baby back ribs.

I sat on our deck with a birthday beer and a little bit of reading material while my wife took a nap inside.

Around 3 PM @mrsbozz came out to the deck and we decided to pull the TV from the house and set it up so we could watch the Women's College World Series softball games. The glare was kind of bad, but it was nice just to be outside enjoying our space. Of course another beer was in order. Sorry the photo is blurry!

Finally, it was time to pull the ribs. I also grilled up some chicken for my wife since she doesn't eat much pork. She had made some potato salad the day before and we had a nice garden salad along with our dinner. It was a pretty great day and I can only hope that I have another half century of days like this ahead of me!