Celebrating Gary's Birthday

 

My readers may not think of us as "party animals," but in our own way, it's been a weekend of good times.

The cards have been coming in via snail mail and the Internet. 

This one created by Blue Mountain Arts came from a long-time friend who is currently on vacation in South Africa!!

I asked Chatgpt to come up with an old-fashioned arithmetic word problem to express how many birthdays Gary has celebrated, thus far. See if you can figure it out:

A teacher has 12 boxes of pencils, with 7 pencils in each box. She then gets 5 more pencils. After giving 7 pencils to a student, how many pencils does she have left?

You can leave your answer in the comments at the end of this post. And just so you know, I ran this past Gary to see if he could figure it out (of course he did!!!) and to ask his permission. He said it was okay.

One of the activities on this special weekend was our drive north about 45 minutes to Williston, Florida to visit the Annual Peanut Festival.

It was a typical small-town type of celebration that drew A LOT OF PEOPLE (as experienced when we were looking for a parking spot). We were each given a small bag of Florida peanuts, a bag of free popcorn, a free fan (much appreciated because the heat and humidity were pretty high), and of course, the advertised, highly-anticipated, free grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

The sandwich was quite warm and the peanut butter was soft and gooey! Sooo good!

Vendors were selling all the usual stuff but nothing we didn't already have, didn't need, nor want.

On our way back to the truck, we stopped to take this picture of Spanish Moss draped from an oak tree -- a very common sight all over Florida. (very "southern")

We talked about going to a restaurant for lunch but the yummy meatloaf at home won the debate. After lunch we settled into our recliners to watch the Air Force vs. Navy football game. Gary enjoyed the game since he is an Air Force retiree and veteran. I enjoyed the scenes from the USAF Academy since I'm a former military wife (USAF) and lived in Colorado Springs twice for a combined total of about 10 years. 

High School years:
Gary is in the top row, on the left

A TV announcer described one of the players as one who "played with  his hair on fire." I asked Gary if he played that way on his high school team. His reply: "Nooooo ! I hid under the stands! You can get killed out there!" He was actually the co-captain in his senior year.

 

He's joking about hiding. From our very beginnings he has made me laugh. Every. Single. Day. 

Air Force was doing well, so after half-time I got busy in the kitchen to make brownies in my seasoned cast iron wedge pan. My secret to keep them from sticking is Bakers Joy, which is a combination of flour and cooking oil. I use my fingers to spread the lubrication into the corners.

While the brownies baked, somebody got to lick the bowl.

When first bringing the pan out of the oven, it's exciting to see how high the brownies have risen. They tend to deflate as they cool, but the taste is wonderful.

All of the above happened on Saturday. His actual birthday is today, Sunday, October 4th. 

All of our days begin with Gary bringing coffee into our room where we listen to instrumental music on the TV and quietly talk about plans for the day.

Last night I left a special coffee in the kitchen for him to discover this morning. It was a pleasant start to his birthday, and Gary even asked me what other flavors the store had to offer.

He opened the card from me and two packages, each with a jigsaw puzzle to feed our current hobby. 

and

I got these from Amazon after searching for designs with classic cars, since that is a subject Gary has loved all of his life. Also, these puzzles remind us of one of the first movies we watched together in our early dating days, American Graffiti. 

Link to the movie trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etGj_xQSKRM

My long-time readers remember that the same week of our first date, Gary bought a classic 2002 Ford Thunderbird. He likes to say he had to get the car to get the girl!

 

While that is not exactly right, it didn't hurt!! (for those of my readers who don't know, Gary and I were both widowed during the COVID pandemic and a mutual friend introduced us about a year later. It's been a "Hallmark movie romance" from the beginning and we've been married almost 4 1/2 years.)

On our second date I convinced him to let me take pictures of him with the car. While this gave him snapshots of the car, it gave me photos of HIM to dream over when we could not be together. 🥰 So that's the story of why I gave him puzzles of classic cars. 

Getting back to the birthday celebrations: birthday cards, phone greetings, and of course, the traditional make - a - wish - and - blow - out - the - candle rounded out the special occasion.

Only Gary and the Lord know what he wished before blowing out his candle but I hope all his dreams come true!

(Yes, I made him light his own candle so I could snap this picture!)

For it is by grace you have been saved,

through faith --

and this is not from yourselves,

it is the gift of God --

not by works,

so that no one can boast.

Ephesians 2:8-9

Praying for you grace and peace, 

Barbara

P.S. If you're so inclined, figure out the answer to the arithmetic word problem and leave your answer in the comments. 😉 Please leave your first name if you are commenting anonymously.