Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

"It's that can't eat, can't sleep, reach for the stars, over the fence, world series kind of love."

     Valentine’s Day.  Sigh.  Normally I give this holiday barely a thought…for some reason this year I was totally into it.  Usually, Valentine’s Day is Neil’s holiday.  He always surprises us with bags of candy and flowers and little notes of appreciation...I like to think of him as my "hokie romantic".  But this year I decided I wanted in on the action.  So I planned out a family movie night (which are HUGE in our house).  I designed my own scratch off lottery tickets, with a matching game on them…the prize: a family movie night—I know, exciting stuff here!  I then brought out the movie gift bucket…complete with:
new straw cups for the kids (our essential Shopko ice water movie night cups...)

The Smurfs (Cuz who doesn't love little blue people?),

Popcorn, and Movie Theater Candy all stored inside this fabulous M&M popcorn bucket!

   The kids were screaming like they had truly won the lottery.  Either way, I was feeling pretty darn impressed with myself.  Thinking I had really blown Neil out of the water.  Shazam!  Right?
   So I go into my bedroom to start getting ready for school...and that's when the little notes start appearing...remember my "hokie romantic"?  Yeah.  Him.  In the center of my bathroom mirror is a crudely cut cardboard heart with the simple:  I <3 U taped to the very center of it...Okay.  One.  Tiny.  Display of Affection.  I move on.  Shortly after that I reach for my purse...and there it is:   Hello Kitty winking at me, asking me to "Be Mine?"...yes, she is stuck onto my purse with...zebra print duck tape.  Just another little token of my husband's affection.  I give him that look that says, "Really, Neil, Hello Kitty?"  And he chuckles and gives me that sheepish look that says, "Sorry, hokie romantic here!" that warms my heart.  What's next?
     I'm leaving for work, I open up my van door and find another envelope lying on the front seat, this one has a Hello Kitty "Best Friends" stuck to the envelope, with, I honestly think guerrilla glue from the junk drawer...inside is a handwritten note, of such sweet and heartfelt sentiment, that I will have perma-grin going on the rest of the day.
     Of course, that was not the end of it...because this is NEIL we are talking about...and Valentine's Day is HIS thing, remember.  I am in the middle of our Reading story with my third graders, when Miss Hemmy walks in with a delivery...a box...and sitting in the box is a stuffed bear, holding a "Be Mine" pillow (which my children will be fighting me for when we get home) and a vase of flowers with three different colored roses--one for each of our three children...and another card scratched out in his barely legible script making me feel like the most loved person on the planet.  Because THAT is Neil's speciality....making me feel loved.  Plain and simple.




Friday, February 10, 2012

Young Girl, Get Out of My Mind...

     Okay, so I totally sing this song to my husband every once in a while and giggle.  Why, you may ask?  Well, because my husband, Neil, is 17 years older than me.  Yes, you heard me right…it is not a typo.  Well, if we are being technical he is 16 years, 5 months, and 14 days older than me…and yes, I just wasted five minutes of my life figuring that out!  I know that this little tidbit is something that fascinates people… (not the wasted math time, but the 17 years in general).  And I guess I understand, after all, we are not famous celebrities where age seems irrelevant, he is not a wealthy gentleman who stands to make me rich someday.  He is simply Neil, a divorced father of three, a farmer, father of my own three children, the love of my life…my soul mate.  I’m not going to lie and say it never, ever bothered me.  It did.  I’m not going to say that if I still crunch the numbers I don’t inwardly freak out from time to time.  I do.  But then I look into his gentle eyes, and I think about this man that I gave my life to, and that’s that.  I can’t think about it anymore because I can’t imagine NOT loving him…I can’t imagine NOT being with him.  He makes me a better person.  He is the model of the best person.  When I’m having a horrible day, he listens…when I need him to, he has my back…and when I stand to lose it and freak out, he reminds me to take the high road…and because of that, I do…I can.  He is my rock.  And because of that, I consider myself to be ridiculously lucky.  And as a special bonus to HIM…Dr. Oz has assured us that a man, married to a women, not 10, not 20, not 13 years, but you guessed it…17 years younger is destined to live 10 years longer than the average man.1  That’s right…I give him an extra decade of life—can YOU say the same about YOUR marriage?