July Journal -- The 28th Anniversary

Today I am celebrating being married to my hubby for 28 years! That's TWENTY-EIGHT!
Hmmm....
Twenty-eight years on the 28th of July. Does that make this our Golden Anniversary? I think so! :)

The other day when I was listening to Pandora on my phone, I heard this song called, Love is Not a Fight, by Warren Barfield. (I learned this was in the movie, Fireproof, but I don't recall it. Not sure how I missed it.) As I was listening to it, I felt tears rolling down my cheeks and knew I needed to post this today, on our 28th anniversary.

(The words are below)



Love is not a place
To come and go as we please
It's a house we enter in
Then commit to never leave

So lock the door behind you
Throw away the key
We'll work it out together
Let it bring us to our knees

Chorus:
Love is a shelter in a raging storm
Love is peace in the middle of a war
And if we try to leave, may God send angels to guard the door
No, love is not a fight but it's something worth fighting for

To some, love is a word
That they can fall into
But when they're falling out
Keeping that word is hard to do


Chorus:
Love is a shelter in a raging storm
Love is peace in the middle of a war
And if we try to leave, may God send angels to guard the door
No, love is not a fight but it's something worth fighting for

To some, love is a word
That they can fall into
But when they're falling out
Keeping that word is hard to do

Love will come to save us
If we'll only call
He will ask nothing from us
But demand we give our all

Chorus:
Love is a shelter in a raging storm
Love is peace in the middle of a war
And if we try to leave, may God send angels to guard the door
No, love is not a fight but it's something worth fighting for

I will fight for you
Would you fight for me?
It's worth fighting for
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Hubby:
Remember this square dance? I don't think you knew at the time that I was beginning to have a crush on you. I wasn't a fan of square dancing, but I went because I knew you were going to be there. Just like the concert I got a free ticket to just cuz I knew you'd be there (with another girl) and the volleyball game I went to play with our friends. I  never could stand to play volleyball, but I knew you were going to be there. Shameless, I know, but I liked being around you.

(We are the ones in the middle.  I have a purple shirt and Hubby has the almost blonde hair and the navy blue shirt.)

Eventually, I think, you turned around and saw me following you around. Grin.

We began to talk. A lot. You let me vent and let me cry on your shoulder. (Hmmm...some things never change, huh?) You wrote me letters that summer. Every week. Because you said you would and you always do what you say.

We quickly became friends. Best friends. And some where in there we fell in love.

You have always loved me just for me. Something I'll never understand, but am so grateful for.

 I love you so much more and so much more deeply than I did that day 28 years ago when we stood in that church in front of our family and friends. Even thought I am thankful and oh so blessed to be married to you, I don't think I will ever quite comprehend this mystery that is called marriage.

The Peach, The Turd and The Apology

I know I have gushed and gushed and gushed (and gushed) about my hubby on this blog. I know that gives the impression we have a peachy-keen marriage. (Yes, I used the term peachy-keen.) So what I have to say may come as a shock to some of my readers.


Sometimes our marriage is kinda like a moldy peach. (Oh, these fruit analogies just might not be working.)


What I mean to say is, sometimes our marriage can be ugly.


Earlier this week was an example of that. I won't go into detail. That's not something I do. (We both remember advice we were given during our premarital counseling sessions to be aware of how we speak about each other to other people.)


I'll summarize it by saying we had a fight and I pouted. A lot. For too long. The next day I knew I needed to apologize. I was out running errands and thought I should leave a candy bar with a note in his car at his work.  As I was thinking about what I would write, an idea came to me.


Here's the note with the candy bar I left on the front seat of his car:

(The note reads: I'm sorry for being such a turd.)

Please, some one out there tell me they know the movie from 1980 that involved this candy bar being mistook for something other than a candy bar... anybody?? Go to this link to watch the scene and tell me if you know.

By the way, Hubby says it made him smile and agreed that it was the best apology ever. He ate the candy bar and thought about it being a turd the whole time. :)

I Do

I know I said I would post pictures of our house.

I haven't done that yet, if you haven't noticed....

My hubby had meetings in The Big City again last week and I tagged along. I will get them posted. Soon.

We stayed over the weekend to see a musical at a terrific dinner theater. We have enjoyed going to this dinner theater since we were on our honeymoon.

When we had been married all of three days, we saw a performance of I Do, I Do. I remember very well a couple seated next to us who introduced themselves to us and looked at me to introduce ourselves. I stuttered and told hubby to do it. I stuttered over the words, "This is my husband," since I had never said that before!

I noticed a few months ago that the show was back at the theater and happened to coincide with the week hubby had meetings to go to, so we made plans to attend. (That was a really long sentence...)

So, Saturday night we enjoyed a nice dinner and then were seated in the theater. The play covers 50 years of marriage of Michael and Agnes. The first scene is the wedding and they sing a song titled, "I Do, I Do."

I cried. I did.

The play really touched us. The newlywed wonder and fun, the child raising years, the struggles of the relationship, the What Do We Do Now The Kids Are Grown, the companionship of old age.  And we marveled at the timing. Seeing it first as a brand-spanking new husband and wife, and then shortly after both our children have married and started lives of their own. What a lifetime was lived in between.

I told my hubby I'd give anything to crawl into the head of that 23 year old me and see what I was thinking and feeling all those years ago.

It impacted us more than we thought.

I found this little video on YouTube of one of the songs that had tears streaming my face by the end of it.
 

I Said I love You and That's Forever

My hubby and I have been married for 26 years, 3 months and some extra days. 


I am blessed.


I love being married.

I can't decide which opening line I like better. So I will use all of them.

This whole marriage thing has come into much better focus to me since it's back to just the two of us. What do I see? I see that we approach life very differently.

Some examples:

*He is a morning person. I am a night-owl. He gets up ready to go in the mornings, it takes me a couple of hours to feel human.

*Hubby is quite competitive. I don't think I have a competitive bone in my body. Case in point: We have the same cell phones. I found an application that was similar to Boggle, a word game both like. I was having fun playing it and seeing how many words I could find. Hubby then loaded the same game on his phone. He soon realized the scoring was not the same as the real version of the game and found a couple of things he didn't like about it. I hadn't even noticed. (Now I don't like the game either.)

*Hubby can fall asleep in 2.5 seconds flat. Some nights I'm lucky if I fall asleep in under 30 minutes.

*He loves to run and does it about four times a week. For 40 minutes or more. I hate to exercise. 'Nough said.

*Hubby likes to organize things and enjoys doing it. I love for things to be organized, but I tend to get stressed out in the process. Just last night I was attempting to organize all of our CDs. Hubby dragged the box full of CDs upstairs a few days ago. Late yesterday afternoon, I unloaded them all. (Believe me, we have a lot of them.) I started stacking them on the floor around me. Pretty soon, I realized I was in over my head. Hubby called to tell me he was coming home and asked how I was doing. I said I was buried in CDs and wasn't sure what to do with them all. He laughed and said he'd be home soon. As soon as he walked in the door, he jumped right in and within 10 minutes we had a plan on what to do with them all and within probably 45 minutes he had them all organized. My hero!

*Hubby likes to watch sports. Football, basketball, baseball. He likes it. I tell him I think every game looks the same. I don't understand how he can watch so many games. He loved being at our Alma Mater's Homecoming Game last weekend. I was bored out of my mind. I've asked a few questions, especially about football, and I still don't understand it or like it.

*He is a very patient person. He cheerfully let me wander down memory lane last Sunday. And has agreed to some more Memory Lane wandering this coming weekend.

*Probably my most favorite thing is that he loves me unconditionally. I am often blown away at his love for me. I am ever grateful for our marriage as an earthly example of God's love for me. A few weeks ago we got into quite a heated disagreement. It was mostly because of my fears. After we had apologized to each other and forgave each other I asked him, "What can I do to make you happy with me again?" He answered, "Sweetie, you don't have to do anything. I love you." I about fell on the floor. Isn't that the way it is with God? We really don't have to do things to make Him love us. He just does.

My conclusion? We are very different people. We approach life differently. We are amazingly crazy in love with each other. And Happy.

Our son Caleb took a bunch of pictures at his sister's wedding. This was one of them. It's my favorite, mostly because of the caption he put with the photo when he posted it on Facebook.

Marriage works, these two are proof.

**SIGH**

As I was contemplating this post I heard a perfect song when I was out shopping. Despite all our differences, I love you, honey. Just the way you are.

Happy Birthday!

Today is my man's birthday. I am so thankful he was born and I that I am lucky enough to be married to him!

He gave me this for Christmas. I feel the same way about him!

I am blessed.

Love you Honey!

 

In Which I Get Perspective After a Night of Not Much Sleep

I had to watch this this morning since last night was seemingly impossible to sleep with all the snoring. This gives me perspective. Watch it. You won't be sorry.