Chomp, Chomp

That is the sound of me eating my words.

Look what arrived this morning:


Just when I said we never do anything for Valentine's Day, J-Man surprises me.

I do love this man.


P.S. It's also the sound of us sharing the chocolates!

Worst Gift

We don't do Valentine's Day gifts around here--just never got into it. So I don't expect to participate in Judy's giveaway this weekend, but if you get something from your Sweetie, go post about it!

Julie's post, over at Pragmatic Compendium, with that hilarious video, reminded me of the worst gift J-Man ever gave me.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am very much in love with my husband. His love language is acts of service, and he is terrific at it. Just gifts themselves, well they're either a 10 or a 1. Nothing in between.

Prime example of a 10? My iPod nano--though that was really my daughter's idea. Another example of a 10? The tower speaker he got DD for her iPod nano--his own idea.

Prime example of a 1? The gift he got me for my 40th birthday.

A Solar Air Exchanger for my car.

Yep.

I was doing a lot of traveling in my job, and he decided this would be a good thing to keep my car from getting stuffy in the summer sunshine. As an everyday, thinking-of-you gift? Great. Any guy who saw it, thought it was a great gadget. And it was.

But as a gift for the big 4-0?

It sucked.

I had the sympathies of all my friends.

I do remember using it, though I don't think it made much of a difference in my car. Of course, that was a bazillion years ago, and it's long gone. Now it's just a funny memory, one of the many that come from being married for years and years. Don't you just love those?

Magic Moments Monday

Mondays, for most people, are the "Ho hum, weekend's over, work is WORK, and can't wait 'til Friday" type of day. My intent is to help us begin our week with something positive, something to hold on to, to get us through the rest of the week. Your entry can be a Scripture verse, a quote, an insight, something that touched your life or changed the way you look at things. I expect some of the first entries to be from the past, until we learn to look each day for those magic moments that remind us how wonderful life really is.

Please leave a comment with a way to find your post, either the link through your signature, or insert the link, so we can all read your experience. Then, on your post, link back to this post, so others visiting you can participate if they'd like.


Well, it's Magic Moments Monday and I am stumped. I guess I haven't been very observant this week, or open to inspiration, because I can't think of a thing. Not that it's been a bad week; it's been rather ordinary and uneventful. Now, I'm not complaining--I'm not one of those who has to be in constant crisis to feel alive, nor do I have to be on top of the world to have a good day. Sometimes a good day is just one in which everything proceeds as it should, a day in which you can feel just comfortable.

Comfortable, as in a marriage with someone you have loved for more than half a lifetime. There's a lot to be said for comfortable. And don't equate it with boring. I am comfortable in the fact that he loves me, that he will be there when I come home from work in the morning, and will be there when I wake up. I am comfortable in knowing he doesn't insist the house be spotless or that I be a gourmet cook (good thing!). I am confortable in knowing he adores our daughter and would never do anything to cause either of us harm. That is comforting as well as comfortable.

Here is how the dictionary defines comfortable:

1. producing or affording physical comfort, support, or ease: a comfortable chair; comfortable shoes.
2. being in a state of physical or mental comfort; contented and undisturbed; at ease: to be comfortable in new shoes; I don't feel comfortable in the same room with her.
3. producing mental comfort or ease; easy to accommodate oneself to or associate with: She's a comfortable person to be with.
4. more than adequate or sufficient: a comfortable salary.

Well, that is how J-Man makes me feel. He tries to make things physically comfortable for me, mentally comfortable, and he is more than adequate or sufficient for me.
This is what I strive to make him feel, too.

It's what I wish for all of you this week: being comfortable.

Magic Moments Monday

Okay, no logo yet. That week off just wasn't long enough. Maybe by next Monday?

At any rate, here are the guidelines for those of you who haven't visited before:
Mondays, for most people, are the "Ho hum, weekend's over, work is WORK, and can't wait 'til Friday" type of day. My intent is to help us begin our week with something positive, something to hold on to, to get us through the rest of the week. Your entry can be a Scripture verse, a quote, an insight, something that touched your life or changed the way you look at things. I expect some of the first entries to be from the past, until we learn to look each day for those magic moments that remind us how wonderful life really is.

Please leave a comment with a way to find your post, either the link through your signature, or insert the link, so we can all read your experience. Then, on your post, link back to this post, so others visiting you can participate if they'd like.
Okay? Okay, let's go.

Back in 1971, I graduated nursing school one weekend, took state boards the next, and got married the next--and started work within 2 weeks of the wedding. I was 20, very much in love, and probably really DID glow. I know my new wedding ring did.

An elderly patient of mine grabbed my hand one night to look at my ring. "My, my," she said. "This is very pretty. You haven't been married long, have you?"

"No, ma'am," I told her. "Just a few months."

"Well," she said, "I hope you don't mind if an old lady gives you some advice on marriage."

Not that I thought I needed any (oh, the arrogance of the young), but I was polite. "No, ma'am."

"Learn his ways," she told me. "Learn his ways."

I pretty much brushed that off; after all, it was the 70's, and though I wasn't a feminist, I didn't see why I had to learn HIS ways--why shouldn't he have to learn mine?

But you know, the older I've gotten, and the longer we've stayed married, the more valuable I realize her advice was. What says "I love you" more than knowing what makes him happy and doing it? Or knowing what makes him annoyed, or upset, and NOT doing it? Isn't communication just that--learning his ways? Learning how he acts when his back is really paining him, learning when he's joking and when he's serious, learning when to back off in an argument, learning that he has to mull things over a bit if I spring a new idea on him, learning to listen to his take on the candidates, (even though I hate discussing politics), learning what makes him laugh, and what makes him feel I value him--are these not the building blocks of a good marriage? And if I go to the effort to learn his ways, doesn't that make him want to learn mine?

I'm still working on it--learning his ways.

She was a very wise woman.


Your turn!