10 years

I was looking at some old posts and I realized that today is the anniversary of this blog and that it has been 10 years since I started this blog. It's been named different things and I've been on and off with it for those 10 years but I keep coming back. I didn't write or do much of anything for a year after BT's diagnosis but then I was honestly in the middle of a breakdown. I've found writing down some of this stuff lately has been cathartic even if no one is reading this anymore. I'm fine with that. I just like saying stuff "outloud," writing down my thoughts. Still I think it is really neat that I've managed to save something for a decade.

Nine years

Today is our nine year anniversary. Yes it does follow closely on the heels of our dating anniversary. I did that on purpose. It would have been the same date if the 22 hadn't been a Friday. While I won't say every year is better than the last, I will say that every year has been something new; a new challenge, a new baby, a new way to live our life together. I am extraordinarily proud of what he has accomplished in the past year with finishing school while caring for our baby girl while working full time. It's amazing what he can do when he sets his mind. I am thankful to be married to a man who works hard to provide for his family and betters himself not only for himself but for the good of that family as well. And the fact that he cooks and does the laundry doesn't hurt either. I'm looking forward to seeing what the next year brings us. But I know no matter what we will face it together.

Fifteen years

Today is the anniversary of the day my husband and I got together. I wish I had a really cute first date story but the truth is our first day was about a week or so later. We went miniature golfing and he let me win (so he says). But 15 years ago at the beginning of October we first met and I thought he was cute but short and that was about it really. His best friend was roommates with my best friend and we had gone the whole summer without seeing each other. Partly because he was home for the summer, partly because he was scared of my friend (different story). Anyway, we hung out as a group a few more times and then October 22 we went out for a friend's birthday and we ended sitting across from each other in a booth at a bar talking and flirting and that was about it. I knew then. That was it. Sometimes you just find that person, the person, my person. So I still celebrate this day. 15 years is a long time and the six years we had together before we got married were pretty important in shaping who we are as individuals and who we are as a couple. Sometimes I look at him and I'm not sure where that time has gone. But we've done pretty well for ourselves in those years, especially with our lovely children. And in five years we'll have been together for longer than we were apart. It's crazy how that happens.

8 years

Today is our 8th wedding anniversary. And as of yesterday we have been together for 14 years altogether. I feel like this is quite an accomplishment. It hasn't been easy and there were some extremely rough points throughout. But there was never really an option of not being together. Well, I guess there was the option but neither one of us wanted to take it. From almost the minute I meet BT we just were. And I like to think that we will always just be.

My father-in-law likes to say that I can't count the first 6 years. I guess in his head the clock starts over when you say "I do." But those 6 years were important. We figured out a lot of things between us in those 6 years and got through some of our hardest times. So those years were important and I will always count them.

One of our hardest times after we were married came when we became parents for the first time. That is a difficult stage, maybe not for everyone, but it was for us. It was one of the few times I wasn't sure we were going to make it. But we did and we learned how to be good parents for Bub and how to do it together as a team and, in the end, that too made us a better couple.

Just this morning we were having a conversation about how different people are when they are 20 versus 34. How when you are 20 it's easy to take things for granted and to not know the value of something. How BT takes his schoolwork more seriously now than he did when he was 20. It's amazing really to me to think about who he was when we first meet compared to him now. 20 really is awfully young to find the person you are going to spend the rest of your life with but that is what happened. We've grown up together and make plenty of mistakes together. We've also made 2 babies and bought a house and keep 2 dogs and made so many happy memories together. I hope that we continue to find more happiness in each other. I cannot imagine it any other way.

Love ya like a biscuit *

Today my husband and I are celebrating our sixth wedding anniversary.  We have been together for 12 years total which is a pretty long time.  I thought that I'd celebrate with some of my favorite quotes on love.

*blog title comes from a restaurant in my town that serves the best biscuits ever

"If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more."

— Jane Austen (Emma)

I know this love is passing time
Passing through like liquid
I am drunk in my desire...
But I love the way you smile at me
I love the way your hands reach out and hold me near...
I believe...

I believe
This is heaven to no one else but me
And I'll defend it as long as
I can be left here to linger in silence
If I choose to

-Sarah McLachlan ("Elsewhere")

"Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction."

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (The Little Prince)

"Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can."

— Alice Hoffman (Practical Magic) 

"Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words "make" and "stay" become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free."

— Tom Robbins (Still Life with Woodpecker)

"We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."

— Dr. Seuss

In which I celebrate my parent's anniversary

oday is my parent's 38th anniversary.  I admire their fortitude.  They haven't had the easiest marriage with plenty of problems (believe me) but they worked through it all and here they are still married to this day.  Amazing.  I can only hope to have my marriage last this long.  Marriage is so much work and anyone who says it should be effortless is a liar.  I mean, it shouldn't be a fight everyday but it is impossible for two people to get along everyday of their lives together.  But I digress.  This is about my parent's.  They have known each other a loooong time.  My mother's brother married by father's sister when my mom was 6 and my dad was 12.  So a really long time.  They started dating when she was 16ish and got married when she was almost 18, which she says was too young and might be one of the reasons I didn't get married till I was 26.  They had two daughters and now they have one grandson whom they love very very much and spoil like crazy (yay, me).  I appreciate all the sacrifices they must have made and the effort it took to stay together during a very dark period in our lives and I am grateful that they stuck it out and still like being together.

So Happy Anniversary to my mom and dad!

Second {Belated} Blogversary

nce again I failed to acknowledge my blogversary on its actual date (August 7 which is so weird since that is my dad's birthday).  Anyway, here is my acknowledgment.  This blog has never taken a real direction and is very random, much like my inner monologue.  But that's ok.  It's nice to have a place to put things down.  My favorite thing to do is reviews.  I have a whole book blog and it has done reasonably well.  I've done TV shows for this one and really enjoyed doing Lost Thoughts.  Sadly I don't think any other TV shows will be as awesome or thought provoking as Lost.  I miss that show.  But it explains my lack of TV recaps or thought posts.

But I've had this blog for 2 years now and that is a long time for me to committ to a blog especially one with no "theme" or focus.  But happy 2 year to Annie, I think which used to call many many other things.

All you need is love (and a sense of humor)

Today is my 5th anniversary of marriage to my wonderful husband.  We dated 6 years before we got married so we've been together for 11 years now!  In honor of this occasion, I present to you a bibliography of our life (in titles).

Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging - Louise Rennison
Practical Magic - Alice Hoffman
Kiss the Bride - Patrica (Meg) Cabot
The Kingdom Keepers - Ridley Pearson (We went to Disney World for our honeymoon)
Swift as Desire - Laura Esquivel
Great Expectations: Your All-in-One Resource for Pregnancy & Childbirth - Sandy Jones              
The Baby Owner's Manual - Joe Borgenicht
The Boy Book - E. Lockhart
A Crooked Kind of Perfect - Linda Urban
P.S. I Love You - Cecelia Ahern

cross posted with The Little Bookworm