Happy Anniversary to me and my Ogre - we've been married 24 years today. I would love to post a picture, but he's a bit private. Anyhow, though it hasn't been all smooth sailing, his strength and faith in me have been outstanding over the years. There are so many touching things he's done for me. Recently, as you know, I had a rough patch. And all winter long I'd sit out on the patio and smoke and cry and ruminate- hours every day. And I kept telling him "Come spring, I'm going to be OK and I'll quit smoking again and I'll plant flowers and we'll be happy again." But I didn't make it. I did quit smoking - yay me, haven't had a cigarette since May 2nd. But the paralyzing sadness and anxiety wouldn't go away. And one day I came home, and the patio looked like it had exploded with beauty and color. He and our son had spent the morning planting a bazillion flowers all over. Lovely pots of every kind of flower you can imagine. He put up a birdfeeder and a humming bird feeder. And slowly, this has helped. I love to watch the birds, I've actually seen the humming birds - it feels magical when I catch sight of one - they're so fast and illusive. There's a cardinal that greets me almost every morning - I take it as a sign. I'm getting better. And God bless him. It was HIS dad who died. It was HIM who lost his job (thankfully he got a new one quickly). I don't know how he made it through all that while I was wallowing in my mire - I was no help to him, I was lost.
Anyhow, I wanted to take a moment to say all this. Marriage is hard. You can't imagine the horrid fights we've had, the awful things we've said and done to each other over the years. Somewhere around 12 years into the marriage, we settled down. Today he is making me help him rebuild our gate - it's falling apart - our crazy dog is going to escape. If Trixie gets out, she'll just walk around and scratch at the front door - she doesn't want to run away. But the other dog would be gone because she's kind of dumb. I don't want to do it, but it'll be good for me. Keep me out of my head - working on something that matters. Saturday he's got something special planned that he won't tell me about. I hope, if my girls insist on getting married, they marry someone as rock steady as their father. I hope my son has absorbed his father's ways and knows how to treat a woman and be there always. My husband is one of the few wise choices I've made in my life.
He loooves bubbles. 
