Happy Anniversary

Today was my husband and my 27th anniversary. We didn't go out to dinner or do anything especially romantic. We worked together most the day moving furniture and boxes of household stuff that a family in Walla Walla was donating to my agency.

I was contacted by a man who said he and his brother were both flying in from out of town (one back east and one coming from Alaska) to clear out his parents house which was in the process of being sold. Since neither of them were local and they didn't want to pay to ship stuff home they decided to donate most of it to a worthy cause. So, they are giving it all to the non profit organization that I run...which will be LOTS of work for me, but great for the clients my agency serves. Since they only had short time before both of them were scheduled to fly back home again it was important that we get everything out of the house over the last few days.

I took 2 loads on Wednesday with my SUV filled to the brim. Then Thursday after stuffing ourselves with Turkey, pie and all the trimmings my husband and I hauled a load in his pickup with a borrowed trailer filled as well. We did another load today and have one more to pick up tomorrow. It will be weeks of sorting to figure out what is in all those boxes and figuring out how to put it to best use. Much of it we will have no need for and will simply pass on to partnering organizations - but in order to get the parts we DID want I agreed to take it all.

I had equal parts of feeling gratitude and being overwhelmed by the sheer bulk of it all. But most of all I really appreciated my husband's willingness to spend a big chunk of his holiday weekend helping me with this project.

Afterwards we came home to eat turkey leftovers. Then we curled up on the couch and watched Spiderwick Chronicles together. We kept the celebrating fairly low key. Still all in all, it was a pretty good day.

We've done a lot of exciting, exotic things over the years, my man and me. We've taken trips to Egypt, to Costa Rica, to Fiji, and other places all over this country. Many of our anniversaries have been marked by sparkles and fun. This time around we felt satisfied just sticking close to home and taking care of what needed to get done.

Marriage is a complicated endeavor. I've been richly blessed by the union I share with this guy. We are nearly a generation apart in age and VERY different in our interests, opinions, tastes and attitudes. We cancel each other out at most elections and our preferences in music, books, food and many other parts of life are about as far apart as the north and south poles. Yet somehow we manage to merge into a partnership of trust, intimacy, humor, strength and spirit that rocks my world.

There is something about a long term union like we have that is incredibly comforting, even during those times when one or the other or both of us must make sacrifices or forgo our own interests for the sake of the team. We truly are partners, he and I, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

So happy anniversary to you, my beloved. (he's not a blog reader and has only looked at this one once or twice when I specifically asked his input on something I'd written, so I don't expect him to ever see this...but still, I will say it to him anyway. Love ya babe. Lets go build another 20 yrs. Hopefully there will be many more years, many more pictures as we keep building adventures and memories together. I am so richly blessed to be with this man!