30 Years

Thirty years ago today I married my best friend. I am stunned at how blessed we have been in this relationship. I feel so honored to have had the opportunity to share these three decades with this man. He makes me laugh. He has incredible integrity. He has a phenomenal work ethic and did an amazing job of supporting two families for many years. Now that he is retired he continues to be a phenomenal father and husband. He is a huge support to me in more ways than I can count. Yes, I love him deeply. Beyond that, I genuinely LIKE this guy. We are not just hanging out together. We are truly a team and both of us are better people because of the union we share. My life has been surrounded by so much trust, kindness and possibility because of him. In good times and dark times, we both lift each other up. Happy anniversary my beloved. May we have many, many more years to come.

ANNIVERSARY

This Saturday my beloved and I will celebrate our 28th anniversary. WoHOO! In this day of disposable commitment I consider that quite an achievement, especially since we are not just hanging out together, we still really HONOR this union we've built. Because our anniversary comes within just a few days of my husband's birthday we've often used that week as the time for some great vacations to commemorate both. We've done some amazing things... everything from a trip to Haceta Head Lighthouse bed & breakfast on the Oregon Coast (for #19) to a 10 day trip of a lifetime to Egypt on #25.

This year dollars dictate that we keep things fairly simple. But I would still like to make it as special as we can.

We've had our ups and we've had our downs. But through thick and thin, I truly love this man I'm married to and am deeply grateful for the safe haven of our marriage.

Any suggestions for how to spend a romantic weekend on a tight budget??

Immediate Forgiveness

I was cruising through a bunch of different blogs by backtracking comments and seeing who THEY happen to read and found this sweet gem over on Anniethology

Sometimes when things are stressful, spouses say things they don't do mean or speak without thinking. At moments like this, give each other a pass. Make up a little coupon that says, "This pass entitles you to immediate forgiveness for the dumb thing you said when we were in a stressful situation." Give your spouse a few and keep some for yourself. They may come in handy. Don't dwell on it, harp on it, or drag it on. Just forgive.


Oh yeah, this is an idea I can support.

A Man Out Standing in his Field

One more post about the man I love...

My beloved is a field researcher. He has spent the past 37 years doing experiments of one sort or another on various agricultural chemicals.

Here in this picture he is out working on his variety tolerance test. Basically what he does is stick all those little stakes that you see in the ground to mark off plots that are about 6 foot by 30 feet. Each plot gets a different code number. The ground has been planted with six different kinds of wheat. Each variety gets four different treatments of herbicides. Then my handsome man goes out to gaze at this field two or three times throughout the season to rate whether or not there was any damage to the wheat from any of the different rates of the various types of chemicals. He rates any damage on a percentage scale and compares that to the untreated controls. This particular test has 96 sticks in the ground separating out the various treatment rates, and the one next to it has 168 sticks. There's another behind it that has 200. And that's only about half of the test plots he has out. So he is using that fancy pants scientific graduate degree of his to put sticks in the ground much of the time!

Other tests he is currently working on include weed control in grass grown for seed, and weed control with several different chemicals in wheat.

Over the years he has worked with insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, plant growth regulators and just about any kind of pest control you can imagine. He has done tests in cotton fields, citrus and vegetables in Arizona, corn, soybeans and fruit in the Midwest, tree fruits in Washington and now he works with wheat and grass here in Oregon. I tease him sometimes that working with all those chemicals is going to make his belly button glow in the dark. But he's careful and he's smart. He does important work that helps farmers understand what chemicals work and what do not, what rates are safe and how to maximize crops.

Many people think we'd be way better off to quit using chemicals all together and go back to the "natural" ways of farming. But it simply isn't realistic for us to be able to feed the world without relying on chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Manure has its place (they use it here at the farm where we live), but it also has its limitations. With the agribusiness industry farming hundreds of thousands of acres there is no way to deal with weeds and bugs by hand. So if they are going to use chemical interventions to increase productivity, I'm glad there are people like my husband who do the research and development work to make sure what chemicals are safest under what conditions rather than just willy nilly pouring out poisons like people used to do with DDT.

Part of the time he is a farmer, out on a tractor planting crops. Part of the time he is a scientist compiling and analyzing data to measure the results of his tests. Part of the time he is a business man meeting with growers to give presentations and answer questions about what works and what doesn't.

Having grown up on a farm in Millard County, Utah he learned from a very early age the value of hard work and over the years has developed a work ethic with more integrity than anyone else I know. He works hard when there's work to be done. When the job is done he won't stand around trying to look busy. He either moves on to the next task or goes fishing. He's extremely responsible and dependable.

Can ya tell yet that I really, REALLY admire this guy?

I love his sense of humor and his sense of adventure. But I truly respect what a hard worker he is and all the things he has done to support our family over the years.

Tomorrow he turns 63. So I baked him a pineapple upside down cake from scratch and we'll spend the evening playing board games and visiting with friends.

Happy Birthday sweetie...wishing you many, many more.

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!

Doors & Windows

I have heard it said that whenever a door closes somewhere else a window opens.
Guess I better start looking for windows.

I was notified today that I did not get the Wenatchee job. I was fairly sure that would be the case when my reference people had not been contacted by last week. But now it is final. They did not pick me.

Of course I would have liked to be picked, but in a lot of ways I'm actually relieved. As much as I would have loved that job, and as much as I dearly love that area and the people I know there - my marriage is more important than my career. If I had taken that job my husband and I would have been living in separate households and taking turns commuting to see each other on the weekends until my beloved was ready to retire - which will probably not happen for three years or more. Granted, I'd have had my summers off when we could be together full time, and get a long break over the winter holidays, which would have helped. Still, the time apart was NOT something I looked foreward to.

I am ever so grateful that my dear husband gave me his full support if I had chosen to pursue that option, but I had been having second thoughts and third thoughts and fourth thoughts about attempting such a thing. Over the last few days while he's been out of town for a family reunion in Utah it really hit me how sad I would be to be in some tiny apartment without my man. No matter how nice it would have been to have a full time faculty position at a college I respect, my place truly is with him. I feel very comfortable with that.

So now I'm back to the drawing board, needing to find a job. I will ONLY look here where I live, no matter how good other jobs may sound. Being geographically place bound does chaffe a bit, but that is the current reality.

What will I be when I grow up? I haven't a clue. But no matter what I may do to earn a living, who I AM is his wife, and I like that.

Badger Holes & Mortality

My beloved injured his ankle the other day stepping in a badger hole. His work involves agricultural field research for OSU. He was out working in one of their experiment plots preparing the ground to plant mustard seed. He had noticed some badger holes so he got a shovel and proceeded to fill them in. As he went to tamp down the loose dirt over one of the holes the ground gave way to the cavity below, causing my man's ankle to twist at a nasty angle. It's not broken, but it is severely sprained. Doctor says for him to stay off of it, keep putting ice on and to not plan on any sustained walking for at least three weeks.

We had big plans for hiking the hills around Wenatchee this weekend. We were also going to go out in search of some new geocache. There were all sorts of things we intended to do since I've got the day off Friday and could make a long weekend of it. Now he won't be able to do any of those things.

We are both disappointed. Beyond that, it has made me think a bit more about our mortality and the impact the 12 year age difference between us is likely to have on us over the course of the next decade.

Up until now it has been no big deal that he was further down the road of life's season's than I. But at age 62 already I have noticed he is beginning to slow down a bit and relish his "old man's naps" whenever he can. Watching him hobble around the house with a cane as a result of this injury served as a reminder that it may not be too many more years before health issues or limited mobility could become routine challenges. How I choose to respond if/when that happens remains to be seen.

As we've talked about what we would do this weekend it became clear I really only have three options:

1) don't do the things we had planned at all since he can't do them with me.
2) do those things by myself.
3) do them with someone else.

I'm not thrilled by any of those options. This man I am married to is my best pal, my hero, my cherished companion. Even the most mundane of activities is all the more fun when he's along for the ride. But the fact remains that he CAN'T go out hiking on this trip and won't be for some time. So I'm not entirely sure what I'll do. I'll take it as it comes and make the most of it however it plays out.

The main reason for the trip is to visit our dear friends, Chuck & Pat, who we have not seen in a couple years. They had been serving a mission in the Atalanta, GA temple and then after returning from that spent this past winter in Arizona. Finally they are home so we are very anxious to go spend some time catching up with them. I'm really looking forward to just sitting and visiting. Also there are several other friends we want to go by to see. As long as Larry is careful getting in and out of the car he certainly can still enjoy visiting.

Still, watching him hobble around with his poor gimp foot has made me pause and wonder--how will I handle it if somewhere down the road he becomes ill or infirm, dealing with pain, possible incontinence or loss of cognitive ability?

When I said "in sickness or in health" I very much meant it. I am committed to this marriage for the long haul no matter what challenges may confront us. But making those promises in my 20's when we both felt young and invincible just didn't bear the weight that facing up to them at 50 and 62 does.

Husbands of two of my long time friends have had strokes in the last year. Others I know are dealing with severe diabetes, heart failure, emphysema. As I get older more and more of my contemporaries are showing me the range of what it is like to lose hold of youth. This growing old stuff isn't for sissies.

Whether it is me or him who may face significant health challenges, chances are one or the other of us will. I hope with all my heart that I'll be able to face whatever challenges that come up for us with grace, compassion and humor.

For now I'll just bring him more ice, re-wrap his ace bandage and be grateful this particular injury was not too serious. But it has served as a bit of a wake up call for rapids down river yet to come. I hope I'm up for them.

UNITY

For current update on what's happening here see my post over at my other blog.

Happy Birthday Beloved!

Today is my husband's birthday. We've had a great day - went into the interior of the Yucatan peninsula to visit Chichen Itza. It was AMAZING. But nothing is more amazing that the sacred bond that my beloved and I share. We've been married 26 years and he still makes me feel weak in the knees with his smile. The past few days here have been a truly magical, romantic time of reconnecting for he and I. We've both been burning our candle and both ends lately with work, church, family and other obligations. While we have had no specific conflicts, sometimes we seem to get almost oblivious of one another as we both get too immersed in our respective responsibilities. This trip has given us the chance to remind ourselves and each other of the power of our union and to recommit to keeping it strong. I am so grateful for the blessing of this marriage. He makes me laugh. He makes me feel safe. He teaches me stuff. He listens to me. We share something very special indeed. He's a good man. Besides loving him like crazy, I truly respect this guy and trust him with all my heart. So happy birthday to you my love - and may you have many, many more!

Keeping Marriage Alive

This week's Woman-to-Woman topic has to do with marriage.

The challenge reads thus:

"Whether you've been married for 38 years, 8 years or are a newlywed, you've probably picked up a few of the keys to a happy marriage, one which is nurturing and continues to grow. Maybe your marriage has struggled, but you've found a road back to each other and have insights for those in similar situations. What would you say are the three most key elements in your marriage that keep the romance alive and the heart aflutter? "


There are many things I could write about. I've said before HERE how I feel about the man I'm married to.

But if I have to pick just three key factors that keep our love alive, I'd list these:

MINDFUL INTIMACY
POWER OF WORDS
DEAD PRESIDENTS & POWER

Now to explain.... (warning ...not TOO graphic, but may be a bit PG13. Sorry if this is just TOO MUCH information, but it's something I think matters that is worthy of talking about.)

MINDFUL INTIMACY: When most folks hear married people (or other romantically involved partners) talk about "being intimate" they immediately think that means sex. It can. Sometimes. But I think it is very important to build deliberate intimacy into the relationship that does NOT involve intercourse. Face it, no matter how loving or generous your intent when you start making love, there comes a point when the whole universe -INCLUDING your partner- becomes secondary to the ferocious building up torrent/release of sensation in your own body. At least that is how it is for me.

So we make sure we make time for lots of pleasuring touch that is NOT foreplay, but something to savor for its own. Being able to "pinch and tickle", give lots of deep, passionate kisses, body massage and experimenting with what each of us likes with no expectation for it to be leading up to sex can be incredibly bonding.

There is so much laughter, occasional silliness, sometimes quiet wonder as we explore just sharing ourselves with each other in cuddling, time together ways. Those times make it so that when we DO choose to have sex it's all that much richer, more mindful, more chosen.

Enough said.

POWER OF WORDS - We have this silly little tradition in which I relate any mundane, routine chore to being an expression of devotion. When I'm sorting sock I'll say to my man: "And WHY am I sorting these socks?" He'll tease me at first with some ridiculous answer like "well, it's better than chasing an aardvark!" I will put on mock outrage at that and insist he come up with a better answer. Then he will get a huge grin on his face and tenderly say "Because you love me." To which I will answer some variation of this: "YES, I sort these socks because I do love you. It means a lot to me to be able to help make a home that is comfortable for you, where you can come home secure in the knowledge of having matched socks. I may not be saving the world. But I'm loving you the best way I know how."

Pure mush? Yep. But this little "game" that we play reinforces for BOTH of us that we DO love each other, and that even in all the minutia of life - taking out the trash, sorting socks, picking up dog poop in the yard, washing the car, ANYTHING that makes our home more sane, more ordered, more cozy can be done as an expression of love. There is POWER in that. (And a lot of silliness, which is ok too.)

It keeps us from getting annoyed or overwhelmed with the chores. If we have a big enough WHY, the how just falls into place. It helps us live in a more deliberate state of experiencing and expressing our love in even the most mundane moments.

DEAD PRESIDENTS - my reference to money. So many couples I know have conflicts over cash, or the lack there of. We don't. Ever. Never have in 25 years. In our early years we were poor as church mice. Now we are considerably more comfortable. But no matter where we were on the economic spectrum we have scrupulously followed these rules.

1) PAY TITHING FIRST - no matter what. It is our way of acknowledging that ALL we have comes from the Lord, and that we trust Him to provide for our needs.

2) PAY BILLS NEXT - We are far from rich, but our credit rating is "super prime". On our signature alone we could get many thousands of dollars if some emergency were ever to arise. That comes from having regularly paid our bills on time even if it meant sacrificing other things. We have learned to separate needs from wants and we know which comes first in line.

3) SAVE FOR A RAINY DAY. Even though I grew up in Arizona, I know that eventually, it WILL rain. It helps to have a little nest egg set aside for emergencies. Besides, having grown up poor and known what it felt like to live on the fringe, that nest egg does plenty to provide comfort/security/peace of mind EVERY DAY even when it is not raining. I think this comes under the category of "When ye are prepared ye shall not fear."


Now, if there was anything left after rules 1, 2 & 3 THEN we could make some choices. There were plenty of years when we joked that the reason we didn't fight over money was because we had no money to quibble about. Seriously, it was just plain GONE by the time we took care of our prime directives. So be it. At least we knew the important stuff WAS taken care of.

But in recent years we've had more disposable income than we ever dreamed we would back when we were paupers. And the way we handle that is some extrapolation of the $50 rule.

What's that you ask? From very early on when I was a stay at home mom we BOTH acknowledged that we BOTH contributed to the household in meaningful ways even though he brought in income and I didn't. So we made a pact that each month he would get $50 and I would get $50 to spend ANY WAY WE LIKED with no questions, no complaints, no criticism, no eye rolling. There were times when I thought he needed another fishing pole like he needed a hole in the head. There were days when I'm sure he questioned why I was forever buying yet ANOTHER book when I had plenty sitting on the shelf I had not yet read. But it didn't matter. We were grown ups with the right to choose what was important to us without having to ask permission or worry about censure.

Now, over the years the AMOUNT of the $50 rule has changed substantially. At one point it was closer to $5. Now it is bigger. But the amount really isn't important - that just depends on any given couple's financial means. The key principles are that we are TOTALLY honest with each other, don't "SNEAK" or hide purchases and give each other room to have preferences, desires, etc that make no sense to our spouse. (My husband is a sucker for kitchen gadgets and other wonder items sold on TV infomercials. I spend lots of money for things that never "SHOW" in the house, like getting massage or going to trainings or retreats.) We are DIFFERENT in what we value. But that's ok. He and I BOTH contribute to our family and we BOTH should be able to benefit from our means - that was true when I had no financial income, it was true when he made way more than me and it is still true when I earn more than him.

We don't fight over little pieces of paper with pictures of dead presidents. Our love is just too important for that.


There are plenty of other things which keep our magic going. I've mentioned a few of them in my comments to some of the other entries to this topic.

The bottom line is that keeping love alive is a CHOICE, not a matter of luck or having been exceedingly wise in choosing the perfect person. We are all married to human beings therefore, like us, they are imperfect. But we can choose to focus on what we treasure rather than what we deplore. Sure, I wish he wouldn't leave his dirty socks in the middle of the floor. But I'll keep picking them up, keep washing them and keep sorting them into pairs - NOT because there are no Aardvarks in this neck of the woods. I do it, because I really, truly DO love him.

Co hosts Lei over at My Many Colored Days and Morning Glory at Seeds From My Garden have link lists leading to what other women have written on this subject.

Different Worlds

Tonight my sweetie and I were watching a PBS special on the Kingston Trio. For him, it brought back many fond memories. He used to sing songs like "Where Have All The Flowers Gone", "Green Back Dollar", and "Tom Dooley" in high school assemblies in the early '60's.

Right about that time I was starting kindergarten.

So by the time I became conscious enough to pay attention to music, the hey day of folk tunes had come and gone. Oh sure, I was familiar with Peter, Paul & Mary and Joan Baez. But that wasn't what I grew up listening to.

During my teen age years I was listening to Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, Cream, the Doors, Iron Butterfly and Black Sabbath. My friends and I loved the song "War Pigs". If you ask my husband, he would say that was NOT music at all. We sort of grew up in different worlds.

He was in high school when Kennedy was assassinated. I was six. He was in college when we sent our first man to the moon... I was still reading Nancy Drew books and climbing trees. His computer classes in college used IBM punch cards that were sent to a main frame machine that filled an entire room at a different facility. I went in learning how to program DOS on a PC.

It's interesting being so closely bonded to a man whose whole world experience has been so radically different from my own. It's almost like I had married someone who was of a different nationality. Our frame of reference for what is cool, what is fun, and what is important very seldom fits on the same page. We've cancelled out each other's votes in most elections. We learned early on NOT to try buying each other clothing, music or books.

The nice thing about this relationship, however, is that we both have learned to appreciate many things than neither one of us would have tried on our own and we've developed a healthy dose of tolerance for respecting each other's view even when we disagree.

In our early days together his friends and family were all shaking their heads, figuring my man was going through some sort of middle age crazy to hook up with "that head-in-the clouds hippie girl" and my pals were wondering what in the world I was doing with some straight Republican cowboy with good manners when they knew me to generally have a strong preference for bad boys in leather on motorcycles who never called anyone Mame. Clearly, by most accounts, our being together made absolutely no sense.

But when I'm in the crook of this guy's arm I feel like all the planets have lined up and the universe is smilin' on my soul. After twenty five years of marriage we've learned to compromise and negotiate a plenty. Some of the differences have been quite humorous, and a few have caused frustration, disappointment or outrage. But through it all, there's never been any question that our spirits were meant to fill each other up.

If you've ever read Shel Silverstein's book The Missing Piece, that pretty much sums up the way he and I fit.

Our tastes and habits and opinions remain very, VERY different in many ways.

But I don't need a reflection of me to love.

I need someone I can appreciate, respect, learn from and play with.

I got that and then some. I'd say I'm one lucky lady to have this man in my life.

We've travelled the world together, shared heartaches and victories, and through it all continued to make each other laugh. I may never understand why he likes to watch professional bull riding or how he can stand surrounding himself with the stuffed carcasses of dead animals. He will in all likelihood never get it when I want to talk about existential angst. But he'll listen anyway. And he'll try. And sometimes he'll even give me the remote. What more can a girl ask for than that?