17 Years

 


   Today is our 17th wedding anniversary. I looked back at a picture of us from our wedding. I looked at those two people posing in a garden. I'm holding a huge bouquet of flowers and wearing a big white dress with spaghetti straps. C is wearing a handsome black suit. That wedding took over a year to plan and was one of the more stressful things I've ever done. Part of my happiness that day was due to the fact that I wouldn't have to waste another minute of my time planning a wedding. 

   I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Neither of us did. All we knew was that we loved each other and wanted to spend the rest of time together. We had discussed many things during our long engagement. We knew that after the ceremony we would never have to face anything alone again. We would have hard times and good times. Our adventure was about to begin.

   One of the things we didn't know was that we would move four times before our fifth anniversary. We didn't know there would be eight job changes between the two of us. One of those jobs changes involved a lot of driving around the Twin City area.

   I didn't know I would be making multiple trips to South Carolina. I didn't know that I would grow to love grits, boiled peanuts, the city of Charleston and Simpsonville. We didn't know that we would spend hours on the beach picking up shells to bring home.

   We didn't know that we would spend many happy hours exploring the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, the Chicago Botanic Garden, Milwaukee and downtown Chicago. We also didn't know that we would spend a great deal of time buying cheese at factories all over Wisconsin.

   We had no idea that I would wind up in the hospital twice, once for surgery. C didn't realize that he would learn to cook and discover that he truly enjoys it.

      Remember what I said at the beginning of this column, the part about not planning another wedding. Well, I didn't realize that I would be planning another wedding. To the same guy. This time I got to wear a dress with sleeves and  have a carrot cake. 

   No, we didn't know what would happen to us 17 years ago. All we knew was that it would be an adventure, one that we would share.

   It has been and still is.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Simple Things

     C and I usually have a date day or at least part of a date day once a week. It's a time where we spend time with each other doing something fun or maybe simply having lunch out. Since Thursday was Thanksgiving and neither of us felt like eating out, we decided to go out for a hot chocolate.   Right before we left C had an idea. We should get our hot chocolate and also share a peppermint shake from Chick-fil-A. He said the the combination of the hot chocolate and the cool peppermint shake would be really good. I thought it was overkill, but agreed to do it.    After dropping a loaf of bread off at a friend's house we went through the drive through to get the hot chocolate. When I have a choice I usually get dark chocolate. It's not quite as sweet and has lots of flavour. C always gets milk chocolate. Then we went to Chick-fil-A. C went inside and picked up our preordered shake. It was topped with whipped cream and a cherry. I asked C if he wanted to cherry. He said no s
Read more

Released

   A few weeks ago I was asked to stay after a Ward Council meeting. Normally it's a meeting I don't attend, but the Relief Society president was out of town and one of my duties was to sit in for her on such meetings. I was fairly sure I knew what it was going to be about.     After the meeting I stayed behind while everyone had left. It was just me and one of the bishop's counselors. We sat in some chairs at one side of the bishop's office. He told me that I was going to be released from my calling as a Relief Society counselor. The release was going to be announced at Sacrament meeting (what the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints call their worship service.) that would take place in about 20 minutes. I'm sure I startled the counselor with my expression of joy and relief at what he told me. I'm sure he was expecting me to be upset and bewildered. Usually one knows about a release at least a few days before it happens.     I had a feeling that this was
Read more

Looking for A New Project

           Earlier this year I finished the 10 stitch blanket that I've been working on for a long time. It was a very relaxing project and I enjoyed working on it. Over the summer I haven't knit anything because of lack of time. Now it's fall and I have the itch to start knitting again. I also want a project to take to Door County with me.     I know that I said I wanted to knit a pair of socks, but I'm not sure now. I'd have to teach myself how to knit using a magic loop. I'm sure I could figure it out, but I'd  really like to do something easy and relaxing like that blanket was.     One project I was going to do is to crochet all the granny squares I have together to make a nice little blanket for Willow. It would be fun and relaxing, but it would be hard to take all those granny squares to Door County with me. The same is true for the sample blanket that I want to start. (although I could take a few small balls of yarn along and some stitch patterns to m
Read more