18 Months!

Ha! I'm only one day behind this time. Go ME.

Yesterday, B & I celebrated our 18 month anniversary. That's right, it's been a year and a half since we got married. I, of course, ran out of the bedroom, found him sitting on the couch, pointed and yelled something romantic like, "Ha! Happy Anniversary!", thus continuing our goal to out-celebrate the other. The usual response is, "Dah! You got me!" Romantic, indeed.

This month has been nutty. B went to ATL for work, then we went back a week later for a wedding of a dear friend of B's (and my current boss). The travel gods repaid us this week with a visit from my sister, her family, and my mom. We had a blast hitting the science and history museum, children's museum, a deli with the best french fries ever, a park with "both kinds of swings", the farmers' market, and the cupcake store.

We've worked a lot, B at the office and me from home and at the bakery. We've made some big decisions, for us, about budgeting and financial planning (woohoo!) and spent time with friends in the area exploring new restaurants and wine tastings.

It's hard for me to believe that we've only been married 18 months. It feels life forever, and yet we've done so much. We've lived in four places, moved more times than that, enjoyed vacations to two different countries, and worked as hard as we could to love and celebrate each other.

I once read that successful marriages happened when the couple woke up each day and decided to say "yes" again and choose to be happy. Now that I'm actually married, I kind of buy it. I could easily be a crankypants and take out my frustrations, hunger, or sleepies on B (and believe me, sometimes I do. Sorry honey.), or I could choose to focus on us and the good everytime I see him. Which makes me more excited for him to come home and, I'm sure, more exciting for him to see me happy.

That doesn't mean there aren't bills to pay, laundry to fold, or dishes to put away, but it does mean that what I'm doing I'm choosing to do positively, instead of stomping my foot.

I don't really know what makes for a "happy" marriage, or if that's how you'd define a successful one. I remember reading that Yoko Ono never spent a night away from her husband. Then I thought, "Wow, what an amazing thing to be able to say." Then I got married and realized that spending every night together would mean that B didn't get to celebrate his friends at bachelor parties, that I didn't get to go visit my sister and the kiddos before baby T was born, and that, generally, it was a heck of a lot of stress to pile onto something just for the sake of saying you did it. As my sister-in-law says, "there are some things they don't give medals for." In her case, she was referring to natrual childbirth, but I think it applies here.

Today (I mean, um, yesterday), I am thankful for a caring and tolerant husband, one who celebrate my cranky days (and later tells me that they're pretty funny and mostly cute), who puts the dishes away when I know we both hate doing it, who thanks me for ironing his work shirts, who remembers that I like soft tacos with beef (unless the chicken is pulled) and saves me some of his at our favorite Mexican dive. I'm thankful for his nightly text messages telling me he's on the way home, and for his love when I call him (yes, call him. On his cell.) at 6am when I know he's midworkout in the living room, letting me sleep, to tell him I'm cold and that he should come back to bed.

I'm thankful that he doesn't mind when I'm selfish and say all the things I'm thankful for that benefit me. :)

I'm thankful for his humor, his grace, his love of our nieces and nephews, his passion for all things sports, his love of reading, his eagerness to show me new things on Netflix, his calm when I still can't work the Wii without two remotes, and, most of all, his tender heart that reaches out to hurting friends, strives to do well at work, and longs to lead our little family in the right direction.

He encouraged me to take a job I love, supports me when I'm exhausted, and just laughs when I force him to sleep for nine or ten hours on the weekend nights.

You're a perfect fit for me, hon, and that's great, because boy are you stuck with me. What a coup.