The Bucket List

I fell asleep during the movie. For once you stayed awake when I did not. That rarely happens. I am not certain what happens in the movie. I am even less certain that I want to know. At this point I am not sure that I will ever watch the rest of the movie. Even so, I know the movie suddenly has real meaning to me.

I really believe in this "life is a series of moments" theory. Some moments are brief and pass by as quickly as they came. Some moments are almost not even noticeable. Some are so routine that you noticed them but were unaware that they even took place. Some moments are bad and don't pass as quickly as you would like them to pass.

But some moments occur and it is all you can do to get them to come back. They change you. They affect you. They make you feel like you have never or rarely felt before. They are the moments that make life worthwhile. They give life vibrance and meaning. Some are large events - the birth of your children, the moment you said "I do", the first time you saw your true love, the first time you realized you were in love or the day the Brewers made the playoffs (OK maybe not as funny as I wanted it to sound).

Many are small and nearly insignificant but equally impactful in your life. That is the kind of moment I had when the movie ended. One of those lasting moments. One that will remain in my memory forever. One that made me feel something I don't often feel. A moment that despite the fact that it will never return is one I will always want to come back.

So what was that moment? It seems so simple, you probably do not even remember it.

I awoke somewhat unexpectedly. I looked up at you across the room. You were curled up on the couch warming in your blanket. You reached your arms out to me. You smiled that amazing smile I have seen so many times before. You motioned your hands for me to come to you. Then we hugged like we have few other times. Of all the great hugs we have given each other this one ranked with the all-time best. I cannot remember ever feeling so loved or so safe. I can't ever remember having such a warm feeling come over me. It was indeed a moment I will always remember.

I have no idea why or what happened to make the moment so special. Was it the movie? Was it just perfect timing. Who knows. Maybe I don't even need to know. At this point it doesn't even matter. Maybe it was just one of those beautiful things you never question because they are so perfect. It was just an amazing moment in time.

It was just a "moment" in my life. A really, really good one. A perfect one. I can't wait for the next one. And the next one....and the next one....

I love you more than anything in the world.

The Blog Has Eyes

So this past week I found out that you and I are not the only people who read this blog. While I was mildly surprised that a stranger was reading it, I was really surprised that our oldest daughter reads as well.

I wondered exactly what that means. Should we be worried that it is kind of invasive in a way? Is it a problem to think that what are often very private thoughts are viewed by others who don't know us that well? So I took some time to read through the past year of posts. What I found kind of surprised me (and I wrote them all).

First of all I have done a fine job of keeping the names of people out of the blog. If people who knew it was us read the posts they would have no problems deciphering who was who, but a stranger couldn't do figure it out. I really don't even refer to where we live or how we live to any large degree. So it remains anonymous as intended.

So what can someone learn from reading this? And should we be worried? I don't think so.

What you find is kind of a story of two people who love each other very much. Two people who share their lives unlike most other couples. It recants 20 years of a perfect relationship. Two people lucky enough to find the one other person who makes them happy. Two best friends. Two terrific parents. One very strong family. Why would we not want others to read that? Why would we not want to share that with others?

Maybe this blog can be a reminder to someone that true love does exist. That two people can have a relationship where being in love is often enough to get us through. It can serve as a message to our daughter (and maybe the other one will read it someday) that her expectations of a relationship should be very high. That for all the clothes, iPods, cars and toys she has been given in her life that maybe the biggest gift she has ever been given is parents who love each other like we do. A father who always puts his wife first and adores her above all else. When she picks a husband she will expect nothing less.

Anyone who reads this can also learn that even the best relationships have tough times. It is inevitable. However, for us our tough times are always resolved by how much we love each other. How important we are to each other and how we make each other a priority. It is really full of little lessons and messages about how much fun we have and how important simply spending time together can be for a relationship.

So I guess I am ok with others reading the blog. Maybe the biggest reason is how proud I am of us. The marriage we have and the love we share. Why wouldn't you want to share that with others?

I love you sweetie. I have no problems telling the world how much I love you. I have no problems telling the world how important you are to me. How important "we" are to each other.

Read on people. Maybe you will learn something.

I love you more than anything in the world.

Its Game Time

Tonight's post is meant to be a little fun. We are going to play a game. Haven't we always played games? Didn't we just play a little game before we hung up the phone? (The how many episodes game we played). I think playing games has always been one of those cool things we have always done together.

So how about our "game history".

Let's start with really our marital launch game. You know the time I beat you at thumb wrestling. It is a game right?

We have also had the silly games. How about the rhyming game we played so many times? There were times we would go on for about an hour matching each others words with rhyming words. Trying to keep the in context. Hoping the other wouldn't use the only remaining rhyming word we had left in our arsenal. It was such a fun way for two broke married kids to kill time.

An even sillier game - an one I really never liked playing by the way - was good old "trusting titty". I should have seen your strong desire to cause me pain way back then. But you hid it in this "oh so fun for us both" game. Oh the tension of it all. I am pretty sure you always win at this game.

Remember when we used to play a ton of "hang man". What a great way to kill time together.

Then there was the infamously long games of 500 Rummy. So many cards on the table. Trying not to get caught with a ton of pints in your hand. You may not remember, but once we played a hand that seemed like it would never end. Like neither of us would ever get to 500. I am sure that I was hoping to get to the end of the game so we could go have .... well you know.

Then I really did it and taught you how to play Gin Rummy. You went from "I don't like this game as much as the other" to continuously kicking my ass every time we played. Your uncanny ability to always go for gin drove me nuts for years. It goes against everything my grandmother taught me about the game. It still drives me nuts that you can beat me so regularly yet still have to ask me if the ace is high or low right before the first hand. That you learned to be so good so quickly is quite impressive.

How about Scrabble? We even went out and got a Scrabble dictionary to settle our word debates. You kill me in that game. Every time. Well almost every time. Remember when those invisible gnomes "flipped" the board right before my soon to be first ever win? I think the most fun you have at Scrabble is puring through the old score sheets we keep in the box for some reason. Historic reminders of how you kick my butt.

With that in mind how about the litany of different old scores sheets for whatever games we have played that have silly names at the top of them. Things like "stupid husband" or "sexy wife" or whatever made us smile at the time.

We had spells of Boggle and that other word game too.

Lisa and Eric are of friends pretty much because they play games with us. We have played many a game of Scattegories, Men vs Women (or whatever it is called), Pictionary, VH1 Trivia and a variety of others with them. We usually ended up really drunk, but we always had a good time.

Now you play a lot of games on your own. Keeps your mind sharp I imagine. Soduku, Snood, Solitaire (which was more fun when we used to use real cards - remember?) and a whole bunch more. We have had so much fun together in the past 20 years. I seriously doubt that most couples spent this kind of time together. Of course most are not as competitive as we are either. We both like to win. However you always seem to win.

So there you have it 20 years of game playing fun. From the very first minute of our marriage to now. It has been a constant in our relationship. You beat me at everything. Well wait a minute...I do beat you at one game more often than not. How about some Paper, Rock Scissors this weekend?

I love you so much and love the fun we have together. It is really just another reason for us to spend time together isn't it? I'd rather spend time with you than anyone in the world. Why not have my butt kicked in game or two while I spend that time with you.

I love you more than anything in the world.

Through it all.....

Well it is official, we lost.  I'd rather not take time to discuss politics on this forum, however a topic does really come up a bunch over the past few weeks that is really appropriate for this forum.  That is the "how we got to where we are" concept.

Our 20 years together really has been a joint effort.  We both have made some sacrifices and concessions that helped build this family that we have today.  We have made some tough decisions and choices that ultimately landed us where we are today.  Through all of that we remain hopelessly in love, we still hold hands, we still would rather spend time with each other than anyone else and we are still enjoying each other.  Wow.

I can take you back 20 years to our first apartment together.  What was it 660 sq ft?  Tiny little kitchen that had I think 3 drawers.  A bathroom the size of a postage stamp (although I don't remember having to wait to shower like I do now), small living/dining area and a single bedroom.  Of course that bedroom is memorable since our first child was conceived there.  We even found the room for Charlie for a while.  I guess carrying groceries up the 3 flights of stairs wasn't so bad considering we couldn't afford many groceries.  If you remember we had only the 1 car at the time, as I didn't have my own car until a little while later.  You made it very Christmas-like with a tiny little tree.  Hey I think we even have 3 ft by 3 ft foyer!  It was small but it was ours.  Our first place together.

We certainly hit the big time when we moved into the townhouse.  Two floors!  A sweet little room for our baby.  That comfy chair (how do we get that back?).  The first of my many "desks".  We had such a good time in that pool.  If you remember I worked virtually every Saturday on the help desk.  I had to, it represented close to 15% of my pay.  Do you remember how panicked we would get when I couldn't get someone to trade with me so we could have the hours?  Of course while I worked you spent all day at Taco Bueno with your sister and the boys.  I was always so jealous. Luckily you got to work at home and care for the boys.  So we got to see each other.  It got harder when I worked the overnight shift.  But hey I got shift differential pay for that time.  We needed the money.  Yet somehow I never felt poor.  We had each other - our life was perfect.  However, if you remember we had to move when they raised the rent $200/month.  Think about how little $200 is to us now.  Yet at that time we simply couldn't afford that amount more every month.  Yet we were so happy.

We landed shortly there after in Misty Woods.  I am pretty sure neither of us thought we would be there for so long.  But i think it was around 3 years we stayed.  We conceived and brought our second baby home to that apartment.  Two weeks later you were back at work.  We needed the money.  I had opted to make the difficult decision to go to the airline side and my Saturday pay went away.  We made LESS that year than we did the previous year.  Ouch.  I'll bet Barack Obama has a plan that would have kept you from going back to work so soon.  Too bad his magic wand wasn't available then.  However, we wouldn't have taken such a handout.  We had the chocolate bar incident, a series of nutty neighbors, bought a mini-van (our first ever new car) and had "whatever" eating holes in the closet wall.  Yet we were so happy.

Then our first house.  How we pulled that off I have no idea.  Do you remember how nervous we were about the earnest money check?  That check was about as good as a check from our youngest nephew would be now.  Yet we found ourselves standing in our first house.  I think it may have actually been your first house ever.  That house meant so much to us.  It wasn't perfect but it was ours.  With its endless supply of leaves, squirrel vacation homes in the attic, 75% paint job on the outside, shag carpeting, the disappearing backyard grass, the litany of contractors who did this that or the other for our remodel (a new back patio? what were we thinking?) and the list goes on.  But it was ours.  How can we forget the awesome shelf unit in the playroom.  WE did that.  All trying to make the best of what we had for our family.  Most of the time we lived there I was in school, you worked full time and often two jobs, i had a full time job and studied until all hours of the night.  Yet somehow our kids didn't notice, they were happy, we found time to go out dancing and we didn't starve.  We struggled with this bill or that bill.  We survived a broken heater, need for a new garage door, wrecked cars and less than desirable neighbors.  Yet we were so happy.

Then we hit nirvana.  We built the new house.  Our dream come true.  And while it wasn't perfect it was what WE wanted. Our pool. Our wallpaper choices.  Our floor.  Our cabinets.  It was ours.  We were finally getting ahead.  Then just our luck.  Something called the Internet caused a bunch of people who shouldn't have been rich to get rich then suddenly get poor.  And our home - that we worked for - was suddenly not worth what we paid for it.  We made that house a home.  It was our showplace.  We could barely afford it.  Yet we were so happy.

Then the big move to Wisconsin.  The "ghetto" house.  The struggle to get our own house.  The rotten job at TMTC.  Your rotten job at the agency.  But we landed in a nice home that we have again made ours.   Then I got a new job.  We started our own company.  Suddenly we have all the things we dreamed of - well most of them.  We have finally arrived.  Like always we will make through tonight's rotten news.  Because we have each other and our family.  Why because we are so happy.

I am not sure that this entry went where I wanted it to, but it is a reminder of all the things we have been through and how hard we have worked and sacrificed.  What WE have been through.  Yet through everything one thing is constant.  We were happy.

I love you sweetie.  This too shall pass.