Today is the eve of my 16th wedding anniversary.  Now, I am not a sentimental person or at least that is what I tell myself.  But, as the years have drifted by it seems my husband has taken a bit too much to heart my need for the unsentimental. The last two years have involved a quick trip to the only gift shop in town on his way home from work, followed by a 'family' dinner.  Because, who has time to plan for a babysitter?  Please don't think I am bitter over this, because honestly it is the day to day things that count.  Things like how he always remembers to turn on the dishwasher at night before bed. Or, how he will notice when I wear a brand new sweater that I have had for over a year and worn several times.  I mean is there any gift or restaurant out there that compare with that kind of thoughtfulness?

Let me stop here and diverge for a minute.

This has been a most interesting year for me.  I call it the year of the 'Signs'.  It seems like anything I place importance or value on seems to break.  In the beginning, I would try or hire someone to repair them.  But, within days they would break again.  After the third or fourth time this happened, I developed the theory that God was dealing with my perfectionist tendencies as well as my focus on external things.  So, I decided that nothing else gets fixed until I can do it in the right spirit.  Needless to say this has been very painful.  Just the strength it took me not to call the builder over our broken neighborhood sign bordered on superhuman.  Especially, since I am the first house in and therefore a direct reflection of the obvious neglect. 

Now, with that said I want you all to take a trip with me to yesterday evening, when I discovered that my wedding ring was broken and consequently unwearable.  Although, some may have found this liberating, I did not.  I actually found it quite alarming. "What does this mean???,  Is it a sign??? , Do I dare break my vow and try and get it fixed???  " are all thoughts that ran through my head.  Followed by, "Wouldn't it be nice if my husband took notice of this and made a grand gesture to replace this broken item."  After this thought, I told myself "Stop, don't set yourself up for failure, it takes him a year to notice you have a 'new' sweater, just be happy with the lotion from Sundries."  I was finally able to finish this dialogue with myself  by offering up the consolation that maybe, just maybe after the holidays are over I could go to one of the many tattoo parlors here in Southwest Michigan and get one of those fancy ring tattoos.  

This post seems to have become a long rabbit trail and I would love to tie it up with a nice ending.  But, honestly I have no idea how.  If you find this unacceptable, I will appease you a bit by letting you know that my strange and awkward ending could be analogy for life and marriage. Neither make much sense or is found pleasing to all parties involved.