Thread: Mystery Man: After all these years

I joke lately that hubby just might be cheating on me. He would be the last one to do that in reality. He would severe the relationship before being unfaithful, but we have gotten help in those low points to spare us from that extreme. I can only joke about it because of the strength of our relationship. Otherwise, it would hit too close to home for me to jest.

First, he made dinner two nights in a row and kept it warm for me when I came home in the evening.

Then, he did something else which stood out to me, but while my middle age memory cannot bring it to mind, my heart is still warmed by his action.

Now, we talk about our weekend. We head out over two hours away to the suburbs to see his family for a 3 year old birthday party. Since there is a guest pastor preaching tomorrow in celebration of the church's anniversary, he will not need to work on his sermon in the car while I drive. I will probably be the one to win the passenger seat to do some more work on papers. Usually, we split the driving to share the workload time. So we will spend that drive time together talking and multitasking.

This has been a fall of a heavy workload for the both of us. Hubby has put in weeks in a row of 70+ hours with six members dying in about as many weeks. That is a lot of hours to work efficiently and at your best. It is also draining to see a valued member pass from this world and minister not only to that person, but to the loved ones left on this earth.

My load has been heavy in the special ed realm. Paperwork builds each year, it seems. I am one who seems to carry my kiddos home with me, and a few of their parents, and do not leave them within the classroom. Between this HOUSSE and Highly Qualified deadlines, it has been a big weight, coupled with ambiguous directions in the process. Curriculum mapping is still out their to accomplish, even thought I have a good start to it. It isn't just about teaching; there remains a lot in addition to our priority.

So it is important to balance this with the needs of my grown children, my mother and her medical needs, and having the man that I started out my adult life with. If I look at what I need to accomplish for my classroom, it could be so easy to leave him on the back burner. We have been two ships passing in the night two evenings this week. That works out just fine for us, so long as we make time for each other after the heavy scheduled days.

Last week, we went with my push to see something funny, so we saw Man of the Year. Hubby's preference as Flag of Our Fathers. No surprise for the History major and war aficionado. I figured that would be too heavy, and at 132 minutes, longer than what I could manage after another long week. So we went with my choice.

I have offered to see it this weekend with him, but he is going to pass. He wants to do the annual clean up of the garage, which will make room for my car to fit in so I don't have to clean my car off. What a guy! He is even doing this without the help of having our son home to help. This is a double gift!

This is a yearly event. It has been done as late as February :roll:, but a gift nonetheless. I don't have to do the job to get my own car in. He does this for me while he still scrapes away his vehicle every morning, day after day. Granted, one year I had to turn sideways and squeeze to get inside the car to back it out. I also loaded and unloaded my car after it was outside. IOW, it was a tight squeeze, but I did no scraping that winter.

Life consists of many material gifts, from on the low end in cost to spending a lot of money. The real gifts are ones like these, with the largest price tags--from the heart. These gifts include the intentions, which are valuable to me. Like the year he went around scoping out grandfather clocks, their sales and costs, etc. When he showed me the ones we could scrimped to get, I decided we really shouldn't spend the money, but I still get the warm fuzzies each time I think of his love and care that went into the time and effort. This is the gift that keeps on giving, even though I don't have a grandfather clock. Or the six hours of taking our two children around the region in search of the right porch swing for Mother's Day. I got that beloved porch swing, as well as SIX HOURS on my own in blissful peace.

Now I know why we shared our 375th month anniversary yesterday.