A Week of Gratitude, Day 1: To My Husband

Taking the WHOLE week off to spend time with my amazing family. Am auto-posting a series titled "A Week of Gratitude" while we're off doing cool stuff like baking, digging out the Christmas decorations, jumping in piles of leaves, making final visits to the playground before the weather gets too cold, visiting with the relatives, taking looooong drives all in one vehicle, singing songs loudly, and anything else we can think of. Be back in a few days! Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. This year, let's be glad of all we have...

A Week of Gratitude, Day 1: To My Husband

So sweet, so deserving of a special post all his own...

In Thanksgiving season, I start by looking at the things that have changed my life in the most obvious of ways.  The greatest of those--yes, even greater than having my children--has been my husband, that guy in the picture above, on the night we met.  Who, when he tells me I am beautiful, is the first man to say so who has ever made me believe HE believes it, and isn't saying it as a means to some other end.  Who, no matter how stridently we argue a topic, always goes afterward and gives sincere thought to what I've said, and often comes around to my point in the end (in his own time, of course).  Who, no matter how frustrating I can be, always makes it clear that he loves me and is willing to make colossal sacrifices on my behalf.

When he was in Iraq this last time (his second), the minister he met there talked about having an "attitude of gratitude," a cliche label for a very real and very elusive skill.  My husband called me, using a chunk of our very precious fifteen minutes of phone time, to tell me he'd been thinking of me the whole day and how thankful he is to have me as his wife.

As Thanksgiving week begins, I'm returning the favor.