Hi there my lovely creative friends! I am writing today to share something personal. No card or project today - but I do have some photos. From time to time, as you know, I like to write from my heart and write about my life. My blog is my personal journal too, in addition to being my creative outlet. I really like to read about my favorite bloggers and their lives. I'm hoping that you will enjoy learning a bit more about me today, and something really important to me. Today I'm blogging about Mark and Wanda's Silver Jubilee Year - 2018! Yay! What is this you might ask? Well, my husband and I are celebrating 25 years together this year! Silver is the 'present' for 25 years so that's why it's our Silver Jubilee. Heck, the queen celebrates her jubilees for a whole year, why can't we? I feel strongly that this is an accomplishment worth celebrating and honoring. So that's what we're doing.
My husband and I met on a blind date on June 4, 1993. A mutual friend introduced us and we had our first date at a local restaurant. I was worried, so I made it a lunch date so I could get back to work. LOL. Well....that lunch lasted THREE hours! I immediately knew that Mark was a good soul, a good person, a kind person. We talked and talked and talked. We had a lot in common already because of our jobs at that time. I went back to the office and told everyone about my date! The next day a huge bouquet of red roses showed up at work... So I became the talk of the cube farm. It was wonderful. Mark is a very thoughtful man and a true romantic at heart. Back in the day there were no computers and no cell phones (gasp!) We dated the old fashioned way. We went out every Saturday night, and during the week we talked for hours and hours on the phone. I remember laying on the floor in my apartment because I didn't have a long phone cord back then. Ahhhh. Young love! We dated for 8 1/2 years before we were married in Fall of 2001. We always celebrate the date we met because we dated so long before actually getting married. We were married in a small ceremony on the beach in Cape Cod Massachusetts - a fairy tale just for us. Our wedding was perfect.
Anniversary Roses
I believe that it is SUPER important to honor our relationship and give recognition to this accomplishment. Life is hard. Life is crazy and scary and HARD. It is hard to be married in this day and age, don't you think? There is so much stress and bad influences, and bad things that can break a couple apart. So the fact that we are still here, respecting and loving each other after 25 years is sort of a miracle. I give credit to God for being part of our marriage and for being the force that binds us at the core. We have been through a lot in 25 years.... Good and bad. In the good category, we've been on some awesome vacations together, we bought our house and have lived here 17 years, we were mom and dad to the greatest cat ever, we learn and laugh together, we have built a life together with a tight bond. We've been poor, not so poor, really poor... But it never mattered. In the not so good category, three of our four parents have died in that time, we've been through many moves, many jobs, illness, grief, drama, disappointments, tears... For five years we even lived in different cities because of my career. But we made it! Now we're growing old together and beginning a new chapter of life.
We made it through so much! I'm proud of us. We stay together, we love each other, we protect each other. We still laugh together and there's no one I would rather hang out with in the entire world. No one. We are far from perfect, but we are US. I'm very blessed indeed. Mark is the only person in my entire life to stick up for me, and I know without question he would lay down his life for mine. If you are lucky enough to have one person in your life like that you are a lucky person. I'm sure some of you have noticed that I never talk about my family. There's a reason for that and it's because all of that is just pain. Maybe some day I'll share about that. God sent Mark to me to be my family. I'm certain of it. HE provides us what we need. Mark lets me be me, and loves me even though I'm quite quirky! What an abundant blessing. I thank God every day.
The past few years for me have been very hard. VERY hard. I've dealt with a lot of loss and really hurtful things, and it seemed like the bad stuff just kept coming. I felt like one of those bozo punching characters that we used to have as a kid. As soon as I righted myself, something else would happen and punch me back down. I really couldn't even catch my breath. People really hurt me. Things happened. Things I felt I didn't deserve and things that made me REALLY sad. I went to therapy for a while, and did some work and read my Bible and other books every day... I feel like I'm coming back around. Day by Day right? I don't want to get way off track with this post, but it's important to me to say something, lest anyone think my life is all pretty pictures and water color paints. It isn't. Truly. My love of Jesus and my faith in what is meant to be is literally the only thing that keeps me afloat. And my loving best friend husband. Most days I am a hot mess. But some days I think to myself "you go girl" and I keep trucking along. So, because life is dirty and messy and hard, I think it's extra important to honor the happy things - like my marriage. That's how our Silver Jubilee came about. Let's celebrate something positive! Don't any of you for one minute compare yourself to anyone else. You are without rival. You were created perfectly to be you, because the world needs you and your specific unique combination of qualities. Social media can make us doubt ourselves and I hate that. This topic comes up a lot with my creative (and sensitive) friends. Encourage someone if you can. Tell people they matter to you before it's too late. Do your art and don't care if anyone likes it. Dye your hair blue and don't care. Share something wonderful and don't worry about the haters. Life is a miracle and it's too damn short.
For our Silver Jubilee celebrations we are doing a bunch of fun things! On our anniversary date last week I received beautiful roses (photo above) and we exchanged pretty cards. Then we went out for a nice meal together and we talked about our history. We made up a secret 25 year handshake too. LOL. We are going to plant a tree in our front yard to be our 25 year tree. We'll be picking that out soon! A Japanese Maple - our favorite tree. In the Fall I think we are going to take a long road trip up the coast through Oregon and Washington which will be really fun. We haven't been on vacation in a long time. And, I received a very meaningful and thoughtful gift from Mark this week. A silver heart charm with our names and 25 engraved on it. Silver Jubilee continues! You know I love taking pictures of things..so here are some pictures of my present. It's so shiny and perfect. Good things come in blue boxes for sure.
Thanks for reading my story of the most important thing to me (besides my faith). You are all always so supportive of me and I'm grateful for that. It feels good to write about and honor us. The world is so crazy. Sometimes I want to be connected and real and talk about meaningful special people and things. It's been fun celebrating with the hubs the past few months. Talking about our relationship is making us closer these days. I would love to hear about YOUR love stories! Will you please leave me a comment and tell me how you fell in love? What keeps you together? How many years have you celebrated? Do you have a special tradition with your spouse? Please share! Let's talk about love. Tell your person you love them. Tell them what they mean to you today. I'll be back with a card soon! XOXOXO
