Great Hopes: 10 Years

Today is a special day!

Today is the 10 year anniversary of the fateful day that I met my husband! To honor this decade.. and him.. I am dedicating this blog post to him. No groaning please.. he deserves it! I occasionally hear that I am not the best person at ‘positive feedback’ when it comes to some of the people who are closest to me {ok, ok, I can be horrible about it at times.. but I am really trying to work on that.. and I’m not including my kids in this comment b/c I work my butt off to always ‘feed the meter’ with them. I just need to remember that adults need this also!!}

So.. in the spirit of those stupid ’25 things about me’ lists going around Facebook these days (yes, I’m working on mine but it isn’t done yet.. haha):

25 Things That I Love About My Husband

10 years! My longest relationship with a man prior to my husband was 3 years (and included a marriage.. ah the mistakes of our youth.. sigh). It feels like I have known Aj forever.. but then ’10 years’ sounds like an eternity.. I feel stuck in some type of paradox here. I have to say, however, that HE probably feels like these 10 years HAVE been an eternity.. haha! I’m not the easiest person to live with, but for some reason he tells me that I’m the best thing that ever happened to him. Another paradox.. I love that he loves me.
I am so proud of him! He is very successful. He has succeeded at work, with his ‘moonlight’ work (real estate – and it is successful, even if we get sued every freaking year by some idiot or have to sue some idiot for doing something idiotic every year. Should they be called ‘rental’ properties? Maybe ‘suck the life out of you’ properties would be more representative.), with his coaching (past soccer teams, work teams, etc), with his friendships, and with his family.
We both had the same favorite movie when we met (and still do): It’s a Wonderful Life. {No one is a failure who has friends.}
We have had artists ask to paint our portrait because our coloring and facial structures blend and contrast in a way that would create a striking image. I’m quoting here.. and I hope that it was complimentary and not a ‘Dali-esque’ style of painting they were referring to!
Before I met Aj, I had only traveled to a few states within the US, and only been on a plane a handful of times. I HATED to fly (still do not enjoy it – scares the heck out of me and requires the ingestion of several xanax).. but somehow this man has managed to show me the world! In the past ten years, we have flown to Brazil, New Zealand, Australia, MexicoHawaii (ok, a state.. but it was a looong flight!), Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Saint Martin, India (twice to adopt our kids), as well as several states on the east coast, west coast, and interior of the US. There are many more countries that we have on our ‘travel list’, but they have to wait until the girls are a couple years older and better travelers. (many, many times),
I love that Aj is super-intense, but has a very sweet, soft side. {oh crap, I am not supposed to tell anyone that..}
I hate that he had to deal with 55 hours of thinking that I had a very short time to live - because of a large tumor that was found in my colon. I love that the doctors were wrong and it was NOT cancer. I love that he took such amazing care of me during the recovery from that scary major surgery and the following scary complications.
I love that he manages most of our finances, because I hate that part of life. I love that, while he manages our finances, he reviews everything with me so that he is sure I know everything that is going on at all times. I might act annoyed when he is digging thru financial details, but I appreciate this so very much.
I love that he loves to learn and he tries so very hard to teach me things – especially things about history and sci-fi. History (not all, of course) bores me, but I wish I could be more interested and remember a zillion little facts and dates like he does. I wish I could have conversations with people and spout these facts off to support my viewpoints and ideas.
I love that he is very smart, but I feel that we are equals. We are smart about different things and we complement each other (usually, anyhow!). For example, I am much more technically-adept than he. If I ever die, someone needs to program his alarm clock for him (and the tv.. and the remotes.. and..)
I love that I met him 10 years ago at a party.. I left the party to go to a bar (the party was horrid and I was there with a girl friend who wanted to go find some fun).. and he found a way to leave his best friend’s party and follow me there.
I love that he tells the story of our meeting.. and how he knew that I was ‘the one’ when I bought him a beer at the bar. I love that he conveniently forgets that I bought six different people beers at that same time. J
I love that we made complete fools of ourselves that first night – dancing up on some podium-thing. I had never done that before that night.. nor ever after! Of course, the fact that we were slightly (slightly?) intoxicated and doing a little dirty-dancing really added to the memories (yikes).
I love that I could not remember how to pronounce his name the following Monday at work (party was on a Friday). His friend – the party thrower, whom I worked on the same floor as, laughed at me when I came up to him at least 5x that day with Aj’s biz card to ask ‘Now.. how do you pronounce his name again??’ {..a bird.. a jay..}
I love that Aj gave me his biz card that night and wrote down SIX different phone numbers where I could reach him. And that I didn’t use any of them. I do not call the guy the first time – he calls me!! I think that led to some type of email fiasco – b/c his friend thought my last name was ‘Zimmerman’. It was not.
10 years ago tonite, I first heard the words ‘In my country – you would be queen!’. Funny that I just heard him utter those same words to a male friend on super bowl Sunday! Of course, when he said them to me – he was trying to entrance me with his sense of humor so that I would come up to his ‘hot tub on the roof’. Nice try Aj.
I LOVE that the night Aj and I had met – he was leaving the next week to finish his move to LA. He had already moved all of his personal items out to his house on Redondo Beach. Needless to say, he did not finish his move.. and ended up moving back to Cincinnati (a city he hated) to be with me.
I love that we both have the same dream of owning a house in New Zealand and splitting our time b/t that house and our house in CO.. someday not too far in the future we hope.
I love that Aj is so very supportive of me, and my pursuing my dreams.
I love that Aj is such a great dad to his girls (including our lab, Tasha).
I find it hilarious that Aj tried to ‘save face’ and keep up with my brother-in-law, Charlie, when drinking at a bar very soon after meeting. Had I known he was doing this, I would have stopped him immediately. It takes a special type of person to be able to keep up with this boy (or anyone in his family!).. and Aj is much, much too much of a lightweight! Yes boys and girls.. it was ugly.
I loved that, on our 2^nd ‘real date’ (I don’t include this meeting night as a ‘date’ – our first ‘date’ was valentines day) – we went to The Teak in Cincinnati and ate Thai food. The poor boy was sweating profusely b/c they made his food much hotter than he had ordered. He was sooo embarrassed.
I love that, for our first ‘real’ date, I drove to Indianapolis, where he was working, and met him for dinner. Our first non-intoxicated kiss (I just can’t count that) was in a glass elevator. I was quite embarrassed. He, unfortunately, was not.
I love his family and their culture. I love that I have learned what it is to HAVE a culture. Though it has made things challenging for us a few times in our relationship, his culture is an integral part of our lives and something that I am envious not to have grown up with.
I love that we had discussed adopting girls from India prior to our marriage and prior to finding out that we could not have bio children. I find it a bit coincidental, looking back, that we had these conversations and were both on the same page. I love that we have worked together to adopt two beautiful little girls from India, and that they have their daddy and his family to teach them about their heritage. I love that we are a family.