Googledy Eyes and Goofy Grins.

(I'm just warning you. I get all kinds of sappy and stuff in this one... so consider yourself warned and read at your own risk. If it helps at all, I also call myself a boogerwoman and make fun of myself a little bit too - perhaps that may serve as motivation for you to read on anyway.)

The first time I saw my husband, I'm pretty sure my heart slid clean out of my chest and landed in a slippery heap of embarrassment on the floor between my ankles. It lay there for quite some time, scrambling to find some shred of reason, some logical explanation for why one look from one man could illicit such a response. When he approached, I clumsily scooped up my heart and forced it back into proper position, begging it to slow its pace, to hide its new found intensity in each life giving beat. Try as I might, I realized there was little point in hiding my emotions. They were but an echo of what I saw in his eyes. Why pretend to feel any different?

If you know my story, you know it was a whirlwind romance. We were engaged eight days after we met, and married just four months later. I'm pretty sure everyone thought we were crazy. And in many respects, we probably were. We knew so little about each other, had so little to go on. But onward we went. While our heads worked through the ups and downs of early marriage, our hearts continued to beat, each day growing closer and closer to finding a single, unified pulse.

I'm not exactly sure when it happened.

But I know this.

On Sunday mornings, I take a long time to get ready. A LONG time. See, on Sundays I go to church and SEE people... grown up people that don't wipe food on my sleeve or snot in my hair. My Sunday morning ritual is my saving grace - the once a week beautifying that chases the booger woman that lives in my house the other six days of the week far, far away. I put on high heels and spend more than thirty seconds on my make up, and I have twenty minute hair instead of five minute hair. And then, I go and talk to grown ups. It's an important process.

This could annoy my husband. This could cause him to stomp to the car and honk the horn in aggravated annoyance, or grumble that he does much all of the Sunday breakfast preparations, shirt ironing and church sock locating. But he doesn't do either of those things. You know what he does instead? He brings me breakfast while I'm getting ready. It's never much - normally just toast and some orange juice. But it is always unsolicited, and it is always the best toast ever.

Yesterday marked nine years of marriage for the two of us. Fortunately for my children, and any other reasonable adult in my presence that doesn't deserve to be tortured with googledy eyes and goofy grins, my heart doesn't do much flopping on the floor anymore. But everyday, it still beats for him.

Love you dearly, DaddyJ. Happy Anniversary. :)