It’s been eight years with this Husband ‘o mine. Our eighth anniversary.

Eight years. The J. Girl, our Wee Man. Two wee babes sent heavenward. Four deployments with one more looming. Five moves. The numbers pile up … but we are more than the sum of our parts. 

And I’m swollen with his fifth child … back-aching, slow-moving, impatient … and blissfully happy to be the mother of his children.

He’s our center of gravity … us, a peculiar constellation bereft without him when he goes.

{And go he does.}

But oh, when he’s home, when he returns to me, I fit carefully, safely, right up under his chin, whole and at home with his arms wrapped tight around me.

He’s not perfect. But I don’t need him to be.

I just need him to love Jesus a little more than he loves me, in order to love me best.

And he does, this Husband o’ mine who wholly owns my heart.

“I love thee, I love but thee,

With a love that shall not die

Till the sun grows cold,

And the stars are old,

And the leaves of the Judgment Book Unfold!”

          ~ from Bayard Taylors’ Bedoin Song

We had a hot date with the tornadoes who run this town and there is nowhere I would rather be.

Complete with nekkid baby.

I had an enthusiastic five year old helper in the decorating/cake making department.

And of course, I cooked a gourmet meal.

But the best part of all … so the eighth anniversary traditional gift is bronze or pottery. Now, I might be reaching to call this pottery. But there was no. way. I could walk away from these. {Mrs. W, I’m looking at you.}.

Why yes, these are mason jar wine glasses. My kitchen is now complete. And that’s how we do it at Chez Huggins. Feel free to stop in anytime … I bought four of them because that’s the kind of hostess I am. What’s the point of drinking a mason jar of wine if you can’t do it with friends?

Also, I would be lost without mason jars. My house is overrun.

Happy Anniversary to me, and to the great love of my life.

I’m all gratitude for every second. 

~M.