Happy anniversary, my love. I love you more than cheese.

Two years ago, when asked if I promised to love you, comfort you, honor and keep you for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health and forsaking all others, being faithful only to you so long as we both shall live, the only honest answer was that I really, really do. Two years have passed and my answer remains the same. You are my best friend, my teammate, the first person I turn to in all situations and the only person I can imagine sharing every single day of the rest of my life with. You are my ever-present buoy in the sometimes tumultuous waters of life. Here's to year three of married life, and to all the years to come that will stack on top of each other faster than we can ever predict that they will.

I hope you remember on this day, (and every day) that this ring is my gift to you, a symbol that I will love you forever, with all of my heart and every last bit of my soul.

I'm your moon. You're my moon. We go round and round.*

*from i'm your moon by Jonathan Coulton

The most happiest of happy wishes go out to Scott and Elizabeth who were married on August 23. I have many many more photos to share of the wedding (I took nearly 500 between the rehearsal and the wedding itself). My husband and Scott have known each other for twenty-three years, beginning at age six. We are blessed to have so many strong young marriages in our circle of friends, may this latest be another.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

Happy anniversary my husband, you'll always be the most Real to me.

excerpt from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

So happy birthday my love, it's happening whether you want it to or not! And remember, from now until June 4th, you can tell people you're three years older than me. It won't really be true, but I love you enough to play along.

Scaffolding
Seamus Heaney

Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;

Make sure that planks won't slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job's done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall.

More information about the silent reading.

photo taken by sara.

TheBoy is also now TheHusband and apart from being able to call him that (which I do with remarkable ease and regularity) we've determined that we don't feel any different, just less stressed. To pull a reference from Spiral Staircase, I love him more today than yesterday, but not half as much as tomorrow.

Most things went off without a hitch. We had an issue with the first flowers that we ordered, but we were able to get replacements without problem. The weather was less than cooperative--it was sunny but pretty cold. So, instead of dancing we had "gather around the firepit time." It was windy. We had to put up the tents we rented because weather.com was suggesting that we were going to get rain--we didn't --but the tents ended up keeping everyone from having to pick little bits of tree out of their food. The food was fantastic. The cake was beautiful and delicious. We received many wonderful gifts--now we just need to send our thank you notes. We haven't gotten many photos of the event, I'm thinking about mailing cds to some of the folks we know took lots of photos in hopes of getting those back. We're also still waiting on the pro photos and I'm not entirely sure when we'll have those. We spent a few days away from home, but not many. We're taking our honeymoon in August, to go to the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. Yep, we're going to a web comic convention for our honeymoon. We're also going to be visiting friends in the Seattle area at that time.

We bought a new couch. It is giant and comfortable. We then also had to buy a new, smaller coffee table. It is far from giant, but includes a handy drawer for the remote at the end of the day.


We have finally also logged a win in the war against melting that our apartment had engaged us in. Now, the 1970's were a terrible time for energy efficiency in building materials. Aluminum windows were all the rage because they were Cheap. And my apartment complex took that Cheap factor and ran with it. Our west facing wall--which has no shade whatsoever--has two large aluminum slider windows, one that is 4'x6' and one that is 3'x4'. That's a lot of heat gain in the summer with just inexpensive drapes between the sun and us. (It's also a lot of heat loss in the winter, but that's less of an issue because the heat gain from winter sun helps to offset the heat loss from lack of insulation. Plus, I can always put on a sweater. What kind of a knitter would I be if that weren't a welcome option?)
Now, we've lived in this apartment for over three years now and in the summer it's a never ending battle to keep the apartment cool enough to keep us from melting. The first summer we spent a lot of time in the pool. The second summer I wasn't here, TheBoy was living alone while I was in Alaska and he taped paper bags and cardboard over the windows. Yeah, I can't live like that. Last summer saw the arrival of a portable ac unit which helped a great deal but required being moved to the bedroom on days when it was really hot. Yesterday, at 7pm, our apartment was logging in at 86 degrees, which was only a few degrees shy of the outside temperature. I had the ac unit and a box fan chugging as hard as they could and it was barely making a dent. Enter blackout drapery liner fabric from Joann's. It's on the expensive side, but after installing it (we cut it to size and just used the drapery pins to tack it to the back of the ugly cheap drapes) the temperature has been much more comfortable. It's currently 88 degrees outside [and likely to get a little warmer before it cools off for the night] and inside it's 76. Score one for blackout and TheMarrieds! It's much darker in the apartment but by tacking it to the existing drapes we can still open them easily in order to let in sunshine in the morning, before the sun moves to that side of the building.

Knitting news. I am currently in possession of the Charity Blanket Swap blanket. Now that the apartment is cooler I can crank that out and get it on to it's next knitter. I'm also working on the Mystery Stole 3. Signups close sometime today (if they're not already). I've finished chart A and part of chart B, and hope to have charts A-C done by the time the next clue is posted next Friday. I'm waiting for yarn to knit for two new arrivals, a grand-nephew who should be making his debut in October (there is a large age gap between TheBoy and his siblings. His niece is 25 and has been married for something like three years.) There is also a new Minnesotan who is expected to make their debut on the 29th of December, the second child of some very dear friends of mine. And I'm plugging along on a few other things as well, including something that is an extremely nerdy gift for TheBoy. He knows what it is but I'm going to wait to reveal it here on the blog for a bit yet.

Anyone that's in Eugene, there are bagpipers slated to play at Washburne Park on Sunday at 6.30pm. We're planning to be there. Depending on how hot it is, I'll probably have knitting. Leave me a comment if you're planning to be there as well.

I am so ready for this all to be done with.

My simple knitted bodice body is done. I am done with the lace on one sleeve but boy, are sleeves kind of boring. In other knitting news, I ordered some yarn for mitts for TheBoy. He's been pulling his sleeves down over his hands to hold the steering wheel in the car in the mornings because we've had an unseasonably cold snap for the past week or so. That means he gets mitts to solve that problem. They'll be black and orange which is perfect since he loves the color combination and it's the colors of his alma mater; Oregon State. I also want to get started on some tall socks from my natural dyed yarn [more about that soon.] They will be stripey and fun I think. And I need to finish the second sock in the pair for TheBoy.

My wedding dress arrived in the mail the other day, a month and a half earlier than expected. It's in good condition, no worse for it's cross-country trek and it's even more beautiful than I remember it being. There's something about a dress that no one else has ever tried on that makes it a little fresher if nothing else. The beading also seems shinier and prettier. TheFabulousKristi will be coming over on Saturday to lace me into it and ooh and ahh over it. I'm looking forward to that.

TheFabulousKristi and I are also planning on seeing The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D. I've actually never seen the movie, nor have I ever seen a movie in 3D so it should be great fun. TheBoy is likely going to go with us, and then TheBestMan will be over for a visit since he's got to come partway downstate for a test.

My Christmas shopping is somewhere near 30% done. We started in August and I recently placed a few orders with places like amazon.com and a few different etsy sellers. For those of you that haven't heard of etsy.com it's a great place to get some really quality handmade goods. Like everything else online there's some crap but a lot of quality items as well. I recommend checking it out for your holiday shopping needs.