500 [+ 2]

Monday marked day 500 of being married to Mister Christopher and so as I knew this day was approaching, I wanted to do something special for him. (Because as much as I don't like to admit it, the busyness of teaching and coaching sometimes quenches my creative juices and I don't love him as creatively well as I would like. Confession over.]


So as I thought and thought and thought some more about what I could do, I thought that I could make a list of 500 things I loved/appreciated/respected about him. That seemed like a great idea until I remembered how long it took me to write 100 things about him before for a gift. [Of course it took so long to actually write, it wasn't that I couldn't come up with that many things.] So I went back to thinking and this is what I came up with...


I took post-it notes and wrote '500' or in some cases '5<3<3' I even did this in bed with Chris laying right next to me. And when he asked what I was up to, 'Oh just working on stuff for tomorrow'. There's a benefit of being a teacher, I am always working on something odd so writing on post-it notes seemed normal. [And notice I didn't lie either!] The next morning I got up early didn't oversleep so that I had enough time to shower and attack the house with post-it notes... on the light switches... on the fan... on the toilet seat... on the roll of tp... on Chris' phone... on the walls... on the front door... on the fridge... in the fridge... on his car... in his work shoes... in order-taking folder... on the table... and just about anywhere else you can think of, I put them. 


I gave him his g'bye-have-a-good-day kiss and giggled as I walked out the door. In my 7 minute drive to school I also successful logged into both of our Facebook accounts and changed our statuses and wrote on each other's walls '500!'. At 8:53am I received a text 'The post it monster stopped by last night!' To which I laughed and replied 'What?!' This was similar to the Olive Garden monster breaking in and covering our fridge with OG magnets one night. 


On my way home from school I counted out 499 red Swedish fish in a big fish bowl and put one larger yellow Swedish fish in the mix and accompanied it with a fish card that said, "There may be 500 fish in the sea, but you are the only one who was created just for me!" :) The delicious fish were waiting for him when he returned from work. 


While I loved doing these two simple things for him, that was not my most favorite part of the day. My favorite part? When I got to listen to Chris grin and tell me how he told his co-workers about the post-its and how some even made comments that you don't hear stories like that everyday. Chris felt special and loved and that's imperative so I was thankful that I took the small amount of time to do something for him. 


Sometimes I wonder how couples don't take time to show each other that they love each other. Don't get me wrong, I still cherish hearing him say "I love you!" for 788 days [the number of days since our engagement when we said I love you for the first time] but sometimes I need to be reminded of it in a different way... and so does he.


Second favorite part of the day: Receiving a text message from Chris while I was at my volleyball game...

*1436* is Chris and my "shmily" [to read what that is visit my friend's blog]. 1436 represents the number of letters of each word in: I love you muchly! I found it encouraging that a couple that persevered and loved so well for so long had such a neat story and every day we are continuing in our own story. 

I hope that when we are old and wrinkly, and everyday that leads to that day, that we continue to love each other well so that others are encouraged that a true love can persevere!