Thursday, February 14, 2013

a Story I LOVE

Guess which hue of blue won THIS game!

I try to only post entries that have some sort of a point. I apologize in advance that this one won't.
Instead, it's a story. It's a story of how, 16 months into marriage (and 4 months into parenthood!), I was reminded that I had met my match.

Let's start at the very beginning:

Guess which hue of blue won THIS game!
Our first Valentine's Day as a couple was in 2011 - two weeks after we'd first met. Jeremy came to Greenville from Canton. He brought a bouquet of flowers his mother'd arranged, and I wore a dress that I'll never fit into again. I even painted my nails, which I next to NEVER do. After a carriage ride through downtown, we listened to the piano man at the Poinsett Hotel and then walked to dinner at a (now-defunct) Brazilian steakhouse. It was a perfectly nice, if one-size-fits-all kind of date. It was enough, however, for me to know I wanted to keep this man around for at least another date.

He looks so cute in baby blue.
Fast forward to Valentine's Day 2013.

For a week or so, we'd both been hemming and hawing about what to get the other - "what do you want?" "I don't know. What do YOU want?" kinds of conversations were commonplace. I mentioned tickets to George Strait's farewell concert in Greenville; he tossed out a day at the lake or dinner at his cousin's restaurant. Nothing, however, was set in stone, until this past Tuesday.

That was the day after I'd gotten confirmation that I'd have tickets to take him to Chapel Hill to watch his 'heels play Florida State.  I LOVE Chapel Hill. He LOVES the Tarheels, and we both love traveling, so it's a PERFECT surprise for a man who deserves no shortage of perfect surprises.

Inwardly, I was gloating at how good my present was gonna be compared to the box of chocolates I figured he'd end up getting me. I couldn't wait to for the tickets to drop out of his card; I was so excited to piously say, "Oh, sweetie!  Your gift to me is MORE than enough. I LOVE Reese's. I may even eat both Cups right now!"

And then he came home for lunch on Tuesday.

"I got your Valentine today," he gloated.

Now, you should know that I am about as good at keeping surprises secret as I am at clipping my son's fingernails. That is to say, I'm not good at it AT ALL. So I saw his assertion as my moment for a blessedly early big reveal and begged him to go ahead with our exchange. He easily agreed and even offered to go first.

"Well, Baby," Jeremy said, with his chest stuck out and a catbird kind of grin spread across his face. "Clear your calendar for Saturday." "Where are we going," I asked, assuming he'd say something like, "Out to dinner" and KNOWING his gift would not be NEARLY as good as mine.  Instead, though, he said, "We are going to Knoxville to watch your CATS play the Vols."

Jumping up and down with elation, I said, "ARE WE REALLY?!" As soon as I could calm down, I added, "Well, Baby, clear YOUR calendar for March 3!" "Where are we going?!" he replied. "We're going to Chapel Hill to watch your HEELS play the 'Noles!"

THAT, my friends, is what "Two Hues of Blue" is all about, and it (and a million other things) is enough for me to know I want to keep Jeremy around, not just for another date, but for FOREVER.

Happy Valentine's Day to the Sweetest Man I Know!




1 comment:

  1. LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! how am i just now getting to read this? oh yeah - 'cause i'm NEVER on blogs anymore! anyway, now i could just text you about it! ;-)

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