Writing Small {CELEBRATE This Week: 147}

15 Comments
I’m glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

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Andy and I celebrated our 17th anniversary last week. My goodness, we blinked and 17 years flashed past. One of the craft moves I’ve been practicing in my writing is to write small and specific. It is often the seemingly insignificant details that make the strongest writing. To celebrate while practicing, I’ve decided to make a list of small and specific details about 17 years of marriage.

  • When Andy’s mom suggested we go out to dinner for our anniversary, we looked at each other and shook our heads. “We’d rather stay here, with the kids, and you,” Andy said. His mom lifted her eyebrows, “I guess that’s just how we roll,” Andy chuckled, “This is how we want to spend our time, with people.”
  • Anytime something spills or breaks or makes a mess, Andy is there to clean it up. When I dropped the spaghetti sauce and it covered the floor, cabinets, counter, and even the ceiling, Andy cleaned it up. When someone snaked lines up and down the carpeted upstairs hallway with an entire bottle of hair gel, Andy cleaned it up. Those years when milk spilled every single night at dinner, Andy cleaned it up. When coffee spills in my car, when I drop an egg, when a drink is spilled during movie night, Andy cleans it up — and never makes anyone feel stupid because of the spill
  • When I’m overwhelmed, stressed, and think the world is coming to an end, Andy pats my knee three times, squeezes it, smiles and says, “I’m pretty sure it’s all going to work out.” When I insist that it won’t he laughs and says, “You might be being extreme.”
  • I make grocery lists; Andy does the shopping. Andy puts away freezer and refrigerator items; I put away the rest.
  • I fold laundry; he does dishes.
  • I get up early; he stays up late.
  • I write; he watches baseball.
  • I read; he plays video games.
  • I put dinner on the table; he picks up kids from school, practices, and friends’ houses.
A marriage is a conversation that goes back and forth, back and forth, for a lifetime. At the end of the day, you’ll find us on the couch, with mugs — maybe frosty, maybe steaming — choosing to love and being grateful for another good day. Those days line up and you blink and you’re collecting days toward 18 years.

Thanks for celebrating….

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celebrate, celebratelu, family, marriage, writing

15 Comments »

  2. I love your “conversation”, Ruth. It's a lifelong kind of dance, too, a treasure shared between the partners. Happy Anniversary!

  3. Ruth,
    Happy Anniversary! Your marriage surely fits what I remember the priest saying on our wedding day about marriage-“Marriage is meant to double joy and cut burdens in half.” As I read through your list, I kept thinking of that over and over. Thanks for sharing the doubled joy and lightened burdens with us.

  10. “A marriage is a conversation that goes back and forth, back and forth for a lifetime.” You said it perfectly! Congratulations to you and Andy on your anniversary.

  12. Happy Anniversary Ruth! So enjoyed the conversation you succinctly shared. We will soon celebrate our 16th… and so much of this really resonates. What a great story of a true partnership.

  13. Such a sweet celebration of your cherished love. Living for God and loving each other – you two are such an example of what God had in mind when he created this covenant between a husband and a wife. You are so loved and I wish you all the best!