Countdown to Thanksgiving Day 6: Coke Coupons, Pork Chops, Green Beans, and a guy named Peacock

This is the sixth in a daily series celebrating the blessings I'm thankful for, leading up to Thanksgiving. While they will portray some of the many -- and random -- things I have to be thankful for, they will not be presented in any particular order by degree of thankfulness. Skewed priorities should not be implied.

I know what you're thinking: I've finally lost it.

I'm sure it's about to happen one of these days, but I'm still borderline sane, even when I tell you there is something those four things have in common.

I'm thankful for all four because they're how Mr. Hat became "the one."

When asked how we met, we like to perplex people with our truthful answer of "we haven't." And in terms of first meeting, exchanging names, shaking hands and saying "nice to meet you," we haven't. We were babies together in the church nursery and grew up together in that same church.

Other than a stint of "going together" back when we were 15, we were always just friends. Our parents were friends, too, and we crossed paths at various gatherings and at church each Sunday.

College sent us in different directions, both paths leading to other people we fortunately realized we shouldn't marry. And we began talking beyond shallow greetings again.

That's when I got traded for Coke coupons. His dad worked for Coke, bringing the product to the store and often helping to stock it on the shelves. Which is how he ended up being in the same store my mother was shopping in one morning. "So, about that daughter of yours... If I give you some Coke coupons, could you give her a little shove in my son's direction?" was the related gist of the transaction.

I'd have done it without the coupons. But Coke, well, it's awfully good.

That was June.  Right after that was when I threw that brick at his head.

At one point that summer, we were discussing kids, futures, and foods we didn't like. (You have to cover a wide range of topics to determine true compatibility.) And I discovered he didn't like green beans or pork chops either; for me, they were anathema. I knew that if I married him, I'd never have to cook them and ingest them again. SOLD!

His confirmation was far pithier. They were the lyrics in The Way of Love by one of his favorite artists, Charlie Peacock, particularly a part of the chorus:
  

I've got the notion

Love is devotion

Not just emotion

We were engaged in September and married the following July.

I'm thankful for him every single day. He puts up with all my flaws. He works hard to provide for us. He's an excellent father. Twenty years later, we're still married because he's guided by "devotion and not just emotion." And he lets me cook whatever I want.

Which, oddly enough, is sometimes pork chops and green beans, washed down with Coke.



Linking this story to Serenity Now's Weekend Bloggy Reading Party.  Stop by for more inspiration from other bloggers.

Weathered

The other day, my husband revealed he'd been holding out on me.

We live in the Great Lakes State and Mr. Hat has a rabid love affair with with sailing.  Nearly the whole of our official courtship was spent along the boardwalk in Grand Haven on the shore of Lake Michigan.  So naturally, our house has a rather "beach cottage" feel to it, especially in summer.  Sailing ephemera, a giant nautical map, shells, lots of white and blue...you get the idea.

Which why I was a little disgusted that he'd been hiding this:

An oar, perfectly colored, well weathered, cracked, telling stories of adventure.  He'd finally thought of asking me if I wanted to hang it after reviewing my pinterest boards.

"This has been sitting in the bottom of the sailboat."

I figured it was just some random oar that came with the boat, nothing special that would have helped him think of it sooner.

And then I noticed this:

That's right.  His initials.  Apparently it wasn't so random.  So I asked him about it some more.

"Oh, I used to use it on wilderness trips."  And this is when I realize that not only has he been hiding this   oar for 25+ years, it is more important than mere accessory.

Wilderness trips, for those of you who never suffered through one, were week-long excursions our church youth group used to take, canoeing our way through the lakes of Algonquin Provincial Park in Canada.  When we weren't canoeing, we were carrying said canoe and 100-pound backpacks overland to the next place to get into the water again.

"Wilderness" is also what he went on the week before I went (gotta keep those teen hormones well segregated, you know).  It was that absence (long story) that resulted in us "breaking up," if that term can even be applied to 15-year-olds.

"Wilderness" was lead by our wise, but obviously somewhat sadistic, youth pastor.  The same man we were preparing a grand send-off for when, several years later, he decided to pursue other things.  And it was during those preparations when, as Mr. Hat says, I threw the proverbial brick between his eyes that woke him up to seeing the "good woman" he was looking for was right there in front of his face.

That was June.  We were engaged in September and married the following July.

Since then, we've weathered much in our 20 years of marriage: multiple bouts of unemployment, pinched pennies, miscarriage, illness, infertility, failed adoptions, autism, the loss of his mother.  There are cracks and peeled varnish that, like on the oar, just serve to make it better.  They show the duration and the survival.  And there's beauty in that.

Which is why now, every time I see that oar, it'll be so much more than a weathered oar telling stories of adventures somewhere on the water.  It will be telling me of our adventure in marriage.