Today we celebrated our 7 year anniversary. August 28, 2004 I married the most awesome guy ever! Looking back though I think it was a good thing I had on those rose colored glasses because life was tough as a young married couple. We started the day off cleaning the church all by ourselves, because Josh is a slacker (another story), which brought back some not so fun memories of our first couple months married. 2 days after we were married we started our early morning (4 a.m.) janitorial jobs. We were just trying to be responsible employees. Little did we realize we had the most unwanted job on campus and even if we had shown up 3 days later or not at all, they still would have given us the job. No matter how early we went to bed I could never get enough sleep. We were poor college students and tried to save money by staying on campus all day, everyday, because we had a 15 min drive back and forth from our little 650 sq. ft. house. We ate oatmeal every morning for breakfast (something I was not used to, I had to choke down), peanut butter and plum jam sandwiches on whole wheat bread that I was still trying to figure out how to make, and dinner, well that was always interesting. I remember one evening a lady stopped by from our ward, I think she dropped off some bread, and we must have been the most pathetic looking picture because I had laundry lying all over the house to dry because our dryer was broken, I was making rice for dinner, and I imagine I was probably in my grubs. A couple nights later someone anonymously knocked on our door, with a bag over their head, and handed me a envelope with $300 in it. Some how we made it though and made it through happily. Josh spent the weekends fixing our old beater car that literally broke down a couple times a month. I remember someone had given us a turkey and so when we finally decided to cook it, we ate it for over a month. I can no longer eat turkey that is older than a day. I think it was my birthday when we came home one day and in the shadows I could see what looked like a dead flower on the kitchen table. I turned to Josh and asked him if he gave me a dead flower? As I got closer I saw it was a metal flower he had made in one of his welding classes. It is actually pretty impressive.
Working through our struggles has made made us stronger and personally made me a more grateful person. I am more grateful for the flowers that are picked, the thoughtful letters, or kind acts of service. And let me tell you, this was not an easy thing for me to truly appreciate because one of my love languages was gifts.
Ironic that I wouldn't change anything. Everyday is better and everyday I love Josh more than the day before. In fact, now I think how crazy and ignorant I was to have married someone I didn't know as well as I do now. But that is just the way it is, I am still getting to know him and my love continues to grow. Life is good and I know will continue to only get better.
