Eight Things I Don’t Understand About George:

1. Why he has eleventy billion pairs of shoes and boots. Am I living with Imelda Marcos? Seriously, our hall closet is CRAMMED full of running shoes, cowboy boots (rowr), and dress shoes. I think I have maybe five or six pairs and he has at least three times as many as I do.
2. Why he not only takes up more cupboard and drawer space than I do, but he also has sweaters piled in the cupboard that are so old I have never EVER seen him wear them. Judging from the style and pattern, I’d say some of them date back to at least the early 90s.
3. How he can sit and eat canned ravioli or spaghetti cold and straight out of the can. Totally gross.
4. Why I have to practically hold a gun to his head to make him go to the doctor. Not that I’m all that great myself, but he’s far worse.
5. How he can read so many Dean Koontz books in a row – after two or three, they all start to run together.
6. The attraction that The Military Channel holds for him. I think it’s a great channel if I’m looking to fall asleep.
7. Why he keeps so many old spare computer parts and pieces and cases. Seriously. You should see the music room.
8. Why he was interested in me in the first place and why he was interested enough to still be here after all this time.

Eight Things George Does Not Understand About Me:

1. How I’ve killed so many computers in all our time together. Which is unfair, because I don’t kill them so much as they revolt and then I must defend myself against them with a hammer.
2. What my problem is with his clothes. Doesn’t everyone have enough clothes that he has to take over part of every cupboard in the entire home?
3. Why I don’t believe in my own abilities because I am so self-deprecating sometimes and am often on the verge of throwing in the towel.
4. Why I get frustrated so fast over, well, everything. I’m surprised he didn’t run away and never look back way back when I first decided to try to learn to bake.
5. How I managed to never tire of going to see him play; back in the early days of our relationship, he was playing almost every weekend on both Friday and Saturday nights and I think that up until the time Hayley was born, I missed maybe six or seven gigs and most of those were because they were private parties that I couldn’t attend. In fact, I even went to see him play two days before Breanna was born.
6. What in the hell is wrong with me that I still leave so many cups in the bedroom. I really am getting better, I don’t usually have seven in there at a time, but there usually are two and always at least one.
7. Why I insist on watching so much of what he deems as crap television like reality shows and Gray’s Anatomy and my soap opera. Thank God I managed to get him completely hooked on Criminal Minds so that we have at least one show that we can watch together where neither of us rolls our eyes at the other.
8. After all this time I still love him and gave him two beautiful daughters.

And yet despite our combined confusion over each other, yesterday we marked eight years together. We often joke about how incredibly long those eight years have been but really, it’s not that long. It’s crazy to think about all the stuff we’ve managed to fit into that little amount of time.

Eight years. I figure if neither of us has checked into a psych ward in an effort to get away from each other, then we’re still doing pretty well.

Happy anniversary George!

The two of us, circa 1999. See now, looking at that picture, maybe eight years IS a long time after all!

November 2006:

Yes, I guess it HAS been a long time together:

Taken this morning: