Roses and Chicken Soup

Yesterday was Mark and I’s 14th anniversary.  Leading up to yesterday, I had been really under the weather.  What started out as a sinus infection travelled into my chest, and by Saturday night I was more miserable than I have been in a long time.  Under normal circumstances I would never go to Urgent Care unless is was really “urgent” but I was feeling so bad on Sunday morning that Mark convinced me to go.  I got some medicine and a little talk from the doctor about thank you for waiting it out to see if it was viral and would go away on its own, but next time don’t wait so long to get it taken care of…. Knowing how I love homemade chicken noodle soup, Mark made a trip to the store for all the ingredients to make me some of his chicken soup, and by Sunday afternoon I had some warm soup and antibiotics – a pretty good recipe for feeling better. 

Arriving at Tuesday morning (our anniversary), we walk downstairs early in the morning to a VERY cold middle level – like 51 degrees cold.  Go figure, our downstairs heating unit picked the coldest night of the year to stop working.  The kids even had a two hour delay to school because the wind chill was so cold, so they huddled around the fireplace while Mark tried to get the problem fixed. 

With many issues in our house or cars lately, Mark has been able to fix them by doing research.  He’s a research guy and will take the time to look up potential solutions to a problem, try to figure out how to fix them, and up till now he’s fixed all kinds of issues that have saved us from having to pay someone to come out and do it.  After determining that this issue with the heating unit was more complicated than he felt comfortable attempting (especially with a snowpocalypse forecast for this weekend), he called a guy to come take a look at the problem for us.  Long story short, it will take two days for the part to come in, so we’re bundling up around here and feeling thankful that at least we have heat upstairs!

So as I was standing at the counter yesterday eating my chicken soup for lunch and looking at the pretty roses I got that morning while bundled up in my winter coat, I thought, while, yes, I’d much rather be spending our anniversary on some tropical beach somewhere, the truth of it is, sometimes celebrating our marriage isn’t tropical beaches, it’s more like chicken soup and roses in a house with partial heat.  Life and marriage both bring challenges – things like the heater going out and getting sick were my two examples of the week, but the reality is that there are much bigger challenges out there that people have to deal with.  Yet, sometimes life and marriage are roses – things go beautfiully and couldn’t be better.  But I think for the most part, life and marriage are a blend of both things most of the time.  In our 14 years, I can think of our fair share of chicken soup times, and I can think of our fair share of roses times, but that’s real life and that’s real marriage, and by God’s grace I asume it will keep going that way from here on out.  The beauty in it all is having someone walk through it all with you – whether it’s the good or the bad.  To me, that’s what is really worth celebrating.

Come to think of it, last year’s anniversary celebration wasn’t roses either.  Nina got the stomach bug on our 13th anniversary and threw up in my car, and Mark cleaned the car out for me.  Maybe next year we need to celebrate on a day other than 1/19 or maybe we need to head off to that tropical beach somewhere – you won’t hear any complaints from me!