Exhaustion and Hilarity

My sweet husband and I have been doing something a little weird for a few years now.  We sell fireworks... from a tent.... in a Walmart parking lot..... for FOURTEEN DAYS prior to the Fourth of July..... while living out of a cargo trailer!  This is completely out of our typical mode of operation.  For one thing, neither of us have any prior experience in retail or entreprenuership.  I am a high school biology teacher and he is a police officer.  I failed miserably at my only attempt at a home party business!!  Addtionally, I am NOT a camper!  My idea of "roughing it" is a hotel room instead of a condo!  But we have done this little venture for four years.  We do it under the umbrella of a charity because it's extra money in our pockets and it's extra money for our charity.  In all seriousness it has afforded us the opportunity to be generous when otherwise we couldn't have been.

We have learned of few things about ourselves and our marriage in this venture but one lesson has been blissful.

We actually enjoy each other's company.  (Now I will admit to you that this isn't really a new lesson; it's a review of an old lesson that we learned long ago.  But as a teacher I know how valuable reviews are to making knowledge stick.) I hve often said how much I enjoy being with my husband but truly it's kind of easy to say when you are only alone between 11:30 pm and 7:00 am!  (I know... some of you young mommies out there aren't alone even during these hours... Hang in there.  This too shall pass.)  But the cool thing about saying this after two weeks camping on a Walmart parking lot is that it really is true.  I know it's true because some days we are the only two people that we see that either of us even knows!  It is truer after 29 years of wedded bliss than it was in our courtship or during those honeymoon, pre-children years.  It's truer because of those years and because of the busy, helter-skelter, running-after-kids, going-to-four-or-five-ballgames-a-week years!  (Whew! makes me tired, and happy, just to remember those years!)  That's not to say that we didn't enjoy each other then, of course, we certainly did!  ;-) but it has only gotten better because now it's true even on a HOT, dry, dirty, stinky parking lot when we can't even seem to sell a sparkler!  Even when we are utterly exhausted from working from early in the morning until after midnight we still have fun just being together!  BTW, after reading this to Hubby he said that he thought maybe I was on a different parking lot that he was!!  He makes me laugh. :-D

 We can find hilarity in the weirdest circumstances.  (Granted this might be from sleep deprivation and exhaustion but still we find it!)  We can be happy doing some truly ordinary (read: boring) things like reading to each other from our favorite books or sometimes just reading our own books and holding hands.  (If you are picturing two tottering little old people I will reach through cyberspace and smack you!)  We find things to laugh about even if those things are completely beyond the understanding of anyone besides the two of us.  We have actually spent our last four anniversaries on a parking lot and my husband manages romance (YES! romance!) anyway!

Don't forget!  No matter the stage of marriage you are in right now do this: Enjoy your husband!  Make it fun to be together no matter the circumstances.  Be silly, be goofy, be spontaneous, be deliberate.  Plan for it sometimes.  Take the initiative and plan a fun date for him.  Be careful not to discourage him when he does something just for the fun of it, especially if it includes you.  Laugh at him, or rather laugh at his jokes and funnies!  I know that sometimes you think you are too busy for his goofiness, don't be. Everyone enjoys making someone they love laugh so let him make you laugh and try to make him laugh.    

For the Lover of my souls and yours,

Laurie Jo