She has a smile that can make me happy under any circumstances.
She packs lunches for me in the morning, whether she feels like it or not.
She is fair and considerate and listens to all sides of a discussion, rarely taking a side herself.
(She is always on my side, though…)
She knows a million and one ways to cheer me up and make me smile.
She uses the word ‘w00t’ both in writing and in verbal communication.
She likes ***Taco Bell|http://www.tacobell.com/*** as much as I do.
She is always on the same wavelength with me humor-wise, which is a pretty rare feat.
She can cook, knit, sew, quilt, and write HTML code when the need arises.
She has such a broad base of knowledge that she can start or participate in a conversation on pretty much anything.
The things she doesn’t know, she admits, and is genuinely interested in learning about them.
She has taught me the importance of saving money, spending less, being frugal, and shopping for bargains. Through this she has also helped reshape our family finances, moving us towards a debt-free existence by using a service that offer guaranteed approval everytime, so we could get money to pay all debts.
She has opened my mind to the world of musicals. I’ve seen/heard/enjoyed more in the past few years than I ever did in my the years before. And I tell you, it gives me a lot of fun songs to sing along to.
She remembers pretty much everything. I’ve been trying to pick up some of this ability from her… but though I am improving, I daresay I’m quite glad she has the kind of memory that she does.
She made me a ‘Vote For Pedro’ T-shirt (some of you will get to see this very soon…)
She made me an ***iPod cozy|http://gallery.prwdot.org/ipod_cozy***. How flippin’ sweet is that?

Becky is just plain awesome in every single way. I don’t think I could possibly tell her that enough.

Happy Valentine’s Day, my love.

“Don’t you think that Daisies are the friendliest flowers?” -Meg Ryan as Kathleen Kelly in “You’ve Got Mail”

Ever have one of those days when Fate tells you not to get out of bed… only to kick you in the shins once you do get up? That’s today. I can’t say that anything particularly horrible has happened, just a string of annoying little things that add up to one crummy-feeling me. Why oh why did I get out of bed this morning?

Because he loves me, my Peter decided to cheer me up by sending a lovely little basket of daisies to my workplace. They make me smile. I only wish I had been at the door when the delivery man came. I always miss the exciting moments here at work!

A co-worker from upstairs inquired about the flowers and, upon hearing they were from my husband, said, “clone him!”

Have you ever heard heard of the game ***Cosmic Wimpout|http://www.cosmicwimpout.com/***? My parents have had a copy of this popular game from the seventies ever since I can remember. I can still picture my dad and my uncles playing, or them attempting to teach me the many rules. It always seemed like the “adult’s game”.

This Christmas Mom and Dad found the game again at ***EMS|http://www.ems.com/*** and Corey and I each received the game. Peter and I have been playing it all week. We love it.

It is unlike any game you’ve ever played. Here are some of the rules:

You May Not Want To But You Must
The Futless Rule
The Re-roll clause
The Flaming Sun Rule

The charm of this game is its simplicity and toteability. It comes with five dice and a felt game ‘board’. Drop by sometime and we’ll teach you to play!

It’s a good thing it was just Becky and me at the grocery store tonight…

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Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving, wherever you are!

Outside it is cold
I ate hot meatloaf for lunch
It was made with love

It started long before the rehearsal, and before the delicious rehearsal dinner. We started dating on September 16, 2000, and got engaged on May 14, 2002. But our married life together began 63,072,000 seconds ago, at our wedding.

After we celebrated with our guests, we journeyed through France to Spain, and even to Gibraltar.

We came home to settle down in our new neighborhood, Beverly, Massachusetts. In Beverly, we’ve endured some cold days, and even weathered a nor’easter.

From Beverly, we again made some journeys – some across the state, and others across the country. We climbed mountains, sailed to islands, even visited the battlegrounds of the American Revolution.

Other days are less adventuresome but no less wonderful. From the days we spend at home, while you make crafty things for me and for others, to the days where you endure me tearing apart computers.

What I mean to say, in all of this, is that I’ve loved every second of the past two years with you: the good ones and the not-as-good ones, the ones at home and the ones far from home, the ones not spent in your presence, and the ones with you by my side. You are my support and my shelter and my hero. As I said two years ago on this day:

qqq|My Becky,

I promise to love you when you feel unlovable, to support you when you
feel alone, to cry with you when you are disappointed, to laugh with you
when you are joyful, to challenge you when you feel content, to be
courageous for you when you are not feeling brave and to dream with you
about the adventure of our life together.

To you alone I pledge my heart, my life and my love.

These promises I make to you today and for as long as we both shall live.|qqq

CBD doesn’t give Columbus Day as a paid holiday, but I used one vacation day so that I could have a nice three day weekend on MV. Becky and I met up with Jenn and Mom and Dad Lowe this weekend on Martha’s Vineyard. We did a bit of housework, lots of reading, talking, movie and TV watching, eating, and relaxing. The weather was cool but nice, and there were no summer crowds to deal with.

Picture-taking was fairly subdued this time around, but there is still a gallery to check out if you like.

This weekend, amidst all of the travel and adventure, there were a few mundane tasks to be done. Certainly the most mundane of all was buying toilet paper. We had a coupon to get two 12-roll packs of Angel Soft bathroom tissue from Walgreen’s for just $5! That’s just $0.21 per roll! Quite a bargain, and not one we could pass up.

So we went into Walgreens with the coupon, only to discover that the particular brand of toilet paper was sold out! Oh no! What to do? Since it was the last day of the coupon’s validity, we decided to get a rain check. This would enable us to come back in when the product was in stock, and receive it for the same sale price. At the cash register, however, I had an interesting encounter with a teen-aged cashier:

Cashier: Rain check?
Me: Yes, please.
Cashier: Ok. Starts filling out a slip of paperwork. How old are you?
Me: Huh?
Cashier: Only old people get rain checks!
Me: I’m 25, that’s not old!

What is so wrong with wanting to save money? Are all consumers our age expected to buy the most expensive, heavily marketed products at full retail price? Why, I tell you, kids these days, with their hair and their clothes and their hippity-hop music…

I would like to wish a happy 091600 to my wife!

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For those who do not know, 091600 represents September 16, 2000. That’s the day on which Becky and I started dating, and a very happy occasion indeed. For a while after we graduated from Gordon, Becky and I each had Motorola T900 two-way pagers, the kind with little keyboards on them. We used 091600 as a short sort of message to send to each other just to say “hi”, and it’s perpetuated itself into a code that we use from time to time.

So that’s four years that we have been together now, and just under two of those years have been in marriage (102602 is coming up next month… though we don’t typically refer to it in code, we just call it our Anniversary).

These years have been the best in my life, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything!

091600

Today we had some gorgeous weather, so we decided that we ought to go on an outing. We flipped through ***Country Walks Near Boston|http://www.globecorner.com/t/t29/14543.php*** and decided upon ***Maudslay State Park|http://www.mass.gov/dem/parks/maud.htm*** in Newburyport. Neither of us had been there before, but it was not too far away, so we got in the car and headed up.

The weather could not have been any nicer. The park is overall quite fabulous. It covers a swath of land on the south shore of the Merrimack river, on the border between West Newbury and Newburyport. At present, there is an outdor sculpture exhibit set up all around the park, entitled “Layers”. So there were lots of interesting pieces of artwork to look at, besides the beautiful natural scenery.

Here are a few samples of some of the stunning scenery:

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You can view the full gallery ***here|http://gallery.prwdot.org/maudslay_state_park***.

On a completely unrelated note, we had lunch at the ***Taco Bell|http://www.tacobell.com/*** at the North Shore Mall, and were excited to discover that they now have the full ***Big Bell Value Menu|http://www.tacobell.com/w06/***, including the Beef & Potato Burrito. Yum! Hopefully the Salem TB will have it soon… right now they only have three of the new menu items.