One Thousand Days, Millions of Reasons

Disclaimer:  This blog post has nothing to do with food.  Nada, zilch, nothing.  Being a food blog, I thought it is important to let you know that up front.  However, I do have a really great recipe at the end, one that everybody can enjoy.

This weekend we headed up to Yosemite to spend some time in nature with friends.  Not only do I (along with the rest of the world) love Yosemite, but it holds very special memories for me.  As a child I attended summer camp there and enjoyed my days shooting bows and arrows, riding horses, making a lots of new friends, and trying scary-to-me things like rock climbing walls.  Later I returned there to be a camp counselor and had the most fun and exhausting summers of my life under the tall trees, breathing in the sweet scent of pine.  A few days before we headed out I realized that we had been married for 992 days. (I like doing random math problems, what can I say?)

992?  Wow, that is incredibly close to 1,000, I thought.  And being such a good sounding number, I decided we needed to do something to celebrate our 1,000th day of marital bliss -- and yes, it really has been bliss.  But when I looked on the calendar, I realized I would be in the middle of the trees, surrounded by people, and nothing "special" in sight.  Ah, but Yosemite is special, right?

What a beautiful place to be!  Much better than a restaurant or downtown somewhere.  So, on the morning of our 1,000th day I took my man on a walk with me to show him around.  I showed him the rock where I took my first photography picture (rather than snapshot).  It was still there, just as it was over 16 years ago when I was a twelve year-old kid taking photography class at summer camp. 

That first picture, taken on film, developed in a dark room, looked something like this... but blurry and slightly off balance.  And with awful lighting.  Yeah... basically it was terrible.  My pictures may have improved over time, but the rock remained unchanged.  We kept walking, passing next to the tall trees that covered the sun...

Finally, we took a seat and I handed Paulo a box.

Nope, I didn't get him shoes...

I gave him a jar.

And on that jar were the words, "I love you," written in Portuguese.

Inside of the jar, however, were many more words... reasons that I love him written down so that he could know.  There were so many that I came up with, but I ran out of paper at 50, so it stopped there.  That's OK, though, there is still room to add more.  And yes, I can definitely add more!

RECIPE FOR A HAPPY MARRIAGE (according to Tiffany):

Mix equal parts of communication, patience, and forgiveness together. 

Add a heaping teaspoon of a sense of humor and another of a willingness to be a student of the passions of your partner. 

Blend together with some sugar and spice and everything nice, and enjoy.

(Remember to make a fresh batch everday to have the best results.)