Fifteen years ago, the Pumpkin Man and I were married in the Denver LDS Temple for time and eternity.

Every marriage has ups and downs but the challenges we’ve have been faced with the last couple of years have been staggering. The last month has been particularly difficult but I’m so grateful to have such a steady, loving, strong and funny man by my side. Despite his own suffering and pains, he has risen to uplift and support the rest of us and I’m forever grateful.

I found this gem from the archives and it still rings true today

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This may come as a surprise to you but I can be high-strung.

Or maybe this is not so shocking to those who know me.

I married a great man who is easy going. I have known from the get-go part of what makes our relationship work so well is how we balance each other out.

* I blog.

* I love eating pumpkin.

* He grows giant pumpkins.

* He blogs about his pumpkins.

See? Match made in heaven.

But it wasn’t until our recent ski trip to Keystone that I had an epiphany about it all. We had arrived at the resort and were unloading the car to check-in. As usual, I was stressed about something. Because that is what I do. And as usual, he tried to calm me down.

I have just accepted that this is the dynamic of our marriage. Sometimes I am appreciative. Other times, it annoys me. What if I don’t want to calm down? What if I am completely validated in freaking out over this?

But last week, I was struck withgratitude that he always talks me off the ledge. And I wondered what my life would be like if I married someone who was not a calming influence in my life. Someone who fueled the fire instead of harmoniously extinguishing the flames.

It would not be pretty.

I have been in relationships like that. I once dated a guy who was exactly like me. I know–it is alarming that this is possible. His strengths were my strengths, his weaknesses were the same. We were both journalists, loved the outdoors and were passionate souls ready to conquer the world. In the beginning, we were on such a high–we were the perfect match. I was so thrilled: I was dating myself!

But then we hit the wall. We didn’t compliment each other in the least. We didn’t learn from one another nor grow together. And then I woke up with dread one morning: I was dating myself. Worst. Thing. Ever.

How grateful I am to have married a man who appreciates my strengths and buoys me up from my weaknesses. Happy 15th anniversary, my love!!!

This beauty from my draft folder is from a few years ago. Ahh, the memories!

In most ways, Jamie and I have a very traditional marriage. I take care of most household chores and the children. He works, pays the bills and quarterly taxes and raises freakishly large orange creatures.

Remember, I said MOST WAYS. 

I do the laundry. I hate doing laundry but when we were engaged, I saw how Jamie did laundry and I wanted no part in it (his method involved large heaps of clean clothes that were never put away all week long). Though I don’t claim to be the perfect laundress, my process involves washing, drying, folding and putting away the laundry on the same day. I’m also moderately obsessive about doing laundry when we’re on vacation (if possible) and can’t stand coming home with a suitcase full of dirty clothes.

Jamie, on the other hand, likes to mix his clean clothes with his dirty ones in his suitcase.

It’s like nails on the chalkboard, peeps.

I do laundry a couple of times a week so usually stay on top of things, for which Jamie is openly grateful. But the other day, he made an unusual request.

“Where is my Nike shirt?”

“Which Nike shirt?”

“My grey one. It’s not in my drawer.”

“Then it’s probably in the dirty laundry.”

He proceeded to dig through the laundry basket. “HERE IT IS. Why is it not washed?”

“Let’s see. It’s Thursday and I did the laundry on Monday. That means you must have worn it in the last two days.”

I am the master of deduction.

Jamie is picky about what he wears but for some reason, he was hell-bent on wearing that shirt. And this, my friends, is where another laundry pet peeve comes into play. On the rare occasion he does a load of laundry, he only washes his clothes and nobody else’s.

A few minutes later I walked into the laundry room to see he’d thrown a few of his shirts into the wash (another peeve: not running a full load).

“Jamie, do you see this pile of dirty clothes sitting by the washing machine? It would be swell if you’d put some of these other clothes in to wash as well.”

His response? “I don’t want that dirty stuff touching my stuff.”

Dude needs a lesson in airing dirty laundry.

I have felt overwhelmed and grateful by all the support I’ve received from friends, family and complete strangers since I started writing professionally.

But a few weeks ago, I received my first vicious email from a reader about my column in The Denver Post. I don’t write a lot of controversial stuff and what he was spewing out was so ludicrous, irrational and hateful toward children that I promptly deleted it and deemed him a madman.

But still, it bugged me.

Later that day, I commented to Jamie: “I got my first piece of hate mail today.”

He didn’t ask what it was about and only offered, “No, it wasn’t. Remember that kindergarten article you published a couple of years ago in the Denver Post’s YourHub? A man was so irate about it he sent ME an email telling me to tell my ‘misinformed wife’ she was nuts?”

“Thanks for the pick-me-up, Jamie.”

© Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck–A Denver Mom’s Blog

It’s official: Jamie and I have been an old, married couple for NINE years!

In keeping with tradition, I’ll share my courtship story with Jamie. Y’see, my beloved James and I were BYU students at the same time, graduated from the same department, walked through the same graduation ceremonies and regularly played volleyball together on the same court one summer…and yet never met.

It took a glorious thing called the Internet to finally bring us together many years later. I was in the midst of terminating an on-again, off-again five-year long-distance relationship and was cruising a popular Mormon singles site, adding unsuspecting prey to my Little Black Book.

Jamie had also ended a relationship a few months prior and was looking for some nice local Mormon girls to date. I, however, was not local. (Or nice for that matter; really, my only qualifier was I was Mormon). He was in Denver, I in Salt Lake City. I had just endured a long-distance romance and vowed I would never do that again. That avowal lasted about a week. He, too had no interest in something long distance.

Despite the odds, I came across his profile. It was not his dashing good looks that initially struck me (his photo was taken on an Alaskan glacier five miles away) or his poetry and prose (i.e. “I like eating good food”) but rather the strong impression that I needed to write him. Immediately.

Our connection was immediate. Jamie first knew it was love when I expounded upon mountaineering and the definition of the horned sacrificial altar in Ancient Israel (yep, we’re two of a kind). I knew Jamie was The One when he googled my name and read every single article I had ever written. Either that or he was a stalker. Fortunately, he proved to be the former.

After countless e-mails and phone calls over the next two months, we planned to meet. By this time, it had been revealed to both of us in a very powerful way that we would get married. Imagine, if you will, how you’d feel opening the door to a person you’d never laid eyes on, yet knowing he was The One. Suffice it to say, the week prior to our meeting, I was a wreck.

Another confirmation I received was when The Family Curse came upon me. Y’see, when both of my brothers met their spouses, something unfortunate always happened. For Patrick, he “accidentally” passed gas when he was introduced to Jane. For Jeek, he had developed a horrible boil smack in the middle of his nose when he met Shannon. For me, I developed an allergic reaction to some flowers at work, which resulted in a stye in my eye. Y’know. The really pink, pussy, ugly kind. This was yet another sign.

And so despite my pussy, makeup-less state when I finally laid eyes on him (albeit one good eye), I knew then what I know now: that we were meant to be together. And despite all my Murphyisms and idiosyncrasies, he still loves me. And keeps loving me. I don’t understand or question it, I’m just grateful for it.

Happy Anniversary, Honey!

(To read all the sordid details of our wedding day, go here).

© Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck–A Denver Mom’s Blog