17 years with hubby

17 years ago today hubby and I got married. It was a small ceremony, with a couple of friends as witnesses, my mom and sister in attendance and a very wise judge to perform it on her lunch hour. The judge asked me if I wanted to promise to obey hubby, I declined and the rest is history.

For those of you who know hubby now, imagine him in his Air Force dress blues, barely able to speak -- just squeaking out his vows. Imagine me with long hair and big glasses. We were younger then than many of my students are now.

For 17 years he's been my best friend, my confidant and my rival. We have so many inside jokes conversations between us often take on the characteristics of 'twin talk'. Nobody can brighten my day like hubby, nobody can more reliably make me laugh until I snort, and nobody knows what I'm thinking better than him.

We've survived the death of my sister, the death of two cats, the hassles of finishing several college degrees, countless moves, and several job changes. Now we are figuring out how to have a long-distance marriage AND write dissertations. Some people call their spouses their "partner" in order to be neutral -- my hubby really IS my partner, and I couldn't ask for a better partner than hubby.

Hubby is my lover, friend, research assistant and especially my google. I was truly blessed when I got to marry him. Although he can be a challenge at times, I've never regretted saying yes.

Tonight, I have to teach -- so we are going to see "Bee Movie" in a little bit, he'll cook me a simple dinner after class tonight and we'll celebrate our anniversary tomorrow with a nice dinner out. As I've told him -- this is just the beginning of 'anniversary week' -- so, we'll see how the rest of it turns out :).