To my sweetie,

In a couple of days we will be celebrating our 8th anniversary.
This post is to my biggest sweetie of all.
(I win again, because I said it first)
(that reference is for you Stern, straight from Gloria)

One of my biggest pet peeves is those people who use testimony meeting or
sacrament meeting talks as an opportunity to give an "ode" to their spouse.
Gilbert will never stand up in church and tell me how much: blah, blah, blah
because I think church is an inappropriate venue for that sort of thing.
I have threatened Gilbert never to do this.

I think for the moment, my blog is an appropriate venue for this post:

8 years ago I married a very intelligent awesome guy!
I say intelligent first, because he also married me.
He is simply my best friend, and I can't go more than a couple of hours without talking to him.
Let me tell you some of the reasons why I love him.

Most people only know Gilbert on what I would call "surface Gilbert"
He comes across so quiet, like someone who doesn't have a lot to say.
He does have a lot to say, depending on the topic,
otherwise he is the best listener.
He has to be, because I am grateful he lets me call him whenever I want,
no matter how insignificant the reason,
he is always there to listen, and never seems annoyed.
Or responds to my average of 50 texts a day....
I call it co-parenting, others might call it annoying.
His co-workers just say "hi Brandi" when they see him on the phone,
they just assume its his wife calling again, and they are right :)

He has to deal with my infamous line, "you're an engineer, fix it" constantly.
Most of the time I have an idea of how things should work,
so I of course tell him what I think.
If I am patient enough, Gilbert often fixes things far better than I ever imagined.

Gilbert is very easy to please.
This makes life so easy for me.
He will eat anything I cook, even if its terrible.
Although, I am a pretty good cook, so there's not much for him to complain about.
He never wants anything!
This leaves all the budget for me!
He will do anything I ask, because he generally doesn't have a preference on anything.
Again, this is a win-win for me!

He gave me 2 beautiful children.
For which, he wants a stay-at-home mom.
Sometimes my job isn't easy, but it sure is the best one ever!

Gilbert knows I spend most of my days watching cartoons or reading books.
He knows my job is difficult some days,
yet he goes to work everyday, in a very boring job
to provide us the opportunity to stay home and play all day.
What a great daddy he is, and my kids are very blessed to have him.

I have felt very blessed or simply lucky lately.
I was reading some posts lately in a forum,
and I simply loved the message:
"happiness is a choice"

We can chose to look at life with our pessimist glasses on,
or we can chose to look at things positively.
Those who know me,
know I am always an optimist.
Its not hard to look at my life optimistically,
because it is simply great!

Even my 2 hour alarm clock that never stops right now is great!
She sure is cute, which makes it not as bad...

Happy Anniversary to my biggest sweetie!