You all know Hondo, the big brown dog.
He’s been in our family since Husband and I became a family 8 years ago now.

This week’s column is about those 8 years and how they’ve been spent…and what this big brown dog might think of it all.

Coming Home: What would dog say about past 8 years?
by Jessie Veeder
8-17-14
Forum Communications
http://www.inforum.com

Because some days I have no idea what we’re doing.

Some days, like, ummmm, Saturday for instance, when I had to call Husband to drive 60 miles one way to come and pick me up at 1 am because I was playing with the band and managed to get there, but needed a ride home (this had nothing to do with alcohol consumption by the way…just wanted to clear that up.), I wonder if maybe he envisioned his life a woman who was home on Saturday nights.

And the next day when I was paying for our 2:30 am arrival home, I wondered if maybe I should be the kind of wife who stays home on Saturday nights.

Some days, when we’ve had leftovers for the thirty-seventh time and there are no clean underwear to be found in the entire house except for the ones that give us wedgies, I wonder if we couldn’t be doing a better job here, you know, with the time management.

With dinner.

With laundry and the batteries that all went out in the smoke alarms at the same time…

And then some days I think we might put too much pressure on this whole marriage thing. Life’s no Pinterest Board, at least ours isn’t. No. My mason jars are missing lids and stacked in an unorganized pile on top of another unorganized pile in an unfinished basement where that big brown dog sleeps when he’s too muddy for his spot on the carpet next to my side of the bed at night.

No, those jars haven’t quite made it up to my counters to be filled with fresh wildflowers and fresh, wild chokecherry jelly…because I’ve been out staining decks and singing for my supper and forgetting to pick up eggs at the grocery store when I made the Sunday afternoon run to town for lag bolts so the man could finish putting up the garage doors that have been laying in our yard for four months…

Most days our Pinterest board is more swear words and sarcastic comments than inspirational quotes.But I do love this man. I love that he only mumbles and shakes his head when it comes to being worried that I’m making the wrong decision for my mental health (and his) not when I call him at 11 PM after he has been working on the garage all day in the heat and the rain asking him to come and bring me home.

I love that I can count on him to be there without complaint and minimal questions.

I love that he sent me roses in the mail.
And then strawberries covered in chocolate because he got the seventy-five hints I’ve dropped over the past few months.

I love that most days he listens, even when most days I don’t.

And I love that in this busy summer scheduled to the max, one of my favorite days was last Tuesday when we just got to sit on the deck together and be nothing to anyone and just everything to one another.

And that’s the most important thing.

That, and throwing the log for the big brown dog…